Drawing on the rich Salesian tradition, starting precisely with Don Bosco's experience with Fr. Cafasso, participants will be guided in reading current times to identify viable paths and opportunities to help young people become adults.
This is not an isolated step: such a seminar goes to give continuity to the journey undertaken with the 2018 Synod on Youth and comes at the conclusion of the vocational animation project that closed with the publication of the document "Buona Stoffa – Good Fabric, Towards a Vocational Animation Project. The Personal Path. For a craftsmanship of Salesian accompaniment." Now the Salesians of the Mediterranean Region wish to focus their attention on young people (18-30 years old) called to become adults responding to their vocation.
"We will approach adult life starting from the art of discernment as a method and attitude of profound listening of desire, to one's own life and to the Word of God, going through the paschal passage of going out of oneself. We will be guided in this by the living tradition of our charism and the wisdom of those who accompany young people growing up today," say the seminar organizers.
The program of activities includes three central papers, one per day, and three in-depth studies on some significant figures of Salesian spirituality: the venerable Fr. Vincenzo Cimatti, Fr. Giuseppe Quadrio, and the young martyr Blessed Bartolomé Blanco Márquez.
On the afternoon of the first day Fr. Gustavo Cavagnari, Professor of Pastoral Theology at the Salesian Pontifical University (UPS) in Rome, will address the theme, "The traits of an adult identity in a vocational key."
On Tuesday, Oct. 4, on the other hand, Father Gaetano Piccolo, a Jesuit and lecturer at the Pontifical Gregorian University, will explain to those present "The dynamics of choice in becoming an adult."
In the morning of the last day of the seminar, after the Mass that will be presided at the Shrine of the Consolata by the Rector Major, Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, it will be the turn of Fr. Josè Miguel Nunez Moreno, National Delegate for Youth Ministry of Spain, to offer "an actualizing charismatic reading."
The event will also include times for discussion at the provincial level, intermediate discussion phases, and times for shared spirituality.
For more information, visit the webpage: https://donboscoitalia.it/seminario-vocazionale2022/