Consultation insights

Some comments / observations / insights after the consultation session...

• Concerning Formation: The formees in our formation houses truly feel that they are not meant for the formation house but for the Province. So far so good. But when they see the Province is much below the standard of the formation setting, they'd gladly fall or lower their standard to meet that level!
• The community itself is a mission, besides being a means for the mission. Therefore the need to build the community while tackling the mission. Furthermore, while taking up new offers from various places, we need to keep in mind that there is enough work for a community, not too little that will need one or two persons who could be left to do the work there. That is not the Salesian style of life and functioning.
• The fact that young clerics and those in initial formation leave us is a blot not on the formation staff, but on the confreres of the whole Province, especially with whom they live and work. I liked what Fr Maria Arokiam said in this regard: Young people join us to work for the youth, not to study philosophy and go through the aspirantate and all that stuff. Why then do they leave us when they begin to work? It is either because too much is demanded of them or they see a real discrepancy between what they so far were told to believe in and what they practically see now or they are led astray.
  

One thing that struck me during the session was the lack of Scripture-based confreres in the Province. Confreres rooted in and in love with the Word of God. Fr Maliekal quotes the scriptures, Fr Balaraju too is good enough, then there are a handful more, but that's it. I am beginning to wonder where does our speciality lie in?

This one is for the 'mission': Going by Fr PE Abraham's comments and remarks, only Jesus Christ can be elected as the Provincial!!