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This is the dominant feeling one gets nowadays about the ecclesial and Salesian situation in Cuba. The social and economic conditions are causing international and private organisms to show interest and concern in the precarious living conditions of the Cuban people. The state of the Cuban Church is surprising for its new energy: national conventions, social weeks, publication of reviews, Masses celebrated with large congregations unthinkable not very long ago; not to mention young people and adults who approach the Catholic Church and ask for baptism.
Fear and isolation are gradually giving way to trust and hope, to the courage to recognise the strength of solidarity. The Catholic Church in Cuba is realising its ability to become the sign of hope for a people rediscovering their dignity. The Salesian Family feels a great need to welcome young people, to show them signs of care, the encouragement of spiritual formation, prospects of hope, experiences of a joyful life, new horizons for a full life.
All this takes place when there is the conviction that precarious circumstances, though they may make life difficult, need not take away the confidence and joy inherent in a life of solidarity and service.
Our witness value as Salesians has been strengthened by the visit of the Rector Major, Don Vecchi. Although there are only 19 of us in Cuba, while there are 17000 in the world we feel reassured by the fact that he insisted on spending a whole week with us. He brought with him the support of the whole Congregation. The main thrust of his message to us was the need for spiritual formation.
Become involved in the process of the New Evangelization, starting from the Christian communities we are now animating, working with the local Church and always in close collaboration with the laity.
Your priority must be formation of youth leaders and animators for the Cuba of the future.
You must never lose direct contact with the young. Direct contact with the young is more important than structures”. It is people and only people who are really important
Strengthen the possibility of the formative presence, of at least one Salesian in each community. Quality rather than quantity, contact and rapport rather the formal relationships of the kind associated with power and money.
Carry out an intensive pastoral work for vocations in the widest sense, not only for the Salesian Family but for the whole Church as a guarantee for the future.
We are only a handful of men and we are being asked to do the impossible. We live in extreme poverty and above all we do not have enough personnel and means to tackle all these things. We are being urged to embark on a future project of enormous proportions, way beyond our strength. And that prospect makes me happy again, because I recall that this is precisely our authentic specific Salesian attitude, just as it was Don Bosco’s.
To start with the youngsters of Cuba, bogged down in great poverty, to start from a degraded and disheartened people, to have the courage of faith, the certainty that this is what God wants; and then to look to the future, to re-establish hope. Yes, it is indeed worth all the trouble.
The visit of the Rector Major is a challenge to us handful of Salesians in Cuba. As well as working in the revolutionised and disfigured Cuba of 1997, and being inserted in the Church and among the people, he has asked us to dedicate ourselves primarily and completely to formation.
It is not enough to be merely present, we must make people think. Formation must be of the whole person (Christian, human, spiritual. Body, mind and spirit). The special task of the Church and the Congregation is spiritual formation, the formation of leaders with moral and spiritual qualities. The guarantee of the Congregation’s future lies in well-prepared salesians, and if we do not have them we are only wasting our time. |
