Messaggio della Consigliera per le Missioni _14 agosto 2018 eng

1. GOOUT,MEET,BECLOSE!
Rome, 14 August 2018.
Dearest Sisters,
A greeting full of gratitude and joy for each of you because yet again the Lord
gives us the possibility of meeting each other and reflecting together on His
GREAT plan of love for humanity: “That all may have life”, and a life made of
home, affection, bread, work, future!
First of all, I wish to remind you that on October 22, 2017, we re-launched the Project
.“For a common home in the diversity of peoples”
This project, begun in 2002 on the occasion of the 125th
anniversary of the first missionaries who
left for Uruguay, proposed a journey of sensitization regarding the phenomena of human mobility in
view of the co-existence of differences as the key for a new society.
It was not intended as a goal to build a house, a physical space for migrants, even if we would be
able to achieve such an action, but rather to consider our planet as the HOME for EVERYONE,
the HOME of EVERYONE, where everyone has a place to live with dignity, despite the diversity
of peoples: diversity of culture, religion, understanding of life, interpretation of events ...
When we relaunched the project, we proposed to see the migratory phenomenon from the point of
view of three verbs, according to the Magisterium of Pope Francis: GO OUT, MEET, BE
CLOSE!
Therefore, I would like to re-trace the journey made since January 2018 to today so that we may all
feel ourselves active in this project and truly commit ourselves for a world that is the “home of
everyone, home for everyone!” See the attachment!
Now, dearest sisters, we are in August, the month of the birth of our Institute, of the birth of Don
Bosco, of the feast of Mary’s Assumption into Heaven, of the memorial of many Saints, of many
martyrs and missionaries. We have on our calendar an important and significant date: August 25,
anniversary of the death of Blessed Maria Troncatti. But we will come back to this…
I wish to leave you a brief thought on Don Bosco and migrant young people. From the beginning
of his educational work, Don Bosco wanted attention focused on migrant young people who for
lack of opportunity had no other future than that of jail.
In the Memoirs of the Oratory, he himself recounts: “As soon as I entered the Convitto of St.
Francis, I immediately found a crowd of young boys who followed me through the streets, the
plazas, and even into the sacristy of the Institute Church. But I could not take care of them directly
because I did not have a place for them. A small incident offered an opportunity to try to implement
the project in favor of young people wandering the streets of the city, especially those out of
prison.”
According to Aldo Giraudo, the expression “wandering youngsters” concerns the times of Don
Bosco in which there had been a growing migration of young people from the countryside to the
capital, due to the demographic increase and the agricultural crisis. “Abandoned to themselves,
aggregated into groups, driven by need and hunger, they were easily prey to vices. Arrested by the
city police, they were locked up in the Towers prison awaiting trial” (Cf. John Bosco, Memoirs of the Oratory,
LAS - Rome, 2011, page 127).

2. GOOUT,MEET,BECLOSE!
I leave these questions for your reflection and also for a time of community dialog: “If Don Bosco
were a priest-educator in our time, alive and operative in our society, what would his attitude be in
the face of the ever increasing number of young migrants, of unaccompanied minors who arrive
everywhere and from everywhere?” In addition, “what words of encouragement would Don Bosco
have said to an FMA community that seeks to give a response to the migratory phenomenon of
young migrants?”
Let us try to speak of it; let us try to write it… with life, and thus we will render Don Bosco’s
presence more alive than ever among the little ones and the needy.
Blessed Sister Maria Troncatti
She was an FMA who knew how to give her life for the most
marginalized of her time. On August 25th
, Sacred Heart Province in
Ecuador will have the official inauguration of the celebration of the 50th
anniversary of the death of Sr. Maria Troncatti (1969-2019), a great
missionary among the Shuar in the Amazon Jungle.
As Sector, we will celebrate this jubilee in communion with the FMA of
Ecuador and, together with them, we will make a proposal of missionary
animation for the entire Institute beginning on January 2019.
We invite you to pray to Blessed Maria Troncatti for the new-
missionaries of the 2018-2019 year who have already arrived in Rome
and are now dedicated to learning the Italian language. They are
missionaries of joy and of hope, but above all, of much passion for Christ
and for the young; missionaries of Gospel radicalness who give themselves totally and consume
themselves for the Kingdom and for the Gospel, like Sr. Maria Troncatti.
Dearest Sisters, on August 25th
I encourage you to live a special time in community, looking at the
video indicated below together, gathering the aspects of the holiness of Sr. Maria Troncatti which
still today are the model and source of inspiration for each FMA, called to be a missionary of hope
and of joy.
In Italian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoIKfYJS08w
In Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maQeCz5xVzw
In Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello, a sisterly embrace and daily encounter in prayer.
Councilor for the Missions