Rome (Italy). From 1 to 7 July 2021 Sr. Maria Luisa Miranda, General Councilor for the Salesian Family Sector of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, and the Collaborators of the Sector, held online meetings with the Formators and Delegates of the SF of the nine Interprovincial Conferences.
The purpose of the meetings was to present the methodological guide “We are the Salesian Family” prepared by the Salesian Family Sector with the essential elements to make the Salesian Family known to the formation communities of the Period of Assessment and Guidance, Postulancy, and Novitiate to accompany young women in initial formation to know the reality of the great charismatic family and to feel an active part of it.
In the presentation to the Guide, Mother Yvonne Reungoat, Superior General of the FMA Institute writes:
«All the Groups that make it up bring to the whole world, in different ways and privileged areas, the spirit and fullness of self-giving to God and to the world of youth. Our Constitutions affirm: ‘Our Institute is a living part of the Salesian Family which throughout time, implements in different ways the spirit and mission of Don Bosco, thus expressing its perennial newness’ (C. 3). The Daughters of Mary Help of Christians are called to make their unique feminine and Marian contribution to growth in communion and collaboration in the Salesian Family (cf. C. 129).”
Sr. Nieves Reboso, General Councilor for the Formation Sector, in greeting the participants of the various meetings, stressed the importance of creating synergies by inviting them to know and experience this ‘heritage of communion’: “We are responsible for the vocational growth of the various Groups, to make known our vocation and that of the other Groups of the Salesian Family. It is urgent to discover and value in equal measure the role that each member plays in the Family. The tasks will be different, but the experience and passion of transmitting and making this charism live is the challenge of each and every one.”
The methodology used for the Modules is that of Design for change, based on 4 phases – feel , imagine, act, share – which leads to an empathic understanding of situations, to imagine and implement solutions through collaborative, concrete, and proactive research. As Mother Yvonne Reungoat points out in the presentation, it is a methodology that ‘favors the activity of young women, helps them reflect on what they already know, to discover what they have not yet had the opportunity to experience and appreciate, to plan a way ‘New’ and more effective way of being an FMA within a much larger Family, in creative collaboration and faithful to the Founder’s dream, to begin to project herself towards her own future as educator, committed to involving all forces for the good of the youth world.”
The meetings with the Interprovincial Conferences made it possible to share a formative resource in different languages with the aim of entering into communion with the realities present in the Charismatic Family born from the heart of Don Bosco and his children, to be, in the Church and in the world, generative of new life.
