Italy – A spiritual journey around the places of Don Bosco
Turin, Italy – September 2023 – The new missionaries have begun the fourth core area of their Orientation Course: the charismatic area. The General Councillor for Missions, Fr Alfred Maravilla, is guiding the participants during this stage with a Lectio Divina on relevant Scriptural texts. After prayer and personal reflection, the Councillor accompanies them in a commented rereading of passages from the Memoirs related to the places that will be visited in the afternoon. As Fr Maravilla points out: "visiting places of our Salesian heritage is not tourism. For every Salesian it is a Spiritual Journey in the historical places where the Salesian charism was born and originally developed. Fidelity to Don Bosco is not an imitation of what he did in his time, but an understanding of his motivations, intentions, reasons and apostolic choices, to make them our own so we can respond to the context of the young people we will meet in the different countries to which we will be sent." For Fr Juna Amang, a missionary in Papua New Guinea, "this experience is to live like Don Bosco", while for Fr George Kujur, destined for Nepal, "this experience helps us better understand the context and meaning of Don Bosco's narratives in the Memoirs of the Oratory." For this core charismatic area, the new missionaries were joined by Salesians taking part in the course on Missionary Pastoral Care that will begin in October at the Pontifical Salesian University (UPS) in Rome.