Reflections on the Rua Congress 1910-2010

John Itzaina will be giving a report to the Salesian Family in California on the Rua Congress, held here in Rome from 28 to 31 October. I've send some photos to Ralph Murphy, and I'll send more, but let me put down a couple of reflections now.

Don Rua nella Storia - 1910-2010: Congresso Internazionale

My first sense is that this is a historiographer's conference, but that the Rector Major wanted this extended to the whole congregation. He put this proposal to Francesco Motto (director of the Institute of Salesian History in Rome) as early as 2005, and since 2006 preparations for this congress have been underway. The historians were a bit miffed, but the majority of delegates were formation counselors or those working in Salesian spirituality and formation.

Over 20 of my students from Rome (from 2005 to 2008) were taking part in this congress, as well as two from the ISS (Yarat and Paul Felix Vernal).

Yarat from Thailand and I talked a lot about Berkeley and Arthur's great breakfasts

Actually, I knew a lot of people present for this congress, and it was good to see old friends and colleagues from past projects.

As I said, the Rector Major really wanted this congress. His concluding conference says it all. He wants Salesians to get away from the clichés about Don Rua that are more dismissive than helpful. Rua is the one who institutionalized the charism and therefore is the one who brought Don Bosco and the Salesians out of the confines of the back alleys of Valdocco and into the forefront of the world…

Well, not all the world… our world has barely heard of Salesian… but this may be the point. As Don Rua found ways to invoke Don Bosco's spirit in new situations and unexperimented venues, so we have the same task today as the world moves into a major culture shift unknown since the defeat of Napoleon. In that sense, we are not too late. If Don Bosco has been "on hold" in English-speaking countries until now, we have the chance to introduce him to a new world, much as Don Rua did as he grew the congregation of 700 Salesians to over 4000 during his two decades of service.

But the Rector Major says it better than I can.

Retreat day with Don Rua Community at Sacrofano

The new director of Don Rua Community, Fr Jose Chunkapura, invited me to facilitate the trimester retreat for his community today. The retreat day was held at Sacrofano, at the Fraterna Domus. This was my third trip to this center.

Fraterna Casa preserves the natural environment to offer a place for prayer, reflection, study and fellowship as an innovative retreat center

The Fraterna Domus is called a Casa dell’Accoglienza (a hospitality house) rather than a retreat center. In reality, it is like an entire village. As usually happens, we left the UPS at 8.30 and reached Sacrofano by 9.00. The director had asked me to give a conference in the morning on Don Bosco in the Salesian constitutions. I gave this talk in the morning. That was followed by quiet time, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at 11.30, dinner at 13.00, group sharing at 15.00, Mass at 17.00, followed by evening prayer.

Roman woods at Sacrofano

As I just said, I gave the morning talk. I also facilitated the group sharing, and presided and preached at the mass, which was the liturgy of the last Saturday of the liturgical year.

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament: Don Rua Community at Prayer

In my talk I centered on Don Bosco’s efforts to give the Salesian Society the constitutions in accordance with the standards and demands of the Church during the years of the founding experience. The fact that he had to revise the constitutions repeatedly became a learning process for him. He began to realize that the norms were important, but that it was crucial to name the spirit that animated his emerging community. This experience was similar to that of all the great founders, and in a particular way, to that of Francis de Sales who gave the first community of the Visitation of Holy Mary not only the constitutions but also the directory.

Village of Sacrofano. In the distance you can see Roma. The minaret of the Great Mosque at Parioli and the cupola of St Peter’s Baslica stand out… okay, you need extremely good eyes!

Don Bosco’s original purposes risked dissolving when the revision of Canon Law in 1917 meant a more juridical interpretation of religious documents such as constitutions and regulations. The call of Vatican II to religious and consecrated persons to “return to the spirit of the founder” offered the Salesians the opportunity to rethink the constitutions. The re-writing of these moved them away from language of dry demands to become an exhortation. In fact, there is more of Don Bosco to be found the constitutions today than in the official text between 1917 and 1971.

Roman pines and park within the grounds of Fraterna Domus

In my mind, these are all known facts. However, the bulk of the Salesian priests on this retreat were born in the 1970s. The only constitutions that they have ever known are those approved in 1984, which are the fruit of the long effort to renew religious life in the spirit of Vatican II. They did not know the history, and they did not know the stories of what Don Bosco went through to found the Salesian Family, and what the Salesians have gone through to faithfully bring the Salesian Family into changed times and new cultural realities.

Fraterna Domus is built as a series of buildings of various sizes, with rooms for hospitality, for group work, for conferences, and for worship. Each has its own character

At this point, I do not yet know how all this was received by the Don Rua community. They seemed happy and were certainly responsive. Yet, since the day was spent in silence, it is hard to tell what they really felt about it. On the other hand, I was happy to have the down time too. It rained off and on most of the day, but I wandered around the grounds of Fraterna Domus, through the woods and around the porticoes. I listened to podcasts from Vatican Radio, and let my imagination flow.

Don Albino Ronco, Paul Rabha (India) and Paolo Liu-Qing-Chun (China) in group sharing

Following the Eucharist we celebrated the Evening Prayer. We could not integrate them into the mass because we did the Saturday liturgy, but with Vespers we move to the opening of the next day… that is Sunday… and the first Sunday of Advent. The prayers were well done; the music helped involved everyone, and we ended the day with the sun down and hearts at peace. The return trip to Rome and the UPS went very well, in spite of the rain.

And at the evening meal with my Gesù Maestro community, I heard thay they enjoyed their retreat day at Salesianum, in via della Pisana. We can now turn our thoughts toward Advent and the Christmas season.

Padre Rafael Montenegro (Venezuela) chats with director Fr Jose Chunkapura (India) over a cup of coffee before leaving Sacrofano after the retreat day.

Vocation of the Brother is not dead but times have changed

My friend, Bro. Joe Lockwood, has been sharing with me some concerns about the upcoming General Chapter of the Salesian Society (GC26), and pointed me in the direction of hte working documents for that chapter. He speaks of two articles that strock him particularly: §49 and §53.

The first passage says, among other things:

At the beginning and in the tradition of our charism it was Don Bosco's wish that the Congregation should be distinguished by the complimentary presence of consecrated Salesian priests and lay men. Therefore we are called to make visable through our life the primacy of God, demonstrating that Salesian communites are composed of consecrated persons, before priests and laymen.
[…]
Aware that the Congregation is putting its identity at risk if it loses its consecrated lay component, we are called to make the effort to re-discover the identity of the Salesian brother, to propose to young people his originality, to give him greater prominence and to provide him with a sound formation programme.

In the other paragraph, §53, there is the affirmation that young people are normally attracted to Salesian life rather than immediately to priesthood. Formation has a lot to do with their choice for one or other form of Salesian consecration.

Often young people want to become Salesians in order to follow Don Bosco, but they don't always ask themselves what sort of consecrated Salesian vocation they want to choose, that of the priest or that of the brother. In this a vital role is played by the way the Salesian brother is presented in the aspirantate, the prenovitiate and the novitiate.

A little lower in the same paragraph, there is this telling statement:

It is not always easy to present the Salesian brother in an effective manner; that makes it difficult for young people to identify with this vocation. The fundamental reason is the weakening of the identity and the visibility of consecrated life and a state of life, in our communities.

I've read attentively the two passages in questions, and really I do not see that there any question. Without the vocation of the "salesiano laico" (the brother), we cease to be the Salesian Society. The articles do not call into question either the vocation nor Don Bosco's will to offer such a role as vital to our life, consecration and mission. What is questioned is the limited vision of many provinces that have not understood and have not promoted the vocation.

Note also that it says that the majority of young people who join the Salesians do not have a strong feeling for priesthood or brotherhood. They simply want to become Salesians. Thus (the articles point out) it is vital to present this vocation to those in initial discernment.

In no place does the document suggest (much less conclude) that the brother's vocation is dead. The crisis arises in that few today understand the nature of consecrated life. They confuse priesthood with consecrated life… and priesthood is seen in terms of ministry and leadership, so assumed to be the summit of Christian life… notions that are very confused and mistaken, but indications of a cultural crisis as well as of a religious crisis.

We cannot take for granted, then, that young people will understand religious vocation. They may be opting for priesthood but not for religious life, even though they say they want to be Salesians. Much work must be done in the area of educating the Catholic community, young and old, as to the nature of baptismal consecration and personal calling. In doing this, we can once again bring the ideals of the Brother's vocation to light and encourage many more to follow Christ with Don Bosco in this way of life that leads to the love of God and the love of neighbor.

This is not dogma. Simply, my thoughts, on reading these articles

Death of Joe Lucey

Got news this morning of the death, yesterday, of Salesian Fr Joe Lucey, in Ireland. He was an important figure of the Irish province, and very active in the European region of the Salesians in areas of youth-at-risk and initial formation. Joe was 47 years old, and was struck down by a heart attack.

It was in 1993 that I first met Joe -- at a weeklong meeting of the Salesian province teams of the English-speaking region. At the time I was the delegate for youth ministry for the Salesians in California, and Joe filled the same role for the Salesians in Ireland. We worked on some committees together during that time, and I had occasion to meet his several other times in following years when I visited Ireland or when I was part of some European initiatives. He was always on-fire, if I can put it that way: lots of enthusiasm; a strong sense of justice; compassion for the young in trouble; demanding of himself and others for a coherent Gospel witness.

My strongest memory is of him at work with the poor and gang-banger kids of Sean McDermott Street in Dublin. They were a hardend lot, but he had their confidence and did great things with them. Sometimes he expected all the young Salesians to have his same talent among kids-at-risk, but this was not so. Sean McDermott Street scares a lot of people, after all; if some of the young Salesians felt intimidated, it is very understandable. Joe Lucey, however, was not to be intimidated. He ploughed right into that work, and had some success.

The following verse, written by Joe, has been found to be especially poignant:

Master, I need you to find me. The hide-and-seek game is over. I need you to find me again and again. Come, hound me, sniff me out. Come free me from dependencies of sore-filled wounds -- the kind that fester with volcano strength. Come, break my breath, and breathe in me again, and fill me with an emptiness which has given all, for the love of you.

Funeral arrangements will begin with prayers tomorrow evening at 17.00 at Milford, in Limerick - and then a fewing at Sean McDermott Street Church in Dublin on Wednesday, with an evening mass there at 18.00. Thursday, the 12.00 noon funeral mass at Milford, with burial at Pallaskenry.

This is a great loss, I repeat, for the Salesians of Ireland. We can only pray that Joe Lucey's Gospel fire will inspire young people to take up the calling.

New movie of Don Bosco in English - update!

In January I discovered that the DVD version of "Don Bosco" was soon to be released coming in English. I had seen the made-for-TV film in Italian. It aired as a mini-series in September 2004. The Italian version is absolutely excellent. I have the copy in Italian which I purchased last year while living in Rome, and have brought that copy with me, but I had been waiting to hear if the film would come out in English (since it was actually filmed in English). Today I received the English version from Ignatius Press and watched it immediately.

Well, I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed. The English-version lacks the quality of the original. The dubbing is well done, but there are some major errors in pronunciation. For instance, even though everyone knows this saint as "Don Bosco", the English version calls him "Father Bosco". That is strange, especially since all the names of the characters remain in Italian (Giovanni, Michele, Domenico, etc.). But, fine, it is a minor irritation and I could live with that. What really is strange, however, is that the voices in the English soundtrack consistently mispronounce the name of the religious movement and congregation that he founded, the Salesians. Who worked with English-speaking actors? The Salesians are the second largest order in the Catholic Church: you think that someone from sound stage might have been able to find a Salesian to consult so that they could get the names and terminology correct!

All right, that's the bad news. As for the movie itself, it is very good news. Happily, there is both an English and an Italian track, and so you can view the film in either language, and you can activate the subtitles in English or Spanish. It is funny that the translation of the text of the English subtitles is very different from the English soundtrack… but that is fine. This written text is actually closer to the Italian, as are the Spanish subtitles. I've decided that when I show the film to friends, if I can convince them that the sound of Italian may be more interesting, I'll encourage them to watch the film with Italian sound and English subtitles. If they don't want to do that the first time, then maybe the second time we watch it.

Or maybe I'm just dreaming!

As I said in this blog back in January, the Italian version is excellent, excellent. Flavio Insinna is a most convincing Don Bosco, and is far better in the role than was Ben Gazara in the 1988 RAI television production. Even what I would call a disappointing English soundtrack does not seem to diminish the story or the action. But then, I'll have to see what non-Italian speakers think of it. For myself, I'll keep watching the film in Italian.