The appointment opened with an initial prayer, followed by the sharing of news from the various territories and organizations. Subsequently, after a reading of some parts of the text, the General Councilor for the Missions commented and answered questions raised by the sharing.
What emerged from the debate, and also in relation to the programmatic line on the "First Proclamation" indicated by the Rector Major for the 2020-2026 term, is that the Missions Sector has - and must do so increasingly - take on the task of promoting reflection and the initiative of raising awareness on the theme.
The "First Proclamation" is presented with the image of two young people in love (see page 29 of the book) and is defined as the testimony and activity that foster an overwhelming and exalting experience of Jesus, arousing an interest in his Person (see page 32).
The target audiences are: non-Christians, people who say they are Christians but whose faith is weak (and this has been identified as a priority focus for the Mediterranean Region), those who are looking for Someone or something they perceive or sense, those who live a meaningless daily life (cf. p.34).
The new evangelization is based precisely on the "First Proclamation" (see page 41), through the effort to help people make a personal choice for Jesus Christ. And attention to urban contexts becomes important today, with special attention to social networks as a place to evangelize and talk about Jesus (cf. Salesian Mission Day 2022), to human mobility as a possibility offered to bearing witness to Jesus Christ, and paying attention to secularism with sometimes soft, sometimes aggressive features (cf. from page 43).
Europe, although traditionally imbued with Christianity, is still a missionary context today, where a multicultural, multi-religious, globalized and digital context remains (see page 46). The Preventive System, for its part, is a way to promote the initial proclamation in a Salesian way (see page 74), in the awareness that it is not a matter of having to "invent new things", but of translating and updating Christian testimony in the current context. This is also for the benefit of the benefactors of the Salesian mission, who also need the "First Proclamation".
The meeting concluded with a final prayer and the planning of the next meeting, scheduled for May 26.
