I am presently in Santa Cruz, at Villa Del Mar Retreat House ran by the Holy Names Sisters.\u00a0\u00a0 The Provincial Council and I are here for a week of meetings:\u00a0 prayer, planning, reflection and some fraternal time together.\u00a0\u00a0 We arrived on Sunday evening and will finish on Friday at noon.\u00a0 It is a beautiful setting, close to the ocean and a quiet atmosphere.\u00a0\u00a0 The Sisters have been most gracious and hospitable.\u00a0 There is a group of 25 Sisters and 5 or more directors who are making a silent retreat.\u00a0\u00a0 This also forces us to keep a somewhat reflective atmosphere, especially, at table.\u00a0\u00a0 But, you can\u2019t keep Salesians totally quiet. But everyone has been most patient with us.<\/p>\n
The first two days here at Villa Maria were spent doing a Lectio Divina on next Sunday\u2019s Scriptures, reflecting on Fr. Maria Arokiam Kanaga\u2019s final draft presented to the province at the end of his extraordinary visitation and what that might mean to us.\u00a0 Today, Fr. John Itzaina led us through an evaluation of our last Provincial Chapter, its deliberations and how to make that concrete and part of or plan for the future.\u00a0\u00a0 This afternoon, Br. Al Vu led the council through our Province Organic Plan of 2016.\u00a0\u00a0 We are in the process of updating the Organic Plan, with its six priorities, based on the outcomes of our last provincial chapter and Fr. Arokiam\u2019s final remarks to our province.\u00a0\u00a0 While we worked hard this afternoon, we have yet to finish the last three of the six Priorities.\u00a0\u00a0Tomorrow, Wednesday, we will tackle the last three priorities, do some reflection on an article by Gabe Huck and spend the afternoon visiting Point Lobo near Monterey, go through the 17 mile drive and see if we can visit Bishop Sylvester Ryan in Monterey.\u00a0\u00a0 Bishop Ryan has been a very good friend of the Salesians, and he was instrumental in helping us build and start the new St. Francis Salesian College Preparatory School almost 20 years ago.\u00a0 Bishop Sylvester, although no longer Bishop of Monterey,\u00a0 has continued to be very supportive of the school and the Salesians.\u00a0 We will continue with our work on Thursday and Friday addressing some Province and personnel issues.\u00a0 We are grateful to be here and enjoy this beautiful setting and, at the same time, work on ways to help the province move into the future.<\/p>\n
The Provincial Council has been focusing on ways to do ongoing formation.\u00a0\u00a0 This formation, which was a key issue at the Provincial Chapter, deals with our Salesian formation, meaning, our way of doing ministry, our style of life, imitating Don Bosco and St. Francis de Sales\u2019 kindness and family spirit. As we look at what kind of Salesian for the young today, we are constantly reminded that we must be men of prayer, convinced that God has called us for a mission, able to live fraternal life in a healthy and happy manner and not afraid to meet the young wherever they may be, in their situations, their struggles and their dreams.\u00a0\u00a0 Dialogue, closeness (smell of the sheep as Pope Francis reminded us) and openness to where God will lead us are essential characteristics of our Salesian style today.\u00a0 We need to get out of our comfort zone and be available for the mission to and with the young.\u00a0\u00a0 That is not easy, especially, if we feel we cannot leave the place of ministry where we have been, and we unable to see that the mission is given to the Salesians and the province and not to one person.\u00a0 This requires faith, trust and and a spirit of availability.<\/p>\n
The next few days of our provincial council \u201cretreat\u201d will focus on ways to animate and govern the province.\u00a0\u00a0 We have good plans and a way forward, despite all the challenges we face in our province.\u00a0\u00a0 What we might need to reflect on is how best to get that vision across to everyone, how to help the province take ownership of the vision and plans and how to hold each other accountable for that vision and the lines of action we have decided upon after our Provincial \u00a0Chapter.<\/p>\n
Please continue to keep us in prayer.\u00a0\u00a0 Each morning, at 7:30 am, the council celebrates the Eucharist in a small country-like Church\/chapel, a stone throw from our meeting room, the Josephine House.\u00a0 Each day, at prayer, we remember our Salesian brothers and sisters in the province, especially, those who are sick, undergoing difficulties and those involved in summer ministries.\u00a0\u00a0 We pray that the Good Shepherd guide us and guide all of you who care about our Mission to the young.\u00a0\u00a0 May Mary, the Help of Christians, protect and bless each one of us as we do our best to evangelize, to proclaim the Good news of life and hope and to be signs and bearers of God\u2019s love for the young.<\/p>\n
With warm regards and gratitude,<\/p>\n
Ted<\/p>\n
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With warm regards and gratitude,<\/p>\n
Ted<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Salesian Sisters and Brothers, I am presently in Santa Cruz, at Villa Del Mar Retreat House ran by the Holy Names Sisters.\u00a0\u00a0 The Provincial Council and I are here for a week of meetings:\u00a0 prayer, planning, reflection and some fraternal time together.\u00a0\u00a0 We arrived on Sunday evening and will finish on Friday at noon.\u00a0 It is a beautiful setting, close to the ocean and … Continuar leyendo Provincial Letter: July 10th, 2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":10336596,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20310044,69785],"tags":[100143],"class_list":["post-1642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-province-news","category-provincial","tag-sdb"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p59ePG-qu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10336596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1650,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642\/revisions\/1650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}