The 2023 vocations campaign is an educational-pastoral proposal to continue to care for the promotion and consolidation of an authentic vocational culture in all the houses of the two Salesian Provinces of Spain: St. James the Greater (SSM), based in Madrid; and Mary Help of Christians (SMX), based in Seville.
The new vocations campaign is part of the annual pastoral campaign "Abrimos Caminos" (Let us open paths), and is accompanied by the biblical image of the Good Shepherd (Jn. 10:1-15) and the words of Pope Francis contained in his Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit. Its goal is "to propose looking with faith on one's life that helps to discover our deepest being and reveals the path, the journey, - the vocational proposal - that God has for each of us: a mission that fills life with meaning and impels us to build the world around us; a mission to which the Spirit himself empowers us."
"We invite you to implement the campaign in your local realities: articulating strategies, facilitating scheduling, coordinating leaders and environments, encouraging the different groups of the Salesian Family; in short, spreading the vocational campaign," said Fr. José Carlos Sobejano and José Luis Navarro, heads of Vocational Animation in SSM and SMX respectively.
Common resources for local proposals
The campaign itself offers resources for coordinating those in charge of different environments and encouraging all groups in the Salesian Family to carry out actions focused on fostering vocation culture. All materials are available at https://salesianos.info/abrimoscaminos/vocacional and on the websites of the two Provinces: www.salesianos.edu and www.salesianos.es.
"We hope that we will be able to involve in the different initiatives all the circles of the local educational-pastoral communities that are already included in the materials we offer, and we also hope that other and new actions can be planned at the local and/or Provincial level," the coordinators add.
The campaign will also have audiovisual support and promotion on social networks, thanks to the motivational videos that will serve as support and will be shared on the Salesians' institutional pages on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.