As Circumstances Demand!

19.   Initiative and flexibility

 The Salesian is called to be a realist and to be attentive to the signs of the times, convinced that the lord manifests his will also through the demands of time and place.  Hence his spirit of initiative and apostolic creativity:  "in those things which are for the benefit of young people in danger or which serve to win souls for God, I push ahead even to the extent of recklessness".

Timely response to these needs requires him to keep abreast of new trends and meet them with the well-balanced creativity of the Founder; periodically he evaluates his work.

There is a  story of Don Bosco which I always find  quite powerful and challenging, just as I did  when I first heard it. Even though it belongs to that apocryphal collection of stories which inevitably tend to accumulate in the life of saints, yet I find that it really captures his spirit and drive.

It concerns  a Salesian confrere who went to lament to don Bosco when he was on a visit to one of the houses. “Ah, these young people today, they are not what they used to be”, he moaned, “they are fickle and easily get distracted with these modern day innovations.” He proceeded to tell him how the numbers of those attending the oratory had dwindled drastically.

When don Bosco asked him as to the reason why this might be so, the confrere explained: “It’s these latest inventions that are leading them astray. This thing called Bicycle – they are all getting a bike and they prefer going off to different places rather than come to the Oratory.”

“Well then,” Don Bosco promptly replied, “learn how to ride the bicycle and go run after them.”

I think it is a lovely example  of how Don Bosco got his priorities right: his heart was for the young and they were the main objective of his concern and endeavours. Everything else was a means to this end, the welfare of youth. Therefore in a situation where society and young people are always changing and developing, one has to be able not only to read the signs of the times but also to have the ability to adapt. This inevitably requires one to be flexible as well as to have a creativity in one’s pastoral outreach.

“I push ahead to the extent of recklessness” where no mere idle words and he often took many risks.  The amount of work he did was phenomenal and the different initiatives he undertook were incredible, very often breaking new ground. “ When it comes to progress”, he once said to a young visiting priest who eventually became Pope Pius XI, “I want to be in the vanguard.”

In an industrial exhibition held in Turin in his time, one of the main attractions which drew large crowds was a Printing Press that was one of the most advanced at the time. What drew the crowds was not so much the technology, but rather the fact that it was operated by a group of young apprentices who up to a few years before had been good-for-nothing urchins roaming the streets. Needless to say the one who put up this exhibit was Don Bosco himself!

It is important to be able  read and interpret the signs of the time, and the reason is because it is in these that we can discover what the Lord is saying to Us. “The lord manifests his will also through the demands of time and place”.   It in the light of prayer and reflection that we can respond positively to the demands and needs of the time. “I always went ahead as the Lord inspired and circumstances demanded”, Don Bosco often used to say.

Otherwise the danger is that we become stagnant in our works and fail to continue touch the lives of the young.  If this happens then we become irrelevant. Being attached or nostalgic to past ways will not solve anything. Don Rinaldi used to say; “Not with the times of Don Bosco, but rather with Don Bosco and with the time.” In a way this is what we are being asked to do by the Rector Major, that in returning to Don Bosco, we capture the essence of his spirit and holiness, so as to be able to transmit them in new situations, cultures and era.

It is not an easy challenge and something which cannot be achieved if we are too busy. One needs to have that space where one can stand back to assess the situation and reflect. The time of a Provincial Chapter is one such a privileged moment, where we are being asked as a Province on how to respond positviley to the signs of the times. Let us not miss the opportunity that is being presented to us.

  

 A group of migrants being rescued at sea before their boat sinks. 

                                               Is this one of the signs of the times?

Bestow on us Lord,
As you did on our founder and Father ‘a heart great as the shores of the sea’,
 able to read the signs of your presence
and the designs of your will.

Help us to be courageous in initiatives,
ready to respond to the needs of the people and places,
 forgetful of ourselves and our own tastes and interests,
and prompted only by the desire for your glory
 and the salvation of our fellow man.