Guidelines for the FdM
1) To be faithful to our charisma, recognizing the poor and abandoned young men as prophets and transforming into a prophecy our ministry among them.
2) To live the Pedagogy of Love as an emblem of our identity, giving particular attention to the signs of the times.
3) To keep alive the charismatic spirituality of the FdM members through prayer, personal and professional formation and ministry.
4) To grow stronger as FdM, recognizing and valorising the signs of belonging in every country, sharing responsibilities and organising it as a network.
5) To consolidate the FdM through occasions of formation and multilevel (local, provincial, international) shared participation, also using the new information and communication technologies.
6) To develop forms of collaboration, co-responsibility and communion among the FdM members, remaining open to the possibility to create communities characterized by life in common.
7) 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.
8) The FdM tries to participate in the formulation, execution and verification of the social politics for the poor and abandoned young men, interacting with the legislation with a network action in the territory, beginning from the project of society consistent with the Gospel.
9) To appraise our educational and pastoral action under the light of the Gospel, the Charisma and the Social Sciences.
Proposals to carry out the guidelines
Guidelines for Africa
“We commit ourselves to love, to educate and to serve the poorest young people, who are particularly numerous in our territorial reality. They live, very often, with serious problems, for lack of resources and perspectives.” We want to do it by being their companions on their way, being for them “friends, brothers and fathers”, and above everything, in the discovery of the positive values that they already possess.
- It is difficult to speak of Family of Murialdo; in our African communities we don't have the “Family of Murialdo.” There are lay people helping us in the education of the poor and abandoned ones. But they work as employees, because they get a salary. This is due to the situation of poverty of a lot of families; there is need to work and to earn for maintaining them.
- The ministry among the poor requires love and dedication. Who doesn't love is not able to work with the poor.
- Up to now there is not FdM; it is a challenge for the African delegation, being present poor African Josephan confreres. We will try to implant this beautiful FdM according to the African reality.
- Our Houses and structures don't favour and don’t fit into our style of life. Our challenge would be that the future Houses have appropriate places to welcome the poor and abandoned ones.
Guidelines for the Argentinean-Chilean province
- To give importance to the moments of verification and the participation of our young people in what we are realizing in our centres
- To deepen the guidelines directly with the poorest young people
- To promote the participation of all the communities in the ccoms (Murialdine community centres).
- To designate a communication referent in every House
- To have a working plan in the ccoms
- To conform the ccoms with the Murialdine sisters
- To try to have common formative lines for the FdM members
- To assemble in mini-forums all those working in our Houses
- To realize a formation school for the coordinators of our community centres.
- To valorise the “Congress” that already exists, as formative path for our persons in charge
- To look for and to valorise spaces of common formation at regional level.
- To organize a day where we could have a sort of time reading, to see what the progress and the failures have been looking for things that can be proposed as model and improving the others.
- To elect the representatives to realize a common project at the provincial level.
- To create an area of participation in the public politics and in the appeals of social action
- According to the territories, more in some and less in others, it can be done, taking advantage from network activity.
- To prepare a presentation of the whole social work done in every region and show it to the politicians, to awaken them on the theme.
- To promote and strengthen working as a network, above all where it doesn't exist.
- To open the possibility to be Family of Murialdo to the communities
- To strengthen the communities in the unity and in integration for the FdM.
- In our Houses and in the community centres let us keep in mind what is essential and simple as regards the structures
- To valorise the verification as our ministry’s point of departure
- To be all committed to have a moment of verification in every operational phase.
GUIDELINES FOR THE FAMILY OF MURIALDO IN BRAZIL
- Intensified formation together with the FdM, opening participation spaces to the lay people.
- To invest in permanent formation, under the light of the charisma, of the professional figures, of our collaborators and volunteers
- To strengthen, to form and to integrate a cell of the Friends of Murialdo Lay People in every House.
- To decentralize the meetings and reunions of the FdM.
- Visibility and insertion in the public politics.
- Creation of an effective system of information (inside communication network among the Houses to act with greater efficiency)
- To strengthen and to understand our routine and, subsequently, to transmit the definitions of the Forum.
- To define the criteria for identifying the young people welcomed in our institutions, making discernment and applying some parameters that can qualitatively and quantitatively measure our actions towards the last ones.
- To implant those activities that create opportunity to widen the FdM in our institutions. Ex.: preparation and promises of the Friends of Murialdo Lay People.
- To grow more refined in the feeling of belonging to the FdM is as making a choice of life according to the charisma of Murialdo.
- To deepen the debate as regards the mixed communities.
- To extend and integrate the FdM with the opening of new fronts.
- To divulge the forum in the Friends of Murialdo’ reunions and subsequently, to widen the debate and the definitions in relation to the course of the presence of the lay people. Some people should be freed for this task.
- To qualify the verifications and monitoring of our meetings.
BRAZILIAN PROVINCE (JOSEPHITES)
- To define the site of the province devoting it to the social action of the Murialdo.
- To unify the technologies that refer to the projects of the different institutions.
- To invest in the elaboration and putting into action of a Strategic Plan.
- To invest in obtaining long and medium term financial independence.
- To think about the development of joined actions among the institutions.
MURIALDINE SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH - BRAZIL
- To spread the lay people’s participation in the Socio-Educational Team.
- To elaborate a Common Program of Formation for Educators on the Murialdine Charisma, interacting with the corporate bodies closer to us (responsibility: Socio-Educational Team).
- To create the Portal of the Murialdine Sisters to the purpose of making possible the presentation and interaction of the different realities.
GUIDELINES FOR THE PROVINCE OF ECUADOR - COLOMBIA
Boys and young people at risk
- The whole province should exert itself for the social works. To awaken the confreres to the priority of the poor and abandoned youth at the core of our acting.
Family of Murialdo:
2. To give life to the FdM with a simple profile and a renewed commitment. To improve the relations among the Josephites, the Murialdine Sisters, lay collaborators, secular institute etc., and to realize a really shared pastoral action, with participation and co-responsibility.
3. Meeting in Quito with the social pastoral operators of Ecuador and Colombia, where the projects and the programs of the joined activities would be presented. It will be formed the FdM social pastoral network.
Restructuring of the institutions:
4. Don't create gigantic structures, which then we cannot change or convert. Let's connect with the new social poverties that touch the young people. The FdM will manage the new works for the neediest boys and young people.
GUIDELINES FOR THE VICE-PROVINCE OF SPAIN
On the Family of Murialdo
- Awakening of all the Family of Murialdo members (religious, secular and not Catholics) to make them aware of what the Family of Murialdo is, applied to different communities, on the basis of everyone’s needs, organizing a reunion a year, for one day, in which to share experiences and worries. Preparation according to age.
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Direct involvement of the Pastoral Committee of the Vice-province.
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Formation in subject of pedagogy of love, as soon as we will advance in the awareness of all the Family of Murialdo members.
Coordination with the public institutions and work as a network
- To keep on working with the public institutions and to contact others of them, like the Jail Ministry, the Juvenile Court and the social services.
Communion of life among the FdM members
- To maintain the charisma of the "open doors" among the FdM members in all the religious communities, with the sharing of moments of life.
Structures of the institutions
- In the development of the institutions let us keep in mind that the structures be dynamic and accessible, at the service of the last ones.
- Active participation of the lay people in the aforesaid development.
Verification
- To establish verifications in the light of the charisma in the meetings that we periodically hold; weekends of prayer open to those who want to participate.
PROPOSALS FOR MAKING EFFECTIVE THE GUIDELINES FOR THE FDM IN THE ITALIAN PROVINCE
- The great variety of actors and apostolic, cultural, linguistic and religious contexts, in Italy, Albania and Romania, if from one side it represents a wealth, from the other one it constitutes a burden that prevents us from formulating concrete proposals.
- Surely it is necessary to send the various local realities the Guidelines. For this the provincial council of the Josephites and the Murialdine Sisters study the most opportune forms to welcome and to put into practice this document, valorising the present FdM Provincial Coordination Committee of the Italian province (composed by representatives of the Murialdo Lay People Communities, Apostolic Mothers Association, Alumni...)
- To strengthen as FdM the network and the occasions of meeting among the various contexts and actors (spiritual exercises, formation courses, pastoral coordination committees…)
- Every Institution Council of the Josephites be integrated with members who are really committed in the ministry for the poor young men.
- We notice the need to maintain alive the Christian formation of the youth.
GUIDELINES FOR THE USA-MEXICO VICE-PROVINCE
- Fidelity to the charisma.
- To work for overcoming the shades in our institutions, assuring a greater coherence between the spiritual charisma and the apostolic one, above all toward the last ones.
- To promote the communication between operators and educators, among the various pastoral sectors, at the context’s different levels.
- In relation to the FdM.
- To strengthen in all of our Mexican realities the belonging to the FDM as space and route of formation and spiritual growth and not as special group.
- To promote the Murialdine image of our activities at local and territorial level.
- The formation itineraries have to be guaranteed in view of the continuous formation for the new generations and the preparation of young educators, sharing the basic level of formation in the e-learning proposal.
- Responsibility.
- The first level of responsibility for everybody is the fidelity to the project and not to the person, Josephan or Murialdine Sister
- The second step is to prepare the people to share the decisions and projects that are at the service of the last ones
- The third step is to create an agreement (Synergy), which may assure the action and the responsibility in the network decisional process at regional level
- The congregations of the Josephites and the Murialdine Sisters guarantee that the ideals of the charisma are shared indeed.
Conclusion:
To organize in our realities a local level meeting, where all the guidelines proposed and elaborated in the Forum are introduced and shared.
PROPOSALS FOR THE CONTINUATION OF THE FORUM
- To strengthen the central Committee so that the forum page may stay on-line and may be updated with the more in-depth presentation of the activities and projects for the poor youth of a House for every province for a whole month, up to December. The page will above all present those Houses and activities that have not been shown yet
- To stimulate the realization of regional and national forums. We recognise the importance of the international meetings and leave to the FdM organisms the discernment about the formalities, times and places [as for the future organizations].
- To publish every month a reflection deepening and explicating one of the nine Guidelines of the Londrina forum.
- To favour the exchange of FdM pastoral operators from different Houses and countries (international voluntary work).
