“To consolidate the FdM through occasions of formation and multilevel (local, provincial, international) shared participation, also using the new information and communication technologies”
As it is in all families, our Family of Murialdo too is walking little by little, is growing, maturing, aspiring to new goals and projects, always guided by a common charisma: the service to the poorest ones.
However, in order to grow, we cannot be individual, standing alone and close in themselves people, but we need to share experiences and formation moments which will allow us to follow the same course in our growth.
This fifth action guideline proposed us by the Pastoral Forum of the Murialdo Family, which took place at Londrina (Brazil) from April 24 to May 3 in 2009, is also in accordance with what says at no. 4 the General Chapter XXI of the Josephites, speaking about Ongoing Formation: “We deepen a more articulated awareness of our charisma, open to meeting with the other realities of St. Leonard’s Family, in sharing of prayer, apostolate and of times of formation and of daily life. We value formation teams composed of religious and laity.”
Among the different means we have to go on strengthening the Family of Murialdo, together with prayer and apostolate, formation is also important. A formation that, as the Chapter suggests us, must be done together, religious and lay people, since we all share the same spirituality and apostolic mission. A formation where the different charisms are enriching each other, and at the same time the family spirit is increasing and our group identity and sense of belonging are growing and maturing.
Depeening together the elements constituting our spiritual and apostolic charisma and participating in reflection and work groups, sharing experiences, reflections, knowledge, plans and worries, difficulties, etc. helps to grow in communion and to become family.
For this it is necessary that each one gives importance and time to his formation. The need for an ongoing formation is peculiar of every person who wants to keep on growing in his personal and community life, improving his professional capacities.
If the religious have ongoing or continuous formation fixed by their Constitutions, also the lay members of the Murialdo Family in numerous meetings manifested their need to be formed, and they ask for a formation that will allow them to be personally enriched and to better carry out their apostolic tasks.
In order to putv into effect a formation project it is necessary to plan specific meetings among all of us, and with a certain recurrence and constance.
These meetings should go from the smaller, i.e. the members of the same community and institution, to the bigger – the international meetings –, going through, of course, the provincial meetings.
In this fifth action guideline of the Murialdo's Family Pastoral Forum, we also get the suggestion to use the new information and communication technologies.
The New Information and Communication Technologies
When we put together these three words: Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), we are referring to the mass of technological progress provided by informatics, telecommunications and audiovisual technologies, comprising the developments relating to computers, Internet, telephony, the mass media, multimedia applications and virtual reality. These technologies basically supply us with information, tools to process it and communication channels.
The Information and Communication Technologies are unquestionable and are here, they are part of the tech culture surrounding us and with which we must live together. They increase our phisical and mental abilities, and also the possibilities of social development.
We include in the concept of ICT not only informatics and its associated technologies, telematics and multimedia, but also all kind of means of communication: the mass media and the traditional interpersonal means of communication with a technological support, as the phone, fax...
The ICT shape the information society. Theextensive and more and more integrated use of ICT is a characteristic and a change factor of our present society.
As they change, following the rythm of the continuous scientific progress and within a framework of economic and cultural globalization, the ICT contribute to the fast acquisition of knowledge and the rise of new values, causing continuous transformationsin our economic, social and cultural structures. They also affect almost all aspects of our life: access to the labour market, public healt, Civil Service management, economic management, industrial and artistic design, free time, communication, information, the way we perceive reality and think, the organization of firms and institutions, their methods and activities, the form of interpersonal communication, life quality, education... Their great impact in all our life's spheres makes more and more difficult that we can act efficiently doing without them.
Their main contributions to human activities are in fact a series of functions making easier for us the carrying out of our works since, whatever they are, they always require some information in order to be done, a certain data process and often also communication with other people; and this is what precisely the ICT offer us.
There is no doubt that, of all the elements making up the ICT, Internet is the most powerful and revolutionary one. It opens us the doors of a new age, the Internet Age, in which the present Information Society is set. Indeed now we people can divide our life's time interacting in three worlds: the presential world, of physical nature, made by atoms, governed by the laws of space, in which there are distances between things and people; the intrapersonal world of imagination and the cyberspace, of virtual nature, made by bits, without distances. Internet provides us with this third world in which we can do many things among those we do in the real world, and what's more it allows us to develop new activities, many of them enriching our personality and way of life, like connecting with telematic forums and people from the whole world, the immediate tracking down of whatsoever kind of information, online work, e/learning, online leisure time, etc.
Three are the formation and participation levels or ambits suggested us in this action guideline: local, provincial and international.
Local Level
The local level is the first ambit of formation. It is here that cannot be missing spaces for reflection, sharing, update of knowledge and nourishing with sound contents our vocation and our life.
In each religious community, in each apostolic institution, in each nucleus where the Family of Murialdo is present, it is necessary that all the Family's members have their formation meetings with a fixed schedule. It is in this local ambit that it is easier to find spaces and times for the formation and participation of all, religious and lay people.
In many institutions there is already a planning of formation meetings by sectors: youth, teachers, volunteers, etc. on specific themes, often related with the particular apostolic activity. But it is also advisable that, at times, all the FdM members of a same place meet in order to reflect and share on what we all have in common and unites us. It can be at a monthly day of recollection, a particular celebration, etc.
This will considerably contribute to consolidate the Family of Murialdo in each local reality, encouraging knowledge and communion among all, and will have a positive effect on the apostolic work in which all are involved and all are responsible, each one according to his own competence.
Here we cannot forget either the use of the techonologies at our disposal that offer an efficacios contribution to formation. From using the audio-visual media like videos and slideshows prepared with thecomputer, to communications through e/mail and SMS messages on the mobile phone for calling and reminding the meetings.
Finally, the local Web Page too can include a space for ongoing formation, where are uploaded the formative themes to which all may be interested and which each one can handily download at home.
Provincial level
Religious provinces of the Congregations are territories that normally coincide with a state or can comprise many neighbouring states. Therefore they bring together various communities and instititutions which, because of many common characteristics, form a unity of organization and coordination. It has a repercussion also for the different FdM groups existing in this territory and allows to organize formation and participation spaces.
At provincial level, in the countries or regions where the Family of Murialdo is present, there are already formation meetings for the different groups making up the family: Murialdine Sisters, Josephites, Murialdo's Lay People, Apostolic Mothers, Alumni, etc.
Also in some provinces they are planning national or provincial meetings of the FdM on the occasion of the solemnity of Murialdo or the celebration of the FdM day. These are occasions for formation and boosting contacts among all the family members.
Other formation and participation means or instruments are: the different provincial commissions or teams, where religious and lay people representing the local realities meet; the forums or meetings about specific themes; days of formation and spirituality open to all; printing formation material, etc.
In each province the coordination team of the Family of Murialdo has also among its priority goals promoting formation initiatives and, for this, the new technologies will be a good help.
International Level
At the international level, the Family of Murialdo already began, from September 2009, an initiative based on the new communication and information technologies. It is the Distance Formation courses on Murialdine Pedagogy. These online courses will use a computer platform with the possibility of different computer facilities: online texts, web pages, slides, videos, audio archives, e/mail, chat, audio or video conferences, wiki, blogs, etc.
The aims of this formation modality are: 1.Offering an integral formative proposal starting from the Murialdine educative style, for the educators' personal and community growth in the spiritual-pedagogic charisma. 2.Improving the daily practice in the service to children and youth, mainly the most poor and needy ones, in order to direct our institutions toward a greater adhesion to the charisma. 3.Strenghtening the teams of lay people and religious in their ability of managing the institutions within the horizon of the Murialdine charisma.
They are marked by acontinuous dialogue between teachers, tutors and students, basically going on through computer and Internet. The courses give to the student a great flexibility in organizing his study time from his own home, in any place of the world.
The experience of this first stage of Distance Formation in the Family of Murialdo is very enriching, both for students and teachers. It is favouring mutual knowledge and sharing of experiences between members of the family from different places, countries and apostolic commitments within the same charisma.
We began with a good offer of interesting courses in the different languages, like: TheCharisma of St. Leonard Murialdo, Religious and lay people: new paths of co-responsibility, Youth and Christian proposal, Building our school in a pastoral way, Instruments of dialogue between cultures, just to quote some of them. In these three months the offer increases with new courses, and we hope to continue to do so in the future.
At the address: http://elearning.murialdo.org one can access all the information about these courses, or even at the portal murialdo.org.
Other formation moments at international level are the Pedagogic Seminars , the International Forums on specific topics and other kinds of sectorial meetings, as the ones on pastoral, youth or the next international meeting of the Murialdo Family in Turin. These meetings greatly contribute to give an international face to our family, favour the knowledge of the different countries' reality, contribute to establishing relationships with the members of other places and bring about plenty of reflection and suggestion for all.
Conclusion
I finish this short review of some initiatives that are already going on so to realize this fifth action guideline of the Pastoral Forum, and can serve as suggestions for those places where it is still possible to do more, reminding two commitments related with this subject which the document “Road Map” of the Murialdo's Family proposes us.
- Creating culture on the “Family of Murialdo”, God's gift for us all and, in particular, giving to this theme the right importance in all our formative paths.
- Favouring the setting up at local level of living cells of the “Family of Murialdo” and at national level, according to the milieu's own characteristics, favouring the formation of coordination and representation organizations for the Family of Murialdo”.
Surely a formation in all the spheres that encourages a culture on the FdM will help at local, national and international level to create living cells of the Family of Murialdo and will facilitate setting up organizations of joint participation and, of course, also of coordination and representation.
Thanks to the new information and communication technologies, and in particular to Internet, it was possible to realize at the international level the first phase of this Pastoral Forum of the Murialdo's Family and also we are carrying out this third phase. The continuation of these themes of reflection on the guidelines which we monthly propose, and the audio-visual presentation of the diverse kinds of answers and educative-pastoral services we are offering to our poorest children and youth, is already a formation space that will contribute to a better knowledge of what our charismatic family is realizing. It is a concrete way to continue consolidating the Family of Murialdo at international level through formation, participation and the new information and communication technologies.
