Meeting deadlines

The last couple of days I have been striving to clear up my backlog of e-mails, correction of papers, and cleaning of my office and room… On Wednesday I will go to Europe for two weeks, 10 days in Ireland and 3 in Rome. The Irish portion is for the facilitation of a retreat for the Salesians, and the Roman portion for three Licentiate exams. I thought there were only two, but now I found that I am third reader in another discussion.

Well, I'm both happy to get back to Europe but not so happy to be traveling right now. The academic year has been more full than I would have imagined 9 months ago when I agreed to go to Ireland… Still, it will be great to see some old friends that I have among the Salesians there.

The last time I visited Ireland was in 1997, to facilitate the retreats of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. We were in the first year of the triduum for the Great Jubilee, and I used the themes of Faith and Salesian renewal for that experience. Actually, I facilitated two retreats that year in Ireland: in Cahracon and in Maynooth. I also facilitated the province Easter retreat at San Juan Bautista, two retreats for the FMA in Corralitos and San Antonio, and two retreats for the SDBs of the eastern province, in Florida and in New England. It was a full summer that 1997, but things have become deeper for me since then, and more intense in terms of content and preparation… So we'll see how all this goes…

The Salesian world has changed significantly since 1997… It had hard for me to tell since I had been working at Berkeley all these years. Not until I went to Rome in 2005-2006 did I see the new face of the congregation. Even then, however, I was seeing a more vintage part of the community: students for the licentiate from all over the world, but who had at least 12 years of membership in the Salesians. During the past winter term in Rome I taught first-level students for the first time at the UPS. It was my contact with them that helped me to understand how different the congregation has become. These are all young people with about 5 or 6 years of profession by the time they start theology. They come from countries where the Salesian presence only began in the 1980s… For them Don Bosco is a figure of European history rather than a vital presence.

So now I go to Ireland, where the youngest Salesian is 43 years old. How do we talk of new challenges? It will be interesting I think.

But for now, I need to clean my room a little more.