One of the points that came up yesterday for discussion was the vocation recruitment strategy. While Fr TV truly said that youngsters look for something challenging and that is what draws them to the Salesian way of life. But I expressed my doubts... perhaps today, some youngsters see our lifestyle as something that offers life on a platter. So they say, 'Why struggle when life can be so easy and ready made!' Vocations of this sort, need to be 'purified' in the course of our formation. But I also have a strong feeling that some of our young people are determined to grin and bear the chiselling of the formation period to 'bloom' (or bloat) once they are perpetually professed or ordained.
There could also be another possibility: youngsters join us for very good reasons with a high level of motivation, but down the line (may be due to the lacklustre community life or a couple of disoriented minds) all of it evaporates! Just like Andy saying to Red in the movie 'The Shawshank Redemption': "Outside I was an honest man. Straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to become a crook." However, this is the case of only a few. The congregation thrives on the sweat and blood of the majority who slog it out.
All said and done, vocation still continues to be His gift and our response to His generosity in my context. If it were not for this truth, someone would have put the congregation for sale long ago!
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