Rome (Italy). On 4 December 2022 in Rome, at  Mother Ersilia Canta House, 19 Temporary Professed and New Perpetual Daughters of Mary Help of Christians of the Preprovince Mary Mother of the Church and a Temporary Professed of Mary Help of Christians Community of the Generalate (RCG) had a formation meeting on the theme: “Taking care of #young people”.
The morning presentation was given by Renato Cursi, Director General of “Salesians per Social Media APS”, a non-profit organization desired and led by the Salesians of Don Bosco of Italy in support of the pastoral dimension of hardship and educational poverty. After dwelling on the concept of ‘care’, he highlighted the first properly Salesian element in the care of young people: presence. The reference to the concept of ‘care’ from the Acts of General Chapter XXIV and the considerations on care and empathy in youth ministry were very topical. The reflection then continued on another particularly relevant aspect in the light of today’s challenges: care of the educational environment.
Starting from the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit, the young FMA were invited to reflect on the fact that ‘taking care’ in the perspective of Youth Ministry implies empathy on the part of the pastoral worker called to enter into the history of young people not to comment on it, but to make it their own.
The speaker’s invitation to “allow oneself to be cared for by young people” was also provocative. “It is the young who take care of us; we save ourselves by taking care of them.” This call challenged the participants to an attitude of humility linked to ‘docibilitas’, which the Temporary Professed have committed themselves to live in their daily lives this year.
In the afternoon, the Superior of the RMC Preprovince, Sr. MarÃa del Carmen Canales Calzadilla, addressed the theme “Taking care of #youth” in the light of the guidelines of the educational mission of the FMA Institute (LOME). Recalling Don Bosco, who maintained that if effective educational work is desired, it is necessary to take great care, she invited the young Sisters to descend from their own hearts into the hearts of the young and to listen to them, avoiding two dangers: approval and control.
The work then continued with the deepening of the key words of the Preventive System. Using the laboratory method of the “World Cafè”, the pillars of the PS: reason, religion, and loving kindness were revisited today. This helped to understand even more “taking care” in an educational key.
With a heart full of gratitude for the welcome of Mother Ersilia Canta Community, for the shared fraternity, reflection, and sharing with the sisters, each one returned to her own reality recharged, with the desire to put into practice the educational convictions matured in the encounter.
