The original gift of the Salesian Family of Don Bosco

The Salesian Family identity charter is an important document of the Salesian Family, a synthesis of the charter of the mission and the charter of communion.

The identity of the Salesian Family takes its life from the same Spirit that inspired Don Bosco to think and to found, as 'patriarch', this family, originally made up of four groups.

Each group has its own charismatic identity, aroused at the origins of a specific historical journey to discover an original gift; this "original gift" draws strength from the spirit of Don Bosco and is simultaneously, original and diversified in the various groups.

The reflection on charismatic identity has its own revealing force, because with it one can touch with one's own hand what the Holy Spirit, even today, puts into play for the salvation of the young, as a perfect continuity of God's initiative with the figure and history of Don Bosco. The whole Salesian Family is an essential component of the Church in perfect communion with it, originating from the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.

The Salesian Family draws its strength primarily from a spirituality, which is daily and apostolic. It is nourished and draws its strength from the relationship with the divine force of God in the everyday, and apostolic interactions because it takes its specific from through relationships and service. There is a profound interpenetration between God's will and service to brothers and sisters, in a continuous search for truth, exactly as Mary, Mother of the Church and of the Salesian Family, lived, with her horizon of life. As she always moved "a little further" from the Lord to the foot of the cross, with a living, continuous and mysterious presence to accompany her Son.

In the charismatic identity of the various groups, there should also be an original way of living the relationship with God that is manifested in apostolic action. I take Don Bosco's Community of the Mission as an example, which in its history of forty years, has discovered that its own spirituality, which is certainly Salesian, has been referred to by the Community's second world assembly as a "Spirituality of Searching"; this is to be conceived precisely as a constant search for God's will on the life and work of the Community, just as it was for Mary, who saw her horizon of life and faith shifted more and more towards a total and definitive dedication to Jesus.

Guido Pedroni

Don Bosco Mission Community