Rome (Italy). The Mother General of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Sr. Chiara Cazzuola, in Circular No. 1022, recalls the experience of the International Conference “Contribution of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians to Education (1872-2022). Paths, Challenges, and Perspectives”- held in Rome, in the Generalate (RCG), from 25 to 30 September 2022 – promoted by the Institute on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Foundation and organized by the Pontifical Faculty of Education “Auxilium”.
“With this special event, we wanted to reflect on the fruitfulness of the educational charism of the Institute that in these 150 years of history has been implemented and spread with dynamic vivacity and creativity in the world, bearing fruits of life and hope everywhere” stated Mother Chiara, who exhorts us to share and deepen in the FMA Communities the richness of the contents of the Conference “as a formative opportunity that is offered to us with love and competence”.
Celebrate and thank
The Conference offered the opportunity to listen to the past, also through the statistical data collected and reworked, to confront some aspects of the educational planning of Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello, enculturated in the different geographical contexts.
Mother emphasizes presence as a charismatic element that distinguishes the educational relationship, “a presence oriented by the intention to take care of the life and integral maturation of young people,” who in Salesian works experience “home” and a family atmosphere “in which to meet, feel loved, valued, and accompanied.”
During the Congress, moreover, “the transforming and transformative vitality of the Salesian educational charism” emerged many times, which often manifested itself precisely in times of greatest crisis, hardships, and unprecedented turning points, where the FMA with wisdom were able to “reinterpret the charism to plan every educational intervention in the light of new challenges,” giving life to the multiplicity of works and expressions with which the Preventive System is expressed in the world.
Mother Chiara reminds us that every FMA and every Educating Community is responsible for this vitality, as a gift of the Holy Spirit for the edification of the Church, which has in itself “an intrinsic prophetic dynamism and demands a continuous personal and community conversion, a condition for being able to be ‘generative’ in the mission”.
Therefore, the conference was not just a celebratory event, but an opportunity for relaunching and renewed ardor on the journey, by virtue of the responsibility towards young people and towards this treasure to be safeguarded and shared.
From the present to the future
The testimonies of sisters presented as “creative interpreters of the Preventive System” throughout history, as well as showing the fruits of holiness in the Congregation, also highlighted a charism embodied in everyday life that spurs each FMA, with her own life, to make it grow and to enrich it with her own characteristics and resources.
The identity of Salesian educators is often referred to in the Constitutions. Mother dwells in particular on art. 64 “because it highlights the importance and beauty of our being educators according to the heart of Don Bosco and of Mother Mazzarello”.
She also refers again to the Address of Pope Francis to the Chapter members on 22 October 2021, in which he exhorts us to live the identity of educators by looking at Mary, “an attentive woman, fully embodied in the present, and solicitous, a caring woman” and to be like her, mothers bearing witness to the closeness of God who is compassion and tenderness, with the Salesian style, made up of listening, active presence, love for the young.
In today’s world, disoriented, confused, struck by an anthropological crisis, and hit by rapid and profound changes, a “qualified, continually updated formation, based on sure anthropological principles, on the pedagogical humanism of Don Bosco and of Mother Mazzarello” is needed. Mother Chiara highlights these and renews the invitation of the XXIV General Chapter “to invest more decisively in the formation of Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, and the lay people who share the educational mission with us,” as an “indispensable condition for generating life and hope in young people and be significant in society”.
She also considers it essential “to be many in order to have an impact”, and emphasizes synodality:
“In order to face the future and prepare it with wisdom and foresight, it is therefore necessary to go forward together, as an educating community, in an ever-widening network in the Church, in society, in synergy with the Institutions, with the Salesian Family Groups, with other religious Congregations, and with different vocations”.
The last part of the Circular is dedicated to reporting some significant events of Salesian formation:
– FMA 150 Holy Ween – Sunday 30 October 2022, at 15.00 (Italian time) – the Vigil of All Saints on the occasion of the 150th anniversary, in live-streaming connection with the significant places where the FMA Saints, Blesseds, Venerables and Servants of God are buried, or particularly remembered, to invoke with the intercession of these Sisters, “the gift of peace and every blessing for humanity and for the Institute”.
– the Novena in preparation for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception that in the Jubilee Year “wishes to be an expression of gratitude to Mary, prolonged in the concreteness of the life of the individual FMA and the Educating Communities around the world, which will be represented by 12 stars”. To be able to realize it as it was conceived, it will start on November 26th. The proposal will be published on the Institute’s website in early November.
“Courage, Mother Mazzarello tells us. We have before us a beautiful, fruitful, exhilarating mission to be grateful for”, concludes Mother Chiara Cazzuola, entrusting to Mary Help of Christians, Mother and Teacher, the journey and life of all the Educating Communities, in particular of young people, and invoking the gift of peace for the whole of humanity.
