THIRD PART: TOWARDS THE FUTURE

I ran right back to my boys.

I gathered them round me and began to shout in a loud voice: "Great news, my sons!
We have got a place for our Oratory, a more reliable one than we have had until now.
We shall have a church, a sacristy, classrooms and a place to play.
On Sunday, next Sunday, we shall go to our new Oratory, which is over there in Pinardi's house".

And I pointed the place out to them. (M.O. p.257)

CHAPTER 1: AREAS OF COMMITMENT

INTRODUCTION

[106]

The GC24 offers to the SDBs new perspectives for living the mission at the present day. It wants to give rise to deep convictions and foster new styles of procedure. To this end it believes that it is its duty to tread the signs of the times in the present strategies of evangelization and education.

After considering the social and cultural reality of a world which is becoming ever more secularized and smitten by multiple forms of youthful poverty, the conciliar theology of communion and of common responsibility in the mission of the Church, the growth in esteem for the spirit of Don Bosco, and the commitment by an ever growing number of lay people to live it in the world, the GC24 intends:

  • to fix attention on the new relationship between SDBs and laity, and hence on the consequent demand for a change in mentality and style of life, in a common process of holiness and commitment;
  • to oblige local and provincial communities to realize this new relationship in interacting with various groups of lay people, especially with the members of the Salesian Family, of which the SDBS are and must feel themselves to be an integral part;1
  • to indicate Provincials and Rectors as primarily responsible for this task in their own communities;
  • to render participants in this project the other members of the Salesian Family, especially the FMAs and Cooperators, urging them to share the common charismatic responsibility;
  • to give priority to the CEP as a setting for life and activity, convoking it and giving it a structure within a shared PEPS;
  • to promote the Salesian Movement, in which are involved youngsters (SYM), their animators, volunteers, families, collaborators and friends of Don Bosco;
  • to indicate the coming six years as the time for giving effect to the operative decisions here set out, entrusting to the provinces the task of studying how they can be applied in the various local situations;
  • to provoke and coordinate exchanges of ideas and experiences at local, provincial and world level.

In practice the new rapport between SDBs and laity will be realized through processes and strategies which are interdependent:

  • Convinced and sincere INVOLVEMENT by both SDBs and Lay people,
  • which matures into concrete and effective SHARED RESPONSIBILITY,
  • with the necessary reciprocal and transparent COMMUNICATION,
  • qualified by an adequate FORMATION of a mutual and complementary nature.

1 cf. C 5