Address of the Rector Major, Fr. Juan E, Vecchi to His Holiness John Paul II during the audience granted to the GC24

Rome, 1 April 1996

Most Holy Father,

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Gathered here before you are 230 participants in the 24th General Chapter of the Salesian Congregation. Some are members by right; others have been invited, and among the latter are some lay people who share with us Don Bosco's spirit, form part of the Salesian Family, and collaborate in the mission to the young and the poor. I would like to present them to you one by one. They are working in as many different parts of the world in the new evangelization and today they represent the realization of Don Bosco's charism.

During these past weeks all of them, Salesians and Laity, have been working solidly in the important event of the Congregation, which is the General Chapter. And subsequently they will take to others and put into effect what has been decided.

In the name of all of them I express to Your Holiness sentiments of gratitude for the attention, affection and confidence you have always shown towards our Family. Your messages and addresses to our last three General Chapters, together with the letter Iuvenum Patris which you sent us on the occasion of the centenary of Don Bosco's death, constitute for us an anthology. They remind us of the originality of our spirituality and of our style of education, which we want always to place totally at the disposal of the Church's mission, and particularly in this last part of the century which leads us to the third millennium. Indeed we consider this period as a challenge and an opportunity for apostolic educators. In this we are encouraged by your own encounters with young people, the hopes you place in them, and your words of guidance.

We know too of your fatherly interest in the development of our General Chapter, and your expectation and anticipation of the "white smoke", as we have heard from our confreres who work in the Vatican.

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This audience which you have kindly granted us, taking time from the multiplicity of your engagements, is something we have long desired and awaited. It gives rise to a joy we have been striving to contain. We ask the indulgence of those responsible for Vatican protocol and order if some of those present should be led by their exuberance to offend in some way against established usage. There are several here from oratories, and they act on the principle that spontaneity should not be repressed but guided.

The joy stems from our filial adherence to the Vicar of Christ, which is easy for us because it has its root in faith and a pastoral sense. We have absorbed into our family traditions the sayings and examples of Don Bosco and the gestures of those who formed us. Today is a date which easily takes us back to our roots, because it is the anniversary of the canonization of our Father and of the birth of Mamma Margaret.

In our work with the young and in Christian communities, we live and present the ministry of Peter as a gift of God to the Church for unity and to the world for ethical and social guidance, in difficult times which have need of points of reference.

This is a dimension of our spirituality which the Constitutions - our project of life in God - recommend to us in these words: "We feel ourselves a living part of the Church, and we cultivate in ourselves and in our communities a renewed ecclesial awareness. This we express in an attitude of filial loyalty to Peter's successor and to his teaching, and in our efforts to live in communion and collaboration with the bishops, clergy, religious and laity".

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Because of this ecclesial sense, our 24th General Chapter has decided to deepen the relationships of communion and sharing among consecrated and lay persons in the charism and mission of Don Bosco. In this we have been encouraged and enlightened by your Apostolic Exhortations Christifideles laici and Pastores dabo vobis. But at the present time especially, after its recent publication, we are profiting by the Exhortation Vita consecrata, for which we are grateful to Your Holiness, because it gives us the unending dimension of our choice and indicates the conditions for rendering it significant in the world of the present day.

It is our wish that the gift which God has given in Don Bosco to the Church for the evangelization of youth, be extended and shared by the greatest possible number of people, so that a continual and fruitful dialogue may be undertaken with young people in the traditional settings of education, but also in today's new and youthful versions of the areopagus.

We entrust these desires to the heart and prayers of Your Holiness. And while we offer you our most sincere congratulations for your priestly Jubilee, we are ready to receive your words into our hearts, and we invoke upon ourselves, our communities and projects your Apostolic Blessing.