Key note address

Br Joseph Das (INM)

December 31, 2008

Introduction

  1. As a result of reforms introduced by Vatican – II, Fr.Ricceri coined the slogan of renewal in our Congregation. ‘Let us march forward with Don Bosco’
  2. The challenge to the Church and the congregation at that time was “either change or get lost!”
  3. At the congress of Salesian Brothers of South East Asia held at Philippines in 1994, a Marist Brother addressing the Participants said, “Brothers, either we adapt our Vision’ and mission to suit the evolving world scenario or we will be found irrelevant in the Present World’
  1. At the same congress, Bishop Precioso Cautillas, a Salesian Bishop who addressed the Brothers said “It is high time you stop searching for your identity as Salesian brothers. You have an identity. Start responding vigorously to your call as Brothers”
  2. It is by responding vigorously our visibility and identity will become clearer.
  3. It is in this context we have proposed to ourselves the theme for the present congress: ‘The Salesian Brother for a New world according to Don Bosco’s Charism’.
  1. The theme revolves around two pivots : one – the new realities of the modern world order, the other – the Charism of Don Bosco.

8. Then we have the sub topics

  • ‘Salesian Brother and the Socio Economic Challenges of the New World’.
  • ‘Salesian Brother and challenges of the new world of Media, and ‘Information Technology’
  • Salesian Brother and the challenges due to Faith and spiritual crises in the New World’.

II. ‘Old order changeth yielding place to new: Salesian – Brother for a new world

1. All men and women are expected to respond adequately to the realities that surround them. During this congress we are going to reflect on some of the present day realities that challenge us and see if we can give an adequate response and propose to ourselves some lines of action to this end.

2. If we are indifferent towards these realities we shall be accused of behaving like the Priest and the Levite in the parable of the good Samarian – a lack of true neighbuorly feeling, an indifference born of complacence and selfishness.

3. Now, kindly have a look at the title of this section. I have purposely put it as Salesian – Brother. Perhaps I should put it as Brother Salesian – Salesian beeing the noun and Brother being an adjective.

4. So, what we are going to say will apply to all Salesians. But we have certain advantages as Salesian Brothers over the Priest Salesians:

  • As Bl.Philip Rinaldi has said they have additional responsibilities due to their ordination.
  • These responsibilities are their primary responsibilities.
  • Whatever Brothers do, though everything is done as consecrated laymen, is viewed as contribution of lay persons
  • This has a special witnessing value
  • Other lay collaborators feel a certain solidarity with the brothers - this adds to the effectiveness of projects undertaken
  • These factors call us to stop thinking in clerical terms and think more in terms of evangelising the secular realities we are speaking of here.

III. New Challenges:

1. The emerging realities are complex and subtle, they appear to be highly beneficial but in reality they have just the opposite effect on the majority of the people.

2. Important issues that can be identified are the following

a)Globalisation and its effects on the poor and the marginalized – the rich become richer, the poor become poorer, the unemployment is accentuated etc

b)Creation of special economic zones and their impact on the common people especially the poor and the marginalized in social, economic and educational aspects.

c) The problem of the dalits and the tribals, especially those converted to Christianity.

d) Domination of the rich and developed countries, by interfering with the policies of the developing countries.

e) Terms dictated by the World Bank inhibiting the just distribution of wealth, especially blocking the rightful demands of the workers.

f) Wide spread corruption and exploitation of the helpless villagers, farmers, women, children (child labour) by the well-to-do Indian politicians, businessmen and Government Officials.

3. To these add the cultural factors which have a direct impact on Education.

a) Nuclear families with consequent problems of children in the areas of mutual adjustments and understanding, self giving, sharing, discipline etc for which parents are becoming more and more dependent on the educational institutions.

b) Impact of mass media on both the pre-adolescents and the adolescents which present values quite contrary to those of the Gospels.

c) Religious fanaticism, intolerance of a pluralistic culture of language, customs and ethnic units etc.,

d) Commercialization of education and health services

e) Consumerism which in turn creates materialistic outlook on life.

f) Because of this materialistic out look, there is a crisis of faith reducing religion to empty rituals.

g) Drug addiction, HIV positive cases.

4. We need critical knowledge of these realities and find methods of counter acting their effects.

IV. How do we respond to these challenges

1. Several Salesians including Brothers are already responding to these challenges very effectively. Their sharing during the last congress revealed this fact and we may hear more such sharings during this congress too.

2. Everyone is not expected to respond in the same way. There is no single model of response. Each one responds according to his God given gift.

3. In Rom 12:6-8 we read “We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.’

  • One may be a good writer and through his writings create awareness.
  • Another may be eloquent speaker and use this as means of bringing about social transformation.
  • With adequate training some can do the same through mass media.
  • Yet others may get directly involved in social action.

V. Education and Culture

1. It is not always necessary to create new presences to effect social transformation. The existing institutions can with adequate planning do the same.

2. In the E.P.P. we have a dimension Education and Culture – Often the cultural part is not consciously brought into this plan.

3. The Church document towards the pastoral approach to culture says among other things:

“Any pastoral approach to culture and any deep evangelization relies heavily on education, and has the family as its starting point, ‘the place where the education of the person primarily takes place. But when families are beset by so many different problems, they cannot be expected to cope alone. Hence the great importance of educational institutions. In many countries the Church carries her mission as educator and teacher by running nurseries or kindergartens, schools colleges, high schools, universities and research centres. These catholic institutions have the specific vocation of bringing Gospel values to the heart of culture..... For multitude of young people who attend our educational institutions throughout the world can frequently, despite the efforts and competence of teachers, be fully educated but partially deculturated.” (Toward a Pastoral approach to Culture – 29.)

4. This document proposes that, to obviate this deculturation, the institutions should take care to ensure a fruitful encounter between the Gospel and different cultural expressions.

5. “Culture” includes by definition ‘All those habits, customs and traditions that we have not inherited biologically’ – Hence it is a vast field to be evangelized.

6. Education is itself a creator and creature of culture. It must facilitate assimilation of the good elements in various cultures elimination of the bad elements

Thus causing social transformation

That is the meaning of Information throughFormation leads to Transformation.

7. Culture is a constant evolving reality. Hence we have to constantly adapt the content and method of our teaching to the new circumstances, applying the Gospel values to the new context

8. ‘Religion’ with its doctrines, forms of worship and in catholic context the sacraments form an important element of this culture. It is a powerful element in the process of social transformation.

9.But it has to go hand in hand with the other elements of culture which we can call secular elements.

Hence the vast field open to Salesian Brothers!

This is the reason why we have chosen the topic: ‘The Salesian brother for a new world’.

VI. “According to Don Bosco’s charism.

  1. This specification reminds us that we are not just social workers.

2. Pope Benedict XVI says in the document ‘Deus Caritas Est’. It is very important that the Church’s charitable activity maintains all of its splendour and does not become another form of social assistance.... Christian charitable activities must be independent of party ideologies. It is not a means of changing the world ideologically, and it is not at the service of worldly stratagems, but it is a way of making present here and now the love which man always needs.... One does not make the world more human by refusing to act humanely here and now. We contribute to a better world only by personally doing good now, with full commitment and wherever we have the opportunity, independently of partisan strategies and programmes.... On the practical level, the essential has already been said: they must not be inspired by ideologies aimed at improving the world, but should rather be guided by the faith which works through love.... Practical activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man, a love nourished by an encounter with Christ..... It is time to reaffirm the importance of prayer in the face of activism and growing secularism of many Christians engaged in charitable work.’ (Deus Caritas Est : No.31.b),33,34,37.

3. When Bishop Ivon Ambrose, who presented a paper at the last NARBI convention on ‘Problems and responses concerned with our pedagogical and cultural situations and problems associated with our mission and ministry at the wake of the changes in India’, was asked what differentiated us from other NGOs engaged in similar social activities, responded saying that our social thrust is severely based on the Gospel values and we reject any goal or means that is alien to the Gospel values.

VII. To form ‘Good Christians (Good children of God in our context) and Honest Citizens.

1. Our founder took

  • a concrete image of the Gospel, that of the Good Shepherd to express succinctly the aim of this educational project.
  • ‘Give me souls take away the rest,’ animated his whole project.
  • He kept in view the needs of the church and civil society of his time
  • When his ministry in the prisons revealed to him the state of the young migrant workers at Turin, he started his apostolate to redeem them from the dangers, both physical and moral, that they had to face.
  • When he saw the havoc caused to the faith of Catholics by the Waldensian propaganda, he started to publish the Catholic readings.
  • When he saw the plight of young workers, their hours of work, the payment they received he personally met the owners of workshops or the building contractors to demand just wages and work time for the young workers.
  • When he sent out his missionaries to the New World, he gave them a free hand, so to say, to cater to the needs of the people there.

We are also invited to do the same in our present context of the Church and the fast evolving society.

2. Having said this we have to caution against any narrow interpretation of Don Bosco’s Charism.

This was the case with Blessed Variara whose mission among the lepers becomes a suspect in the eyes of his Provincial and he removed him from this mission which action he regretted later.

3. It is good to bear in mind in this context the words of Fr.Vecchi in the Acts No.376 where he comments about the mission of Bl.Artimide Zatti: ‘As a matter of fact, in ourlarger educative commitment we have always had to take care of the various aspects which concern all the needs of the young people: instruction and culture, exercise, games and social aspects, catechesis, physical and mental health – both directly and indirectly, protection from the environment etc. This opens the door to a variety of possibilities to be carried out with an educational quality and consistency’.

4. Not all are called to find new areas of apostolate. But even in the existing fields of apostolate we can devise means of creating awareness among our beneficiaries regarding the present cultural challenges and inspire them to respond to them adequality.

VIII. Preventive System Spirituality

It pervades everything we do.

  1. The second aspect to be borne in mind is that as Salesians our interventions spring from the preventive system spirituality based on reason, religion and loving kindness.

2. It will be fitting here to quote another passage from Fr.Vecchi’s letter on Zatti, ‘Zatti, indeed, had made the mission of the sick his own area for educative activity, where he lived each day the criteria of Don Bosco’s preventive system – reason, religion and loving kindness in close and loving assistance of the needy, in helping them to understand and accept their condition of suffering, in his living witness to the presence of God and his unfailing love. For this reason we can speak of the educative slant of the holiness of this infirmarian confrere.’

3. We too, no matter in what mission we are engaged in, have to bring this element of Salesian spirituality to bear on all our activites.

IX. All our interventions ought to be communitarian

1. The third aspect is the communitarian style of our interventions.

2. Even if at times the interventions have to be carried out by individuals, the project has to be the responsibility of the community to which the confrere belongs:

It has to find a place in the community’s E.P.P.

The community encourages supports and accompanies the confrere giving timely advice, direction and when necessary even corrections.

The individual in his turn keeps the community informed of the progress of the project taking necessary directions and permissions from it, thus encouraging its involvement in the project.

X. New wine needs new wine skin! – Formation

1. All that we have said so far certainly implies that we have also to rethink about the whole area of formation.

2. The intellectual, spiritual and pedagogical formation needs revamping of the contents, methodology and experiential interventions of the whole formation process.

  • This rethinking needs to be done at all levels. – initial as well as on going formation.
  • Certain feed backs from the practical fields of our ministry points out to the need of such a revision.
  • We certainly need to prepare experts in the various fields of the apostolate but we have to think of preparing every Salesian educator, young and not so young, to cope up with the changing world.

XI. Physician cure thyself – Need of witnessing

We are also obliged to see if as individuals and communities we ourselves have succumbed to cultural elements alien to the Gospel values

Consumerist culture

misuse of media

exploitation of people especially workers

diversion of funds meant for the poor and the marginalized

indirectly encouraging corruption to get things done fast or to cover one’s mistakes etc.,

2. If our Campus culture reflects any of the above then people can say “Medicina cura te ipsum’ (Physician cure thyself)

3. Hence the topics we are going to deal with in this congress will invite us to examine not only realities existing outside our campus but also those existing within it.

XII. Where then are the Brothers and where do we get them from?

1. Whenever we speak of Salesian Brothers there will always be this question about vocation to Brotherhood.

2. Visibility of Salesian Brothers suffers because of lack of vocations, inflow of vocation, suffers because of lack of visibility – it is a vicious circle.

3. But at the same time it is detrimental to the whole course to get vocations ‘some how’.

If we do so we will be repeating the mistake done at the time of Fr.Paul Albera (you can read the details in paper presented by Fr.Peter Stella ‘The Historical Identity of the Salesian Brother in the Acts of the World Congress of Salesian Brothers’)

4. It is also not very helpful to resort to certain introversion by adducing to the lack of good example by those already professed – such introversion discourages us.

•There are a number of reasons why we do not get vocations to Salesian Brotherhood.

  1. In this connection it would be interesting to note what Fr.Vecchi says in his letter already mentioned. He quotes what a Brother had written to him. “Today too resounds the call “Come and follow me’. And I find it always a source of wonder that even today there are young men who seem to lack nothing they would need for heading towards the priesthood, and instead they choose to become consecrated laymen in the Salesian Congregation. And so in our pastoral work for vocations we must have faith in this vocation which is complete in itself, and pass on to others, esteem for it as by osmosis, without any forced comparisons or distortions in respect of the clerical figure. We must be convinced that there are young men who do not identify with the priestly model, but are attracted by that of consecrated laymen. What are the reasons for this choice? All reasons are insufficient; fundamentally it is a mystery of grace and freedom.”

6. In the same letter Fr.Vecchi narrates how the Jesuit Provincial, Fr.Jeorge Mario Bergoglio (later he became a Cardinal) through advocating novena services in honour of Artemide Zatti in all the houses of his provice with the inention of getting Brothers’ vocations, got 23 brother vocations between 1978 and 1986 of whom 18 persevered. The Provincial goes on to tell that these young men wanted to be the sort of lay brother that St.Ignatius wanted!

7. So instead of hair splitting analysis of the situation it would be far more effective if we do the following.

Organize prayerful moments of animation for all our beneficiaries, whatever be the setting, during which we help them to reflect over the different vocations in the Church, including that of consecrated laymen. This must be done systematically and it must find a pride of place in our Educative Pastoral Plan.