Strenna (Theme) for 2013:
Don Bosco the Educator
(ANS – Rome)
–
Following the program announced last year for the 3 years of preparation for the
bicentennial of Don Bosco’s birth, the strenna of the Rector Major for 2013 is an
invitation to get to know DB by seeing him as the educator. “Like Don Bosco the
educator, we offer young people the Gospel of joy through a pedagogy of
kindness.” The 2013 Strenna, announced publicly on June 6, is an opportunity to
deepen our understanding of and update the Preventive System.
The first official act
of Fr. Pascual Chavez as the general council opened their summer plenary
session on Tuesday, June 5, was to present the topic for 2013 Strenna to the
council. The RM explained its content and the angle he was taking by recalling
a twofold need: “A deeper study of Salesian pedagogy is certainly necessary, on
the one hand, so that it can be updated according to the sensitivity and
demands of our time,” and on the other hand, “to make the content and approach
of what Don Bosco offered in educational and pastoral terms our own.”
It is a rediscovery,
then, of the Preventive System that takes into account a historical understanding
of Don Bosco’s approach and the insights already present in his experience of
the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales at the Pinardi house, “that would afterward
acquire a deeper value as part of a complex human and Christian synthesis.”
“Once we have a
correct understanding of the past, we need to translate the Preventive System’s
major insights and virtues for today … to the advantage of the formation of the
‘new’ youth of the 21st century, who is called to experience and deal with a
vast, totally new range of circumstances and problems in times that have
changed decisively, and which the human sciences themselves are now reflecting
upon critically.”
The RM offers three
particular slants, developed briefly, that will help set a process of modernization
in place: (1) relaunching DB’s concept of the “upright citizen” and “good
Christian”; (2) return to the young better prepared; (3) education of the
heart.
The RM’s presentation
is already a good tool for reflection and work on the part of the educational
and pastoral community and the various Salesian Family commissions or
coordinating bodies. The text, in fact, suggests some evaluation processes
which cover both attitudes and planning possibilities. And this year, too, as
for other years, the text adds an early indication of what will probably be the
major reference points for concrete tasks stemming from 2013 Strenna.
As he did last year,
Fr. Chavez offers the Salesian Family a bibliography as a set of references: “The
Preventive System in the Education of Youth,” the 1884 “Letter from Rome,”
and the biographies of Dominic Savio, Michael Magone, and Francis Besucco, “all
written by Don Bosco, which well illustrate both his educational experience and
his pedagogical choices.”
The treatise on the
Preventive System (under the title “An Ounce of Prevention”) and the
biographies of the 3 young pupils of the Oratory may be ordered from Salesiana
Publishers by calling 201-986-0503.
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