(ANS – Rome) – For September and October, we recommend reading Chapter Four of the Ratio: “THE DIMENSIONS OF THE JOURNEY.” It is one of the chapters where the new features of this edition are most clearly evident. Fr. Ivo Coelho presents it in a video interview; he is undoubtedly the person who knows, better than anyone else, from the inside, everything that the Ratio signifies and proposes. He followed and oversaw its development step by step through all its phases as Councillor for Formation up to GC29.
Here are some excerpts from the interview, available via the links at the bottom of the page:
“The dimensions have expanded with new emphases that take our consecrated Salesian identity very much into account. This is immediately apparent from the number: five instead of four, with the fifth becoming a sort of ‘password’ that imbues the preceding ones with the color and flavor of the Valdocco Oratory: the dimension of the charism.”
In reality, this new development has been present right from the start. No longer the “human dimension,” but the “human and fraternal dimension.” “It is in our relationships with others that we discover who we truly are. This is all the more true for a vocational journey such as ours. The ‘gift of self’ represents the highest expression of human maturity and relational capacity.
Pope Francis, quoted in these pages of the Ratio, tells us that “The more you unite yourself to Jesus and he becomes the center of your life, the more he draws you out of yourself, shifts your focus away from yourself, and opens you up to others.”
Rather than distinguishing between different dimensions, the Ratio emphasizes continuity and integration. “There is complete continuity between the human and the spiritual! This was true of our father Don Bosco, profoundly human and profoundly a man of God, in whom we can admire ‘a splendid harmony of nature and grace.’
“Following his example, we are called and led to encounter God in young people, beginning with the poorest. If they are the burning bush before which we must remove our sandals, at the same time they expect nothing less from us than the holiness that comes from living the Beatitudes of the Gospel, ‘the most precious gift we can offer them’ (C 25).”
This contemplative heart, born of union with God, teaches us to look at young people through the eyes of the Good Shepherd, so as to “identify paths where others see only walls; it is knowing how to recognize possibilities where others see only dangers” (CV 67 in FSDB 34).
It is certainly interesting to note what Fr. Ivo also shares on the intellectual (cultural!) dimension and the educative and pastoral dimension, as can be seen from the interview.
A final word on the fifth dimension, the “new entry” in this edition of the Ratio: the dimension of the charism. “All the ingredients are important: the flour, the water, and the heat of the oven alike, but none on its own can place the fragrant bread before us on the table, for the sake of those to whom we are sent. The dimension of the charism is what brings together the great investment of energy and gifts that fill the days and years of those who live in Don Bosco’s house and wish to follow in his footsteps.
“… It is the grace of unity. It is the unifying power of divine love within us, which transforms the heart of the Salesian in the image of the heart of Christ, the Good Shepherd.”
Links to the video in Italian, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
On the hyper-ratio.org website, you will find plenty of other supporting materials, as well as the full text of the Ratio in PDF format and the interviews given for the previous chapters.