(ANS – Turin) – Yesterday, Monday, 20 May 2024, the annual appointment of the Salesian Family World Advisory Council opened. Until Thursday 23rd, the eve of the Feast of Mary Help of Christians, the Major Superiors and Leaders of the groups that make up the Salesian Family are gathered together at the Salesian Mother House in Valdocco, Turin, to reflect “God’s dream for the Salesian Family in our time.”

The event is attended by over 50 people: a representation of leaders and/or their delegates from 24 groups – out of a total of 32 – of the Salesian Family, as well as members of the Secretariat for the Salesian Family, the various speakers invited to speak and people from the Valdocco community accompanying the event in various capacities.

Among those present are some “hardened participants”, as Fr Joan Luis Playà, Central Delegate of the Rector Major for the Secretariat for the Salesian Family, jokingly said, together with representatives with some involvement behind them or those for whom it is their first experience. For everyone, it is a “beautiful expression of a vibrant and deep communion between the Groups and a strong spiritual experience that strengthens the mission that the Lord has entrusted to us.”

Year after year, the SF Advisory Council has addressed and explored several topics, following Pope Francis’ magisterium and the life and mission of the Salesian Family, suggested by the Rector Major’s Strennas. In this year, in which the Strenna is dedicated to “The dream that makes you dream,” the topic was therefore obvious: “The dream that God has for the Salesian Family in this time.”

During the work, therefore, those present are accompanied on a journey of discernment and knowledge, including the cultural, ecclesial, and Salesian situation at the current moment. In this sense, on Tuesday, 21 May 2024, Fr Rossano Sala, Editorial Director of the Salesian publisher Elledici, former Special Secretary of the 15th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the theme “Young people, faith and vocational discernment”, offers a report on  “Disciples and missionaries. Being and becoming an apostolic family today”.

Following this the Major Superiors and Leaders of the various groups of the Salesian Family will share best practices that are currently taking place in the Salesian Family and that realize God’s dream for it in practice.

Finally, all those present will be called to take the third and final step of this journey, aimed at identifying further paths of growth and development, experiences, and concrete initiatives that can make this dream continue, with creativity and ability to respond to new emerging challenges, in the concrete realities of the different works of the Salesian Family.

The setting of the Salesian Places, the opening of the Temporary Exhibition for the Bicentenary of St. John Bosco’s childhood dream at the Casa Don Bosco Museum, and the Feast of Mary Help of Christians will be further elements that encourage an atmosphere of fraternity and shared spirituality which are both a fundamental trait and a consequence of the Advisory Council.

As the Rector Major of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime summed up in his introduction, “This meeting is not to make decisions relating to each group of the Salesian Family, but aims to strengthen communion between the members of the different Groups.”