by Fr. Timothy Ploch, SDB
Originally published in the July 6 2009 edition of "In Touch"
The first [Salesian] retreat of the year was concluded last Friday. For me it was an exceptional blessing. Three Rivers is a gorgeous setting for a retreat experience, except perhaps, if you’re like me, for the heat... Of particular meaning for me was the chance to spend some time with so many confreres from all over the province.
The preacher was Fr. Michael Sweeney, OP, President of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (DSPT) in Berkeley. WOW! He admitted that he came to us and to our documents, which he had obviously read thoroughly, as a visitor. Some visitors come and go clueless, but Michael brought a depth of religious life, philosophical training, and theological grounding rarely heard from most visitors.
Here are some of the points he emphasized that will stay with me for a long time. The Salesian program of spiritual and apostolic life expressed in Don Bosco’s motto, Da Mihi Animas, Cetera Tolle, Michael saw with such fresh eyes. He brought out new aspects that only helped to understand our own GC26 in a deeper way. He saw DMACT as a bold prayer to God telling him what we want from him, a mystical experience of the apostolic mission (Da Mihi Animas) coupled with a robust asceticism (Cetera Tolle).
Our charism was given to Don Bosco by the Holy Spirit for the good of the whole church. Now it resides in the Salesian Society as a whole and in the local fraternal and apostolic community, not in individuals. Thus if the young are to be introduced into what Salesian is all about, it has to be through a community, regardless of how “charismatic” an individual Salesian may or not be.
There are three aspects to our charism: the call to holiness, the call to communion, and the call to apostolic witness. With almost poetic flights of philosophy, Michael led us to understand that to seek souls is to allow God to save them. To be saved means to be safe, to have a place, to have a voice. Is that not precisely what we are called to bring to the young and the poor, to make them know they are loved, saved?
Don Bosco anticipated Vatican II with his notion that lay and consecrated alike could share the charism. It is not a matter of we SDBs having a charism for the non SDBs, but rather SDBs and lay people together having it for the young and the poor.
I’m not doing Michael justice with these brief reflections. You had to be there! I hope, with his permission, we will be able to make his insights available to the whole Salesian Family in published form.
