Presentation of Strenna 2021
Moved by hope: “Behold, I make all
things new” (Rev 21: 5)
Foreword
As every year, in these weeks, I send to all the
provinces of the Salesian Congregation and to all the groups of the Salesian Family
the title chosen for the strenna of the new year. Although there are still five
months to go before the end of the calendar year, programming for the new educational
and pastoral year requires that this communication be brought forward before the
calendar deadline. I do all this very willingly.
At the same time, the lines that I offer are not,
of course, the commentary on the strenna, but only a few ideas that are the guiding
thread of the strenna. I believe they are essential to grasp the development of
reflection and some of the pastoral lines.
1. A WORLD REALITY THAT QUESTIONS US AND THAT WE
CAN’T IGNORE
Thinking of the message that can unite us as the
Salesian Family in 2021, it is impossible not to take into account that for many
months, to a greater or lesser extent, the world, all nations, have remained, if
not paralyzed (although many are), certainly blocked. One cannot travel, and it
has not been possible to celebrate some appointments at international and world
level. The “global village” has returned to be, once again, and certainly will be
for some time, the union of many “villages” that look at each other with suspicion.
Walls have fallen, but to “protect oneself,” borders have become even more reinforced.
In front of this reality, we can repeat the thousands
of messages that say that this situation will be overcome, that we must have confidence
in ourselves, that we are strong, that the pride of each nation has overcome worse
situations, etc. Many of these messages, which are also a mentality, a way of interpreting
current events, have much of the “Promethean” claim described in the well-known
Greek myth in which one person alone is able to rebuild himself, to reinvent himself,
to draw strength from his weakness so as to overcome adversity. It is a very pagan
mentality. Many of these messages have nothing to do with the meaning of life, of
every life, let alone with God and the path we have lived in today’s history.
But this is not our vision, nor is it the message
that we want to transmit in the many places where we are present as the Salesian
Family.
Our message underlines and reaffirms that, in the
face of this harsh and painful reality with its heavy consequences, we continue
to express the certainty of being moved by hope: because God in his Spirit
continues to make “all things new.”
Pope Francis invited the world to be infected with
“the necessary antibodies of justice, charity, and solidarity”[1] for reconstruction after the days of the pandemic.
How much pain is being experienced in the world
right now is undeniable. How many millions of poor people have been infected and
lost their lives is undeniable. If we are invited to keep a safe distance, how can
we imagine that the occupants massed in the favelas, in the slums, near the dumps,
can respect social distancing? The loss of work is affecting millions of families;
the mourning that could not be done leaves millions of hearts in pain; the poverty
that looms (sometimes hunger) affects, disorients, paralyses, and threatens to
bury all hope.
2. DON BOSCO IS NOT FAR FROM THESE SITUATIONS,
SINCE HE LIVED THEM HIMSELF.
 |
| Don Bosco and youths from the Oratory tended cholera victims in Turin, 1854 |
We refer to our Father Don Bosco because throughout
his life he himself had to face the harshness of so many situations, so many tragedies
and pain. He is a master in showing us how the paths of faith and hope not only
illuminate but also give the necessary strength to change unfavorable or adverse
conditions, or at least to limit them as far as possible. Our Father distinguished
himself for his extraordinary tenacity and for his special and profoundly realistic
vision. He knew how to look beyond problems. The cholera situation was a circumstance—on
a local level—similar to what is being experienced now in each country. And as an
educator and pastor he accompanied these situations together with his boys. While
there were people who cared only about themselves and their needs, Don Bosco and
his boys, like many others, “worked hard” to help overcome the tragedy. We can affirm
that this deep vision of faith and hope manifested itself throughout his life: when
he left his mother and his house and went to live as “attendant” at the Pianta Cafe
while studying in Chieri, facing loneliness and difficulties; crying and suffering
for not knowing where to take and welcome his boys in the afternoons of the Oratory
until the meeting with Joseph Pinardi, etc. All this confirms how Don Bosco lived
moved by the virtue of hope.
3. A MOVEMENT OF THE SPIRIT CAPABLE OF “DOING ALL
THINGS NEW” (Rev 21:5)
Christian faith continually shows how God, through
his Spirit, accompanies the history of humanity, even in the most adverse and unfavorable
conditions. That God who does not suffer but who has compassion, according to the
beautiful expression of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: “Impassibilis est Deus, sed
non incompassibilis” (God is impassible, but not without compassion).[2] In the history
of salvation God never abandons his people; he always remains united with them,
especially when the pain becomes very strong: “Behold, I am doing something new:
right now it is sprouting, don’t you notice it? (Is 43:19).”[3]
This time and this situation will undoubtedly be
propitious for
- becoming aware
of the suffering of many people;
- paying attention
to the many constant and silent epidemics such as the hunger that so many suffer,
complicity in wars, lifestyles that enrich some and impoverish millions of
people;
- asking ourselves
whether we can live—those among us who have more—with a more sober and austere
lifestyle;
- seriously considering
that our world, the whole of creation, suffers, gets sick, while continuing
to deny the evidence;
- realizing how
important it is “to unite the whole human family in the pursuit of integral
and sustainable development.”[4]
4. A SALESIAN READING OF THE PRESENT MOMENT
Many are the readings that have been made of this
historical moment, a moment that—it is said—occurs every hundred years, with great
crises that affect humanity for one reason or another. Not even the bloodiest wars
have been as “global” as the situation we are experiencing. In any case, what response
can we give? What contribution can we offer as the Salesian Family? What Gospel
values, read in a Salesian perspective, do we feel we can offer? How can we, as
educators, offer as an alternative an “education to hope”?
4.1. Alternative
processes to the dominant culture. Change of values and vision:
- from closure
to opening
- from individualism
to solidarity
- from isolation
to authentic encounter
- from division
to unity and communion
- from pessimism
to hope
- from emptiness
and lack of meaning to transcendence.
4.2. God
speaks to us through many people who have known how to live with hope:
- in borderline
situations God continues to speak to us through the hearts of people who see
and respond in original and different ways.
- the Salesian
holiness of our Family is rich in models who have known how to live moved
by hope (Blessed Stephen Sandor, Blessed Madeleine Morano, and others).
4.3. Nobody
saves themselves by themselves.
The meaning of what I want to express is contained
in this quote from Pope Francis: “If there is one thing we have been able to learn
in all this time, it is that nobody saves themselves, by themselves. Borders fall,
walls collapse, and all fundamentalist discourses dissolve before an almost imperceptible
presence that manifests the fragility of which we are made.... It is the breath
of the Spirit that opens horizons, awakens creativity, and renews us in fraternity
to say ‘present’ (or, ‘here I am’) before the enormous and urgent task that awaits
us. It is urgent to discern and find the pulse of the Spirit to promote, together
with others, the dynamics that can testify and channel the new life that the Lord
wants to generate at this specific moment in history.”[5]
4.4. As
the Salesian Family we have tried to give answers in the moment of emergency as
a sign of charity and hope, and today we must be alternatives:
- accompanying
young people along the path of existence, opening them to other horizons, to
new perspectives;
- learning to live
“within the limits” within a society “without limits.” That is, helping young
people and adults to discover the “normality of life” in simplicity, in authenticity,
in sobriety, in depth;
- letting ourselves
be challenged by the many voices of hope of young people in difficult times:
the ecological movement, solidarity with the needy.
5. PLACES WHERE TO LEARN AND EXERCISE HOPE
5.1. Faith and hope walk together. We propose
faith as an authentic path because “a world without God is a world without
hope” (cf. Eph 2:12).
5.2. Prayer as a school of hope and
a personal encounter with the love of Jesus Christ, who saves us.
5.3. Action, fatigue in daily life
since, ultimately, when human beings move, act to transform a situation, at the
base they always have a hope that sustains them. “Every serious and upright act
of man is hope in action.”[6]
5.4. The suffering and pain
present in every human life as a necessary door to open up to hope. In many cultures
people try in every way to hide or silence suffering and death. What allows a human
being to heal, however, is not to avoid or hide this suffering and pain, but to
mature in it and find meaning in life when it is not immediately or easily visible.
In fact, “the greatness of humanity is determined essentially by its relationship
with suffering and with those who suffer.”[7]
5.5. The poor and the excluded,
who are at the center of God’s attention, must be our privileged recipients as the
Salesian Family.
5.6. In the greatest crises, so many things disappear,
“certainties” that we thought we had, meanings of life that, in reality, were not
such. But, in fact, the great values of the Gospel and its truth remain,
when opportunistic or momentary philosophies and thoughts disappear. Gospel
values do not vanish, they do not become “liquid,” they do not disappear. That is
why as the Salesian Family of Don Bosco we cannot give up showing what we believe
in; we cannot lose our charismatic identity in the answers we have to give in any
situation.
6. MARY of Nazareth, Mother of God, Star of Hope
Mary, the Mother, knows well what it means to trust
and hope against all hope, trusting in the name of God.
 |
| The Annunciation (James Tissot) |
Her “yes” to God awakened all hope for humanity.
She experienced helplessness and loneliness at
the birth of her Son; she kept in her heart the announcement of a pain that would
pierce her heart (cf. Luke 2:35); she experienced the suffering of seeing her Son
as a “sign of contradiction,” misunderstood, rejected.
She knew hostility and rejection toward her Son
until, at the foot of his cross on Golgotha, she understood that hope would not
die. That is why she remained with the disciples as mother—"Woman, behold your
son” (John 19:26)—as Mother of Hope.
“Holy Mary,
Mother of God, our Mother,
teach us to believe,
to hope, and to love with you.
Show us the way to the Kingdom.
Star of the Sea,
shine above us
and guide us on our path.”
Amen.
Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime, SDB
Rector Major
Rome, August 2, 2020
Memorial of Blessed August Czartoryski
[1] Francis, ”Un plan para resucitar” a la Humanidad tras el coronavirus
(PDF), in Vida Nueva Digital, April 17, 2020, pp. 7-11.
[2] Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon on the Song of
Songs, XXVI, 5; PL 183, 906.
[3] Francis, op. cit., p. 11.
