4. QUALIFYING THE FORMATION

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The participation of the laity in the Salesian spirit and mission constitutes for the SDB community a challenge which must be met by an adequate formation to the new requirements.

Such formation implies in the first place that the community be aware of the new aspects of the relationship between SDBs and lay people, and take steps to give effect to it in a process of mutual enrichment which renders communion visible and makes educative and pastoral work more efficacious.

The culture of participation and sharing involves a valid formation together. The formation processes, which see SDBs and lay people simultaneously givers and receivers, will be the more efficacious the clearer is the vocational identity of each, and the greater the understanding, respect for and exploitation of the different vocations.

The formation aims at rendering the individuals capable of living at the present day the experience of their own life with maturity and joy, of fulfilling the educative mission with professional competence, of becoming educators and pastors, and of being solidly animators of numerous apostolic forces.

4.1 Objective

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To plan processes of qualified formation so as to realize the common educative and pastoral mission

4.2 Guidelines

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Ongoing formation carried out together

Ongoing formation should be thought of as a process of giving and receiving, with the following precise objectives in view:

a. To render the SDBs and laity capable of:

• a renewed understanding of their own vocational identity and their specific roles;
• understanding and living Salesian spirituality, which is the grace of unity and synthesis between consecration and the lay state, faith and life, religious option and educative commitment;
• being protagonists in the mission and agents of cultural change;
• updating qualifications so as to react positively to new cultural situations and new educative challenges;
• animating a wide educative setting, accompanying groups and orienting individuals to become integrated into contexts;

b. to throw light on the values of the lay state as a vocational setting, in reciprocal relationship with the other ecclesial vocations, and with particular attention to:

• the family vocation and the educative and formative responsibilities of parents;
• the cultural, social, political and economic context on which the laity live and work;
• the values of femininity which confer a novelty and a stimulus to deeper study on the mission to the young and on Salesian spirituality.

This formation continues even when lay people leave our works; as past-pupils or past-collaborators we still accompany them so that they may take into the Church and their local areas the mission and spirit of Don Bosco.

[141]

Towards vocational discernment

The culminating point of the journey of faith is the vocational choice. This requires help and friendship in the individual spiritual guidance of both young people and adults. For this reason the local SDB community, the privileged setting for the suggesting and follow-up of vocations, is open to forms of welcoming young people and the promoting of experiences of the volunteer movement and of educative and pastoral service, which can lead to significant vocational options in lay life, the ordained ministry or in consecrated life.

[142]

With a precise process of initial formation

The processes of discernment and initial formation must bring to maturity the conviction that to be an SDB at the present day means entering a Family, becoming part of a vast Movement, in which lay people play an active part, both in participation in the Salesian spirit and in the sharing of educative and pastoral work, and also in shared responsibility in view of the mission.

Keeping in mind the different nature of the SDBs and the laity, and the times needed for human, affective and apostolic maturing, the stages of initial formation should have contents and experiences of reciprocal and complementary formation for the common growth.

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Vocational promotion in the Salesian Family

The common vocation unites the Salesian Family in a spiritual relationship. Every group is enriched through the mutual exchange of the different ways of living the same charism, and brings to the Salesian Family its original contribution. The awareness of its own particular call, with all that this implies and the prompt and joyful response to it, helps in sharing the ideals themselves of the Salesian charism.

With joy we pass them on to others, thus providing vocational guidance at the same time.

4.3 Practical commitments

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At local level

Every SDB community should make of the CEP the primary setting for the formation of SDBs and laity together:

• by promoting in dialogue and shared responsibility with the lay members of the CEP a programme of combined formation. Such a programme should foresee study sessions, times of prayer, moments of relaxation, the drawing up of aides, practical experience, and even a practical and formative methodology;
• by qualifying the process of elaboration of the PEPS as a practical instrument for reciprocal formation. This project should be verified each year, assessing the quality of the response given to the needs of those for whom we are working and the realization of communion and of shared responsibility in the educative and pastoral area;
• by fostering, through attentive communication, professional, educative, pastoral and Salesian updating, applying for the purpose such measures and adaptations as may be necessary and opportune.
  

At provincial level

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Using the service of a group formed of lay persons and SDBs, who are committed and experts in information, youth pastoral work, the Salesian Family and social communication, each province shall review and revise the Lay Project called for by the GC23, and complete it with a programme for formation of SDBs and laity together, not later than the next Provincial Chapter. Such a programme should provide:

• contents, experiences and periods dedicated to formation;
• definitions of roles, relationships and manner of collaboration between SDBs and laity;
• coordination between the various sectors and structures of animation;
• the role and interventions of the Provincial and members of the provincial council in formation activities;
• the availability of centres, groups and structures of provincial animation.

The SDBs must retain their specific commitment, which is also a priority and a privilege, of responding positively to the demand for and the right to formation and animation which reach them from the lay members of the Salesian Family, so that such members may become in due course animators and formative agents, in their families, in their environments and places of work, in the ecclesial community and in society.

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During the next six years, each Province should:

• invite the members of the Salesian Family to make a responsible commitment to a unified pastoral work for vocations, with special attention to vocational guidance and the putting forward of the various forms of Christian vocation (lay, ordained ministry, consecrated life), and specifically those of the Salesian Family;
• continue its efforts for the setting up of centres of the Cooperators and Past-pupils. For this purpose careful preparation and formation should be given to the Delegates and Assistants of the various groups of the Salesian Family;
• offer provincial and local programmes of formation, together with opportune accompaniment, also to past-pupils and other lay people who, outside our own environments, want to live and work according to the spirit of Don Bosco.

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At world level

The Councillor General for Formation will instigate a revision of the Ratio in line with the directives of the GC24. In particular he will take care that in initial formation:

• there are presented the contents and values of the lay state; that young confreres are enabled to grow and mature together, and acquire the ability to be formative agents and animators of the laity, so as to promote lay vocations;
• there are presented, not only as a matter of information but also as something vital and of experience. a knowledge of and encounter with various groups of the Salesian Family, and in particular the Cooperators, the DBV and the Past-pupils;
• that the Common Identity Card of the Salesian Family, the Constitutions of the FMA and the DBV, and the Statute of the Past-pupils, be diffused and made known;
• particular attention be given to the affective maturity required for collaboration with the lay people and with the world of women.

[148]

The General Council will promote and sustain, through the UPS and other Salesian Universities or Centres of Spirituality, studies, experiences and courses for the formation of formation guides, in which SDBs and laity will be formed together, (without contravening the norms of the CIC or of the Holy See).

Particular attention must be given to the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales and to the preventive system of Don Bosco.