HOMILY – FR. ALTON FERNANDEZ, SDB
FIN PROVINCE DAY
DBA MABALACAT, PAMPANGA
NOVEMBER 30, 2016
Dear Fr. Klement Vaclav, Fr. Provincial, Confreres, and Dear Salesian Family,
A Very Happy Provincial Day to each one and all of us here! Our Constitutions have laid out that “once a year both Local and Provincial communities celebrate the Community Day as a sign of FRATERNAL COMMUNION AND AN EXPRESSION OF ITS GRATITUDE.” I, therefore, am pleased to invite each one of us here, to wish the ones who are near to him or her, A HAPPY PROVINCIAL DAY!
On this coming December 7, it will be 49 years since I landed in the Philippines! The then Fr. PROVINCIAL, Very Reverend Fr. Alfred Cogliandro, of saintly memory, was there on the tarmac of Manila International Airport to welcome me… Imagine! The Provincial himself was there to welcome and drive me home to the Philippine Provincial House – At that time we were only one Salesian Province yet! Many of us might still recall how fatherly and brotherly Fr. Alfred Cogliandro was. He had the fatherliness of St. John Bosco to make me experience the sincere Salesian welcome to the Philippines.
And today, Rev. Fr. Anthony Bicomong, our Provincial, has asked me to speak about this fraternal relationship as the theme for a community day. He wishes to encourage us with “SALUTE, MY BROTHER! When I saw the title, my first thoughts went to how I would place this “motto” in the context of the Gospel of today. I saw the two sets of brothers mentioned in the Gospel: viz, Peter and Andrew, James and John. These seemed to form “the core” of Jesus’ first followers…Did these brothers somehow make it easier and did they give one another courage and enthusiasm to be faithful to Jesus? To follow him through thick and thin? Did their fraternal brotherly faith strengthen their determination? The Family is the seed-bed of faith especially in the Philippines.
The example of a life lived in faith, is the greatest proof that is both possible and desirable to follow the Lord Jesus. Close friends and brothers can, and do provide that type of living witness for us, as we ourselves can in turn do for them.
Even though “our fidelity sometimes seems to be tested in old-age solitude and aloneness,” our vocation is never a ‘private business’. We delight to express our fidelity in the Salesian Family, together with the Holy Father, the Pope, and together with the whole Mystical Body of Christ.
Our very identity as Salesians of Don Bosco in the Church makes us believe and claim that the Call and Consecration for the Mission are just one – We read this in the statement of article 3 of our Constitutions which say: “We are disciples of the Lord by the grace of the Father, who consecrated us through the Grace of the Spirit and send us to be Apostles of the young..” Our consecration co-involves all our lives; and our mission co-involves all our existence.
I am intrigued and mystified as to how the Good Lord gets united with, and reaches deep down into our humanity, of even the blood relationship of brothers to call us to be his first followers – And it is in this “being made for others that Pope Francis speaks on how we truly become our true selves by being in Christ, who became “man” – to be one with each individual member! Just this November 25, 2016, the Pope had some thoughts about this our calling in the midst of the people: that we have been made to be with others, especially the poor young… that it does not only mean being open and encountering the youth, BUT IT ALSO MEANS LETTING OURSELVES BE ENCOUNTERED BY THE YOUTH. Don Bosco’s electrifying words: “For you I study, for you I work, for you I live, and for you I am ready to give my life,” are very moving and challenging….
We can never be on the losing side in this call to be where the young are… We find ourselves in YOUTH CENTERS, YOUTH GROUPS, YOUTH APOSTOLATE, and in initiatives like in Tondo, Makati, Alabang. Calauan.
We ourselves have become Salesians because other Salesians have let themselves be encountered by us. We have met and encountered Salesians to the core, Salesians like Fr. Alfred Cogliandro, Fr. Charles Braga, Pierangelo Quaranta, Fr. Canduzo, Fr. Ricciarelli, Fr. Dominic Curto, Fr. John Andreau, Fr. Pepe, Br. Joseph Kramer, Br. Elmer Rodriguez, and so many others who are still living and among us here. They have been, in some way or other, persons who are open to being encountered either by encountering us in our search to be Salesians, or who helped us decide to be more generous and faithful in our calling as Salesians.
The Pope continues to stress on this need for “contact” with others… “We need to be looked upon, conversed with, called, touched, challenged –We need other confreres so that we can participate in all that which only the others can give us.. Relationships demand this exchange between people: Experience teaches us that usually we receive more from the others than we succeed in affording them.
There are innumerable stories and personal experiences of kindness and service which we have received from our fellow Salesians in TONDO, SAN ILDEFONSO, ALABANG, STA. CRUZ, PAMPANGA, TARLAC, MABALACAT, MAKATI, MANDA, LEGAZPI, CANLUBANG, CALAUAN, MAPAYAPA, NAGA, BATULAO, PARANAQUE, SAN JOSE NUEVA ECIJA, SANTA ROSA, in our communities, and in the Province. There are countless stories of solidarity, support, and help, that we receive even more than we have given. We see how our confreres, and those they help, bear hardships, pain, hard work, and difficulties in providing for the poor and less fortunate. ..and this catches on in our own environments.
Meeting these confreres and persons, we feel we come into contact with their zeal to shake us up to live our lives and come to believe that good is stronger than evil, since we ourselves have encountered goodness and virtue in our confreres, cooperators, and past pupils.
Our daily life is woven into these events that mark our existence. Being in the midst of our confreres helps us see the whole set-up of persons who work together to constitute the common good– which ultimately is setting up God’s Reign among us.
When we see the complete set result of our common effort, our out look becomes enriched-– it turns out that each one’s personal effort is prized and becomes embodied in the common effort that is spent – which is for the salvation of souls. When we are with our young persons in the way Don Bosco did, we touch the very humanity, which God has consecrated by Christ’s Incarnation and continued “remaining with us.”
When I was a youngster of 13, a Salesian Priest came to preach a retreat to the Salesians in Myanmar; at that time they were only seven Salesians in Burma. Well, this priest, Fr. Bury, was well up to his task. He preached in the Parish Church of St. Joseph. He was preaching in Italian… My mom happened to be in the Church. She became somewhat mystified by the Italian sermon that was being preached to the Salesians. My mom was not exaggerating when she said that the preacher, at every second sentence, mentioned “Don Bosco” and “Don Bosco” and “Don Bosco”! She concluded that these Salesians “really love Don Boco!” That’s when I asked to become a Salesian aspirant! Yes, this constant referring to Don Bosco is our way of following our Father and Founder Don Bosco, as if he were repeating to us daily: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ!” At the start of every single Religious Institute, there was not merely a “theory,” or a mere way of thinking – no, there was the ‘lived’ experience’ that was being exhibited and enjoyed under the aegis and guidance of and in concrete docility to the Holy Spirit. Don Bosco himself became empowered and led by the Holy Spirit from on high to take up the vast mission for the young… He had a clear consciousness of being called for this task, to become the Founder, not merely of a religious institution, but of even the whole vast movement for youth spirituality and a lay apostolate of vast proportions, with the slant for the poor youth – the Salesian Spirituality and Mission to be at the service of the Church and the world. (Acts GC 354, pages 6-7)
We Salesians are also called to become animators of youthful holiness. An important point to stress is our co-involvement “with” and “for” the lay persons who work together with us in educating the young persons to the faith. We, Salesians, have the duty of animating the increasing number of lay persons who belong to the Salesian Family: our cooperators, co-workers, co-involved, co-Salesians who take up an active role in their various presences and works. This is not only being asked of us by the Vatican II Ecclesiology, but it has been really a requirement in the original of the Salesian Spirit, lived out as gift by Don Bosco and the first Salesians and that has been faithfully passed on as a prized inheritance in the Salesian Family.
In our rules, the term “MISSION” does not merely mean an external activity. It has the deep connotation of being in line with the Trinitarian Mystery, where the Son and Holy Spirit are missioned by the Father, including us in the Mystery of the Church and its history- AS THE FATHER “HAS CONSECRATED THE SON, AND SENT HIM INTO THE WORLD,” SO ALSO IN OUR PROFESSION, IT IS THE LORD HIMSELF WHO CONSECRATES US AND SENDS US “AS THE APOSTLES OF THE YOUNG.” (Acts GC 22, page 14)
Lastly, we happen to be celebrating this Provincial get together during the novena of the Immaculate Conception. We entrust to her all our Confreres, all our Works, and Apostolate so that Mary’s motherly intervention continues to favor our efforts with enthusiasm, joy, and holiness in the way she did for Don Bosco— our Father and Teacher.