Rain or shine

The sunshine of yesterday morning was short-lived. Last night more rain, and it continued steadily through the morning… a dark, dark morning at that. It is a call to patience, I suppose. These last days of lessons call for greater concentration and preparation on the part of students and teachers, and the steady rain tells us to go slow, without haste, with charity and prudence.

Okay: I’m making this up. Not the rain part, but the charity and prudence part. Rain does not bring out these virtues in me. It brings out quite the opposite! We can always hope, however.

Rain in the central plaza of the UPS

The rainy weather kept me indoors and I spent a good part of the day correcting papers and trying to back up the hard disk of my desktop computer. I was able to get one DVD-R to take in the data of my research and classes. However, I could not get any other DVD-R to accept data… so I need to figure out another way to get the rest of my documents saved to disks. I hate when this happens.

This evening the rector major of the Salesian Society, don Pascual Chávez, came to speak with the everyone at the UPS as province and university. This is an annual event, and I can still remember the visits of Don Egidio Viganò in the early 1990s when I was a student. At that time we went into Aula Paolo VI, which holds 500 people, and I clearly recall his announcements that we were being invited into Russia.

Don Pascual meets us in Aula 2 -- which seats 250. I have heard him in 2005, 2007 and now in 2008, always at this time of the year. He spoke of the events of the year and the state of the Salesian Society. Unlike don Viganò, who used to speak about the great enterprises of the Salesians as if we were onlookers, don Pascual speaks to excite and to motivate us to a deeper understanding of our own vocations in light of the events that are transforming the world and the young and, therefore, also the Salesian Family. Tonight he spoke of three singular events in 2008 that, he tells us, have and and will have a particularly strong impact on the Salesian Society. These three events were World Youth Day in Sydney (July), the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God in Rome (October), and the twenty-sixth General Chapter (GC26) of the Salesian Society, which took place in Rome (February-April).

Pascual Chávez, Salesian Rector Major, in Aula 2 of the UPS

The rector major gave a very clear presentation on all these events without the assistance of a signle note. I hope to report his main points in the next few days. Right now it is rather late, so I’ll also allow myself to reflect on what I heard before journaling the main elements.