austraLasia 1317

Challenges that go beyond the place and moment they were presented

NASHIK (India): 4th November 2005 --  The recent Silver Jubilee celebrations for the Salesian Institute of Formation known as Divyadaan, Mumbai Province, contained material that may well be of interest to others, especially in our own EAO Region.  We present them here for what they are worth.
    Fr Joaquim D'Souza, the South Asia Regional Councillor, and himself the first Rector of Divyadaan, placed the following challenges before his listeners at the celebrations.  They are challenges which suit many Salesian formation situations:

• Opening out to more students: other religious, diocesans; lay people, Catholic and non-Catholic.
• Greater investment in research and writing, especially on the part of lecturers.
• Greater interaction with other realities and with the social context.
• An interdisciplinary approach to basic questions, seeing the human being as vocation, as communion with others and with nature, and as invocation.
• A deeper understanding of the relationship between faith and cultures, between philosophy and the sciences, between the Salesian charism and all these sciences.
• A shift from a merely folkloristic and episodical knowledge of Don Bosco to a profound knowledge of Don Bosco in his context, examining and understanding the deep reasons for his choices.

    In his address, the Mumbai Provincial, Ivo Coelho, as well as obviously expressing his gratitude to individuals for developing this particular studentate in the way it has developed, affiliated as it is to the UPS in Rome, outlines a number of features that are equally applicable to other institutions of a similar nature.  These include:
- that philosophy and allied subjects are at the service of faith as well as the specific Salesian mission in terms of education and communication.  Teaching a philosophy which is in harmony with the basics of Christian faith contributes to prevaling trends in thinking in both church and society.
- the systematisation and strengthening of the intellectual component in Salesian formation is also significant for our youth ministry, especially remembering we are educators and evangelisers of young people and animators of lay people who work alongside us
- communication (noting that Divyadaan has this as one of its subject areas): in an age which has created a non-linear image culture replacing the older linear reading culture...we are called to be masters rather than slaves of this culture shift.  Not that we forget reading and related skills, but we have to be culture creators, not just consumers.  We need reading, writing, reflecting, planning, implementing skills.
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