For the Salesians who have already participated in several previous chapters, it is a bit tiring to have to re-read documents and reports and participate in endless debates on issues that have been treated so often in the past. They naturally wonder if it would not be better to discuss less and not take time from our work among those who need us.
In thermodynamics there is a well-known concept which is called entropy. In simple terms it means a tendency that leads systems to disorder, which debilitates them even to the point of destruction. This is especially true with systems that lose their stability because of isolation or lack of communication or exchange with other systems.
This concept refers to a type of dynamic which undoubtedly leads an organization to close, to become isolated and to develop a system which slowly leads to death.
Our Chapters are privileged moments that protect us from this danger, through the evaluation, verification and correction of the processes of our Provinces. In this way they are revitalized and the course of our communities redirected, depending on the mission and the priorities adopted.
The success of this correction of the processes and the journeys we undertake, and the optimization of the charism, are the result of deep and sincere communication in the communities in which the experience of faith has a central place.
When the criteria of faith are given priority, the analyses of situations that are carried out are completely different, and often at odds with those made by organizations that seek only to improve their services or the quality of their products. The eyes of faith compel us as believers to evaluate our options not in relation to what is reasonable or profitable, but according to the criteria of Christ and Don Bosco. Therefore, good management of our Provinces cannot be measured only by the indexes of quality and performance, but on the basis of the ability to transform ourselves and to remain united to Christ, the One who makes us enter this profound dynamism of choices based on love.
This experience of Christian love leads us away from any form of entropy, which is reflected in the search for comfort, safety and immobility. The Pope refers to this when he says: “Whenever we Christians are enclosed in our groups, our movements, our parishes, in our little worlds, we remain closed, and the same thing happens to us that happens to anything closed: when a room is closed, it begins to get dank. If a person is closed up in that room, he or she becomes ill!" When a Province refuses to enter discussion in order to be open to new possibilities, it slowly runs out of air, it gets sick and eventually dies.
The Holy Father added, "To be faithful, to be creative; we need to be able to change. To change! And why must I change? So that I can adapt to the situations in which I must proclaim the Gospel. To stay close to God, we need to know how to set out, we must not be afraid to set out.” God invites us to be like Jonah: to leave our safety and our business calculations and start preaching.
Nineveh is outside our schemes, it is on the margins of the world and these new marginalized areas have specific names - of countries, of life-situations, of human groups, which are on the other side of the street, in the outskirts of our cities or on the screen of our computers. We need to know where to look. "God is not afraid of the marginalized areas,” the Pope says. “If you go to the marginalized areas, you will find him there."
