The groups of the Salesian Family, each with their own charism and specificities, share the same spirit and help to give continuity, according to the different vocations, to the mission begun by the Saint of Youth.
"Canção Nova" is an association of Christian faithful made up of women and men, young people and adults, married and celibate, priests and deacons, who commit themselves to radically live the consecration to God made in Baptism and Confirmation in a community life, in function of the common apostolate. This way of life is inspired by the practice of the evangelical counsels adapted to secular life. The Gospel is the foundation of the Canção Nova Community: the commitment of all members is to live it and communicate it with the efficacy of the Holy Spirit in an integral way.
Canção Nova was founded on 2 February 1978 by Fr Jonas Abib, who strongly felt the call of the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi. The request made by the Holy Father, Pope Paul VI, to the Church to commit itself to proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the contemporary world led him to promote various formative activities for young people and adults in the diocese of Lorraine (Sao Paulo-Brazil). In 1977, on the Feast Day of Christ the King, he launched a challenge: "Who is willing to leave their home to come and live in a community to carry out with me this type of evangelization that I am doing with you?". In response to this appeal, the first nucleus of community life arose.
Admission to the Salesian Family had great significance for Canção Nova. It was in a Salesian school that Jonas Abib perceived the call to a new mission and in the Salesian context the steps that led to the foundation of the Community of Canção Nova arose. The same Msgr. Jonas Abib, a former Salesian, has always said that Canção Nova is a fruit of Don Bosco.
On 6 March 1997, Canção Nova also arrived in Rome with four women as pioneers, and as the first mission abroad. Having overcome the first concerns about how to live their mission in another country, the missionaries began to act as tourist guides for Brazilian pilgrims and to lead prayer groups in Italian and Portuguese. Currently, the community counts on the presence of various missionaries, very active in the field of communication, and collaborates constantly, with great availability and professionalism, in the recovery, dissemination and sharing of the main events of the Salesian Family, such as the Spirituality Days, the Feast of Don Bosco, and the like.
