Rome (Italy). Monthly appointments of the “Salesian Thursdays at Auxilium” resume – in person and online, from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm (Italian time) – on topics of pedagogy, spirituality, and history of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, proposed by the Studies Center on the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians of the Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences «Auxilium» in Rome.
The sixth edition of the Salesian Thursdays presents a novelty, in view of the three-year preparation for the 150th of the first missionary expedition of the FMA which occurred on 24 November 1877. In collaboration with the Institute’s Mission Sector, the FMA Study Center has committed to preparing and organizing the first three meetings-from November to January-and then making way for the Project Mission Spirituality, which will be launched online in the following months, so as not to overdo the formation proposals for the Educating Communities and those interested in the topic. Thanks to this collaboration, the texts of the three meetings, which focus on the missionary theme with different angles for further study, will be available in five languages: Italian, Spanish, English, Portuguese, and French.
The first, on 14 November (Friday and not Thursday), is dedicated to the presentation, by Sister Ana María Fernández, FMA of Laura Vicuña Province (ARG), of Project Missionary Spirituality (PEM), who will offer an online journey (March-November 2026) through different places in the Southern Cone of America, where the first educational activities and proposals spread among migrants and indigenous populations. On December 4, the Councilor of the Mission Sector, Sister Ruth del Pilar Mora, will present the missionary work that developed at the Institute after the Second Vatican Council and developed by the various Councilors and collaborators, in order to consolidate the history of its origins with the present. On 8 January 2026, the figure of a missionary and General Councilor, missionary formator, will be presented, Sister Carmen Martín Moreno.
The 150th in-depth study of the Salesian missions also included in 2025, the creation of the Continental Seminars of the Association of Cultivators of Salesian History (ACSSA), with which the FMA Institute and the Faculty collaborate, where many international topics can be found online: through the web site of ISS-ACSSA; the contents of the American Seminar (Buenos Aires, 3-6 June 2025); the contents of the European Seminar, made in Rome at the UPS, October 22-26, 2025 (video on Youtube).
