Formed for the mission
of pastors and educators
VIII. GENERAL ASPECTS OF FORMATION
78.
Formation communities must have a rector and a team of formation personnel who are specially prepared, above all as regards spiritual direction which is ordinarily given by the rector himself.Those being formed and their guides must carry out with shared responsibility a periodic planning and evaluation of their work.
Those in formation should play their part in practical ways in the running of the community.
79. During the period of initial formation the confreres will have once a month the talk with the superior referred to in article 70 of the Constitutions.
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80. To educate those being formed to a sense of personal responsibility in the use of time and to encourage the spirit of initiative, there should be a reasonable and gradual flexibility in the timetable and the day’s activities, with priority for the more pressing needs of the community.
81. The local community, since it shares the responsibility for the development of each confrere, is invited to express its opinion whenever one of its members seeks admission to profession or to holy orders. This will be done in the form most in keeping with charity.
82. Our Salesian mission orientates and characterizes at all levels the intellectual formation of the members in a way that is original and unique. Therefore the programme of studies must preserve a balance between serious and scientific reflection and the religious and apostolic dimensions of our way of life.
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Those branches of study shall be cultivated with special care which deal with the education of and pastoral work for youth, catechesis and social communication.
83. During the years of initial formation the studies should be so structured as to lead to degrees and qualifications recognized by the State, whenever that is possible.
84. The provinces able to do so should have their own study centre for the formation of the confreres and to provide qualified services of spiritual, pastoral and cultural animation.
When the study centre is interprovincial, the provinces concerned shall give their responsible collaboration to enable it to achieve its aim.
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As far as is possible it should also be open to externs, religious and lay, as a service to the particular Church.
85. The assimilation of the Salesian spirit is fundamentally a fact of living communication. But for this vital experience to be really efficacious it should be accompanied throughout the whole process of the initial formation by a gradual and systematic study of Salesian spirituality and the history of the Society.
86. The pastoral experiences should be carried out in activities proper to our mission, and should have as their purpose the development of an apostolic spirit and of the educative and pastoral potential of the Salesian in formation. Such experiences should be diversified and graded so that they respond to the personal and religious development of the individual confrere and to the phase of formation he has reached.
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The community has the responsibility for programming these pastoral experiences, for following up their realization with the presence and guidance of the formation personnel and for their periodic evaluation.
87. At world level the practical guide for formation will be the Salesian "Ratio fundamentalis lnstitutionis et Studiorum", and at provincial level a directory approved by the Rector Major with the consent of his council.
The "Ratio" sets out in an organic and instructive way the complexus of principles and norms concerning formation which are found in the Constitutions, general Regulations and other documents of the Church and of the Congregation.
The provincial directory applies the principles and norms of Salesian formation to concrete local situations.