The structures of our Houses are at the service of the last ones, dynamic, agile, simple and flexible; they should be considered not substantial to the House but functional to the purpose for which they exist: the integral formation of the poor and abandoned youth. In case of not significant Houses with regard to the charisma, let us have the courage to leave them.
Structures for service
No doubt that in order to provide a service, of whatever type, it is necessary to assemble, prepare an organization, a structure enabling us to truly serve, even though the Lord Jesus gives us examples to the contrary: to serve, often it is only necessary to remove your robe, place the towel around your waist and wash (serve) the feet of your friends.
Saint Leonard Murialdo already sought to build or set up structures for the service of poor, abandoned and more needy children, adolescents and youth, seeking that these structures, more than being large buildings, be welcoming places, as a court, a playground, places where kids are, those are already useful places and structures to serve the neediest, those who are our ones.
Of course structures are necessary, but at the same time they have to be open, dynamic, changing, attentive. It is the structure that needs to change, adapt to the needs of the poor and abandoned children, adolescents and youth of the society, and not vice versa. The child, the youth, the adolescent must find a structure in which he wants to be, to which he wants to go, where he finds the suitable environment for him, in which he can go around at ease and freely.
Saint Leonard Murialdo himself opened and organized several institutions for his boys, and likewise, he, rather than doing tests and analyses to state that such institutions were no more an effective and actual response to the problems of his children, with courage, closed or restructured them, without nostalgias for tradition or architectonics, let alone economic worries. We should also bring to mind the creation of large and important structures designed to be seminaries, or boarding schools, and then they were left empty, because we were not able to read correctly the signs of the times. The same thing must happen today in the congregation and in the FDM, which after careful consideration, venerating and confirming the memory of so many Josephites and collaborators who contributed with their lives to the formation of service structures and charismatic institutions, should verify the continuity, usefulness and coherence of the existing structures with respect to our charisma (service) and their recipients.
The structure is a medium, it was created for something else, it is not an end. The goal of our Foundation on March 19, 1873 was not building large or small houses and buildings,. The structure is functional, in function of something else, in our case of service, and not of any service, but of the integral promotion of poor and abandoned children, adolescents and youth through our presence and education in relation. For these things, we need the buildings, but also people who with their attitudes shows to be near and present.
Providence, which is wiser than us, and more generous, gave us many structures, large structures, for the service to the last, the poor. However, we must ask, in what have we changed these gifts of Providence, these pastoral activity spaces , these institutions? Are they places where poor and abandoned children, adolescents and youth go, where they feel in a familiar place, where they are welcomed?
Dynamic, agile, simple and flexible structures.
The structure at the service of the neediest, the last must appear welcoming towards them, enabling them to identify with the walls, the place and with our style that is regulated by humility and charity, which oozes from the walls God’s merciful love and having in each angle an aspect of the education of the heart.
The seventh Guideline asks us that the structure is dynamic, i.e., having dynamis (= strength), the animating force, the Spirit’s power. In it all breath a new, clean, purifying, cooler air. We are not told to make new or rather great structures, super-structured or modern: often this type of buildings intimidates the boys, the poor boys. The Josephan structure at the service of the neediest will be dynamic when in it all members of the FDM will find their living space, where the institution produces in those who attend it that spirit by which one gives himself to others, a self-giving that consolidates in sharing, in the presence among children and in relationships through which we pass by osmosis the force to change the established disorder of injustice, violence and poverty.
The seventh Guideline of action asks us that the structure is agile, ready for instant service, ready to welcome quickly whoever needs, prepared, attentive to the needs of those who come near. Many young people do not come or attend to our institutions, because they did not find anybody willing to welcome them, anybody waiting for them. The structure should always have, so to speak, open doors, open structures, open hearts, open minds. The Josephan structure in the service of the neediest will be agile when it all members of the FDM are focused on providing structural answers to the ever new, ever-changing needs of youth and children, when we can take quick steps toward those who need us, when in our institutions, kids are not barred from participating because of an administrative bureaucracy discouraging love.
The seventh Guideline asks us that the structure is simple, uncomplicated, free from any touch making the atmosphere heavy. An institution that in the simplicity, the straightforwardness of its structure shows the beauty of things, of the world created by God. Simplicity also invites us not to be prejudiced about people who come to our house, to create spaces in which we can enjoy freedom from things. The house of the poor is simple because it is not packed, filled with things, things often useless. The Josephan structure in the service of the neediest will be simple when keeping the essentials, like a poor house, which often lacks even the necessary, is able to take action without many complications.
The seventh line of action asks us that the structure is flexible, an institution which may extend so that more people may come in, an institution that only knows the limits of love and service. An institution able to adapt, to change easily according to what kids need, an institution able to educate in the extended and narrow space, an institution breathing deeply the air of the new times. A structure that can even forgive and understand the faults our boys may commit, the most rebellious ones, those who want to draw our attention to them, because they want that we look at them carefully, because they want something more from us, because they want us to open up to them and understand them. The Josephan structure in the service of the neediest will be flexible when expanding and reducing the areas, all may be comfortable in them, be at ease in the sense of promoting each educational moment.
The essential point in the institution is its functionality, the objective of the structure is to serve for something greater, is to be a tool for service. Every house, every place, every parish, oratory, youth centre, community centre, school and boarding school should be challenged, wondering if they have these features, if they are really functional for the purposes the charisma of San Leonardo Murialdo set itself, and continues to set us, the XXI century FdM. In our houses the young learn, play, pray? Do they find the space and motivation to be good Christians and honest citizens? Do the most timid, the fearful, the neediest, the most rebellious find the doors open?
Not significant houses
The seventh Guideline speaks of a significant institution, institutions, houses, structures that are a living sign of what we do, our charisma, our way of doing and thinking. Institutions that have meaning according to the thinking of the founder, that have a sense, and this sense, this meaning cannot be other than: the integral promotion of poor and abandoned children, adolescents and youth.
Finally, as a hope, as an invitation to conversion (change of path), we are told that if the institutions do not have or lost their meaning, their sense, we must have the courage to close them, overcoming the pain that the habit may produce, being able to uproot ourselves from the places, from the land in order to open new roads responding to the charisma, to our vocation. If the poor are gradually moved ever more toward the periphery of society, of cities, if they have a life of nomads, always moving, always looking for their living space, we cannot remain static or anchored in the same mental , socio-economic or geographic places, we need to change, move, we must act boldly, walk alongside the poor, shoulder to shoulder, not to fail our charisma, to give continuous responses, and so being a constant reminder of God's love, which is dynamic, always new, always attentive.
In the case that some institutions remain valid, but their significance is somewhat camouflaged, we must have the courage to change profoundly the structures, the mental rather than the material ones, to put them at the service of the last, renew them in the light of our charisma, optimizing in a better way the spaces, the services we could provide, widening the time schedules, working according to the needs of the boys. So we will give the possibility that all our institutions be significant, that all our houses intensely live the charisma, without forgetting or diluting it, being honest with the vocation to which we were called, being responsible with the mission entrusted to us within the Church.
Structures can even fall, decay, go out of fashion and no longer bear witness and be significant; but no matter, because what is not perishable is the embodied charisma, the active charisma, the founder's dream that is passed down from generation to generation.
Fr. Oscar Galeas
