(Brazil). The National Commission for Salesian Youth Ministry of the Salesian Network Brazil (RSB) met online on 1 and 2 March 2021. Present were the representatives of the nine Salesian Provinces of the Daughters of Maria Asuiliatrice and of the Salesians of Don Bosco: Sr. Claudiane da Silva Cavalcante (BRE), Sr. Nadia Caetano dos Santos (BAM), Sr. Vânia Auxiliadora Siqueira Ojeda (BMM), Sr. Solange de Fátima Sanches (BAP), Fr. Roque Luiz Sibioni (BSP), Fr. Sergio Ramos de Souza (BPA), Fr. Romeu do Nascimento Dias (BBH), Fr. Francisco Inácio Vieira Junior (BRE), and Fr. Wagner Luiz Galvão (BCG).
The objective of the online meeting was to establish common action guidelines between SDB and FMA, to respond to the needs of the Youth Ministry of the Provinces in this time of innovation that is being lived, especially for the FMA who celebrated the beginning of a new configuration of the Brazilian Provinces and are called to find new ways for the mission of evangelization for the life and hope of the young.
Some General Councilors also participated in the meeting, sending messages in support of the work of the Commission: Sr. Alaíde Deretti, Sr. Maria Helena Moreira, Sr. Maria Luisa Miranda, Sr. Maria Nieves Reboso, Sr. Paola Battagliola, and Sr. Silvia Boullosa. Some members of the Institute for the Youth Ministry Sector also participated: Sr. Ivone Goulart, Sr. Elena Rastello, Sr. Ana Victoria Ulate, and for the VIDES Association, Sr. Annecie Audate.
The General Councilor for Youth Ministry, Sister Runita Borja, recalled the importance of walking together while keeping hope alive: “Every educational environment, whether of formal, non-formal or informal education, is called to be a space for relationships that promote life and hope.”
Three main contents emerged from the works:
- Pastoral care in contemporaneity, that accompanies young people to have an experience of discipleship starting from a personal encounter with Christ, taking on a process of formation in the faith, so that they can mature as persons, as a community, and at the social level, responding to the profound meaning of their lives.
- Synodal Pastoral ministry that asks young people to participate and to commit themselves to building a better world for others and for everyone.
- Integral formation, to help young people to be pastors and evangelizers of other young people in their existential courtyards and, with them, to weave the Culture of Encounter, with attention to the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Moved by the hope, in line with Strenna 2021, we are called to weave networks with young people and the laity, sharing with them dreams and challenges in favor of life. Young people hope that educators will be able to accompany and propose evangelical styles of life and mission, involving them in the organization and development of pastoral processes, in order to configure communities that generate life in the heart of contemporaneity.
