To grow stronger as FdM, recognizing and valorising the signs of belonging in every country, sharing responsibilities and organising it as a network.
This paper too is intended as a simple in-depth view on the meaning and style of our care and help experiences in the service of the last. It is a reflection that leads necessarily to all others because it describes only one part of the mosaic representing the big effort of service that is the care and help inspired by the charisma of Saint Leonard Murialdo in the world.
Out in front of this discussion we focus our attention on Murialdo’s Family as a community subject, agent and protagonist of care and help and of every initiative of solidarity in the service of young people and boys “poor and abandoned”. This is not the place to describe once again the Family of Murialdo’s nature, vocation and mission. We refer to reading the booklet “Family of Murialdo. Road map: where we come from, where we are, where we go...” (19 March 2008) in order to get the clear details of our way of sharing between consecrated men and women and laypersons. What we want to stress is primarily the fixed point, “point of no return”, as GC XXI, 1.2.6 says: today, the Josephan Congregation recognizes itself as “part of a Family”. It recognizes something bigger than itself: it is the gift of Murialdo’s charisma to people who do not belong to the Congregations that makes up among these people, “a bond that we cannot fail to mention”. The expression of this bond is the “Family of Murialdo” (Dir. 41). The emphasis is on communion (which is embodied in affective-formative dimensions) rather than on managing activities together. The mission, in fact, is already fully achieved in the relational dimension that is full title “witnessing” of God’s loving presence.
It is like saying that the Congregation seems to bet no more on the effectiveness or good functioning of an activity or apostolic work, but on the playing its cards in the interpersonal relationship which has a circular, reciprocity nature. “Reciprocity is an all-round game: all the resources are not on one side nor all the weaknesses on the other one. If we really want that people are at the centre, then we must work for the establishment of institutions of reciprocity, i.e. of community... On the other hand is not one of the most common definitions of the religious to be ‘experts of communion’?” (G. Pegoraro). This aspect has implications within the activities of the “Family of Murialdo”, which should not only be characterized as expressions and places of work, but for a quality of interpersonal relationships through which a model of living emerges.
From the perspective of the apostolic mission the reality “Family of Murialdo” offers a new and unprecedented opportunity. “The participation of the laity often brings unexpected and rich insights into certain aspects of the charisma, leading to a more spiritual interpretation of it and helping to draw from it directions for new activities in the apostolate” (VC 55). The institutions established by Religious men and women are part of the common Church heritage: organizational responses to questions that the Christian community asks herself. Their foundation and their development was dictated by charismatic concern reinterpreted and updated by the confreres over the decades. Today, substantively and methodologically, it makes no sense that the religious alone understand and tackle the new demands of young people, especially the “poorest and most abandoned”, and the consequent answers. And if education is first of all witness of life and proposal of belonging, the “Family of Murialdo”, with its creative and critical presence in educational activities, creates deep personal relations (an affectivity that is manifested) in everyday life; joint formation (spiritual and charismatic), common research and testing of organizational and educational models; sense of shared responsibility. This is the new climate in which we can read youth expectations and find suitable answers for the poorest.
Concern and defence about the of “ownership” of initiatives recede into the background; they could in turn be the Congregation’, or an association’s or the entire “Family’s”: more important is that the poorest boys and young people’s problems may find today careful readings thanks to the awareness created by the charisma and adequate answers that show through the presence of the “Family”.
It is possible then to recognize and use appropriate indicators of belonging for any reality?
In the experience of Londrina international meeting (26 April-3 May 2009) where representatives of all our initiatives of service to the last came together, it seems to me that two figures emerged with clear evidence:
1 - there are no more religious men and women standing alone: no doubt there were Josephites who started, brave explorers or navigators who opened new paths of service and initiatives of solidarity; leaders who engaged and mobilized valuable collaboration resources... but the verifiable datum today is that without the laity, without an “extended family” of engaged and aware lay people, the above mentioned initiatives do not have a future of rooting and growth;
2 - The second datum is that the “Family of Murialdo” embodies and expresses itself in the faces of different “families of Murialdo”. All are cohesive and held together by the profound significance of what we do in life, a “knowledge” recovered through the basic actions of life: listening and observation in the first place, and what follows it: understanding, representing, assessing and acting. Thus it was possible to rediscover the "flavour" of our actions, remembering that, to prepare something good, which satisfies our taste, we must learn to harmonize the ingredients, whose “differences are not nullified” and whose meeting “highlights reciprocal identities”.
In light of this continuous mutual enrichment, we can then focus on some indicators, attitudes that mark the path, allowing each “Murialdine family” not to lose its identity in the social action, to reaffirm the meaning of each solidarity gesture and to safeguard the basic elements of a charisma that is spent always and unilaterally in service to the person.
Here are some possible indicators, selected in view of strengthening the future path of the “Murialdine families” accompanying our realities of help and care.
a- To make transparent vocational identity: where there is vocation there is voluntary work, i.e. caring and free action. How many times in various documents we repeated that we recognize us as “realities of sharing based on voluntary service”. This is the culture that allowed us to get out of some stereotypes in offering services and will allow us, in the constant evolution, to remain ourselves. Sharing is not possible without a free choice of voluntary commitment. As volunteer here we do not mean the one doing occasional voluntary actions (even these necessary, however), but the bearer of a plan for a welcoming society where the citizens may find a place, get involved, assume responsibility. This volunteer is able to enthuse other people over a choice of solidarity, he pursues projects that are his own because his own is the territory within which the needs occur. For this reason the more valuable indicator for anyone engaged in the Murialdine family is “gratuitousness”. “It is necessary to give gratuitousness a much broader meaning than mere absence of gain. It is gratuitousness also giving one’s best, assuming responsibility for people and their needs, working with spirit of service and care of always starting from the other one’s expectations”. (Mgr G. Pasini). Every bit of “gratuitousness” in any of our help and care realities must be supported, strengthened and adequately safeguarded.
b- To scan the horizons: looking “beyond” is a typical attitude of the Murialdine charisma aiming at being able to perceive the signs of the times. The future challenging us is configurable starting from a careful reading of the needs and social policies. The needs change and at the same time changes what is causing the discomfort (now there is talk of “normalcy pathology”). This means that, unlike in the past, minors who need care are not only those who come from family, environmental and cultural situations that are typical of exclusion, but also those placed in situations considered “normal”, such as the ones resulting from the founding characteristics of many present-day families, the product of profound changes that occurred within a few decades, a malaise coming from “a vitalistic model of life, the desire for self-assertion, even in transgression”. It is a poverty having “the forms of emptying of consciousness and will”.
c- To shift our activities from “defence” situations to “border” areas: our initiatives for minors in difficulty arose as a “border” response in periods of emptiness, of shortage. In many areas of the world we are still struggling to find or strengthen responses of this type. In other parts of the world (see more Westernized contexts) is no longer the case: the minors' needs that we address were recognized by the State and by it assumed and let out to thousands of private social institutions, since they have become individual rights. But we do not want a society and a life in common set only on the rights; we rather believe in a society where relation with others, mutuality, coexistence are the key words of life.
What does mean for us today to make the choice of the last? It means to care for the needs recognized but not protected and those that will never become rights: “Let us think about the need of meaning, of relationship, of being loved for what one is, of overcoming loneliness. In this framework, besides defending and consolidating the rights development and social maturation reached, it is too little if we are content to manage services. Services as such are essentially an expression of society as it is. Rarely they are promoters of a culture of change” (G. Pegoraro).
So the socio-educational commitment of the Murialdine Family leads her to be where in fact it is more challenging and risky to stay, where there is more to be tested.
d- To drive protection policies for the weak: it is said that volunteers were not born for services, even if they manage services, but for change. It is not enough to give help and care, but it is simultaneously necessary to organize fragments of social policy that means learning the difficult art of promoting (not just managing), with the typical function of sensor of the needs and the capability of staying in the processes, with the capacity not only of participation, but also of concerted action. In managing “services” there is a danger, sooner or later, to end up confined.
Murialdo was betting on the utopia of a society that could become welcoming.
In our “plural”, multiethnic and multicultural societies, the driving force for policies of protection of the weak and the hinge between the many poor and other social classes, can be pushed and guaranteed by “our Murialdine families” composed of people who, even having sufficient security, still have the sensitivity and capacity to search for more advanced social equilibriums.
e- To support the motivation: One joins services to people out of many and various reasons; he remains there with satisfaction only out of an answer of meaning. Without a major motivation, the “non-sense” takes over soon... and easily we see people “get away and disappear”.
The welcome culture is not the dominant culture: it is dominant the narcissistic culture going to define a personality unable to move towards others. The welcome culture needs to be nurtured and updated in many ways, born of a relevant need to search for values, meanings of life, sense of people’s history, all to be found in the laborious routes of everyday personal and collective life, in the interiorization of experiences, in the necessary balance between doing and being: without it all burns quickly... We are not born sharing, but we become so. Hence the need for significant support to motivation and help to travel in proportionally short times “the long journey from mind to heart”.
Often it is recommended to invest on professional training understood as development of one’s role and its ability (and it is also well done!), but much more it is necessary investment in motivation training: is the only way the volunteers have for equipping themselves so that life is inhabited in its deeper dimensions. Solidarity involves a willingness to share the good you have, which means being willing to lose a bit of it, and this is not instinctive.
There is an individual training and training done together. Training, said Kurt Levin, is comparable to a culture change and culture change cannot exist except through a group process.
Training does not mean instruction: it is awareness, communication, and this is possible by finding times that allow discussion, sharing of ideas and choices, putting in common suggestions and utopias that can give a future and “more” meaning to what we do and are. To that end, our “Murialdine families”, in addition to being constituted for organizational aspects, are also based on “dimensions of life” such as building meaningful relationships, sharing certain ideals, work, affections, fundamental aspects in the life experience of every human being.
If the indicators are “trail signs” to guarantee the future, there is something that already today can characterize the lifestyle of “our Murialdine families”. A strong expression of sharing is given by “co-responsibility” with respect to service activities with the last. In the discussion among the different groups present at the Londrina Forum, it was clear the oscillation among the different levels of participation: personal involvement, collaboration, sharing and co-responsibility. It seems like a symphony in crescendo.
But what does mean, in everyday life, to be involved in terms of “co-responsibility”?
We try to simply redefine responsibility, the one involving each of us. Speaking of responsibility is impossible to the extent that you do not make a choice with respect to a context. The first step is to perceive and understand the context, is to relate to a world that provokes us. Responsibility is not an individual action done inside one’s room, it is not based on a simple act of will. Responsibility is based on a relation and the first great relation is to have the relationship with the world. Deciding that the world concerns us, and what we do concerns the world. Faced with a total crushing, in our modern times, of the landmarks of what constituted the world, in order to make a reflection on “responsibility” we must “take on the world”. As Christians, we must take on the world in the light of Easter, i.e. blessing it. “Blessing means saying well of reality... the others are the reality. Blessing is not a gesture, is an inner attitude which then becomes also a gesture or a ritual: it is saying about reality with truth” (Johnny Dotty). I think it's the next step to the awareness of one who feels structurally related to reality and does not feel abstract from it; he feels that he comes from life and blesses it. It's possible to bless insofar as one feels structurally related to the context, there where he lives.
Responsibility, therefore, is relationship with the other. There is relation with respect to the world and there is relation with respect to the others. There is not a responsibility only with respect to themselves, it is towards the world, it is towards others. That is, it is assumed with others. If the issue is reviving the charisma, the charisma cannot be offloaded on to the on duty Josephite. He too, as every lay person, needs to be enlivened by the charisma and to do this also the responsibility of each one is needed, which means having a relational real and concrete responsibility. We are called together to find, dealing with the trouble of looking together for something; no one can manage on his own.
The help and care projects that are carried out in the world as charismatic and apostolic reality no longer are matters concerning only the “Josephites” or the “Murialdine Sisters”; they are not of the “Congregation”, but “of the Josephites/Murialdine Sisters and lay people” who, in a precise geographic and historic context, live their own Christian life, their Church's experience, their evangelical witness, supported and guided by the charisma of Murialdo. And in this is easily understandable the fatigue of the religious, used to consider themselves legitimate “owners” and “responsible” for educational activities, to change mind-set; and laity, raised so far with the ‘good collaborator’ mentality, probably will find equally difficult to feel responsible to the end for the management of any educational or welcome activity. “Co-responsibility refers to 'belonging' to an institution: the institution belongs to me and I belong to the institution: that is why I become co-responsible of it" (L. Sibona). Co-responsibility, before being a technical fact, is a kind of involvement, perhaps initial, informal, indistinct, so that the activities/institutions are not something first and foremost to “manage”, but places that refer to values and ideals: the institution is a “sign” of a larger history; the institution is the place for a personal growth also in the key of faith, of evangelical witness; the institution is the meeting place with the wealth of a charisma. In co-responsibility we invest something of our life (ideals, faith choice, eagerness and apostolic commitment, charismatic guidelines), even if one does not conduct any particular “service” or “work” in the institution.
Co-responsibility is based on ‘taste’ for responsibility, the taste of having married that thing, it is 'res-sponsalis' [Latin = thing concerning marriage].
And we, have we married the reality in which we are?
The last part of our thoughts drives every “Murialdine family” acting in a specific context in the service of the last to “expand” from charisma to mission, from communion to “networking”. Charisma comes from the Spirit, charisma is given from all eternity; mission comes from history and is constantly reformulated. Charisma has to do with the Absolute, mission has to do with the ‘relative’, in the etymological sense of the term, i.e. with what is ‘in relation with the context’. The latest Inter-provincial Conference (Siguenza 2009) urged to “encourage and support initiatives implementing the new methods of pastoral care: team work, network, work on projects, together with the territory” (No. 9).
Analyzing, understanding and discussing “network intervention“ within the social work, is an innovative modality as it allows to find and plan effective responses for the different needs. Interest in networking stems from a careful reading of the social services’ organizational situation, in Italy as in the other parts of the world. Services and social workers are not always aware of the fundamental importance of working at the sign of integration and coordination of available resources. Not always we become aware of the many care options which may come starting from “below”, that is, starting from the actual needs of the territory, creating a "network" around the social disease and so avoiding that it may develop into social exclusion.
Social networks are the focus of increasing interest not only by those who propose to do extensive research and studies but also by those who operate and test the theories in the “field” - social operators in general and social workers in particular. Indeed, those who work in the social, professionals but not limited to, rediscovering and making use of the "social networks" are encouraged to interact with them so that the situations of need be resolved not only through the social services’ technical and formal effort, but also through the joint action of other formal and informal help relations.
The network intervention is a new strategy, a new way of thinking social work. The operator exploiting the action of the subjects’ natural bonds (‘informal networks”) and the resources of inter-professional relations among the various services (“formal networks”), seeks to foster and stimulate a growth and autonomy process of networks, which will bring “welfare” not only to people in difficulty but also to the entire community.
From field experiences, we realize that the new social needs are rarely satisfied by the intervention put in place by a single professional figure. These needs require the development of a project work that sees every user involved in the construction of a custom program in which the various professions - belonging to the same service and team, or coming from different institutions and agencies - make a contribution.
Two observations can lead us to conclude: the first is that the “Murialdine family” can strategically take the function of “network” guidance and support to our services to the last in a specific local context. The more ties within the family are strong, the more cohesion is robust, the more we can leave a mark on the territory and promote a mentality change in society. The second observation is a fact undisputed by now: we cannot think we are alone in our action in the social sphere and service to the last. We are called to overcome bureaucratic barriers, the presumptions of being the only good at doing something for the young and the “poorest”. We are invited to build alliances rather, to weave nets with those in various capacities who share the passion for the last.
It really seems that the time of free batsmen in the educative deserts is over.
P. Giuseppe Rainone
Superiore Provinciale
USA - Messico
