SFO International Council - Weekly edition
Volume: 4 - N. 11 - 1998 - March - II
From: CIOFS secretariat
Franciscan Youth of Italy, National Council
Part I
1. Introduction
In recent years, the Franciscan Youth of Italy has paid special attention to the strong and repeated appeals of the Church and of the fraternities with regard to the formation and education of our youth groups.
Following the National meeting of the Catholic Church at Palermo, the Italian Bishops' Conference stressed the common efforts to "... commit ourselves to offer our new generations the possibility to meet Christ personally, in communities of brothers and sisters, helping each person to develop his or her own identity, and to discover and follow one's own vocation".
Both our Way of Life "Our Vision" (Il Nostro Volto) and our Pastoral Formation Programme clearly formulate the same pedagogical goal. "Our Vision" (Il Nostro Volto) is the name given to the national Statutes of the Franciscan Youth of Italy, and the Pastoral Formation Programme is a concrete expression of the formative aspects contained in "Our Vision". Each new step, taken at different times and in different circumstances at congresses, meetings, courses, chapters, national council meetings, specific commissions has made the whole fraternity more conscious of the need to develop one common programme of formation. This programme will help all concerned to overcome lack of interest, makeshift solutions and improvisations in order to regain, not only strength and effectiveness but, above all, confidence in the formation heritage inherent in our Franciscan charism and tradition.
The fraternal service of Youfra offers the possibility to arrive at human, Christian and Franciscan maturity to any person we receive and accompany. This service is not just a simple apostolic commitment, but constitutes the very root of our witnessing Christ, as exemplified by his servant Francis. It is given by the whole fraternity, which starts the formation process and becomes the place, way and sign of lived, shared and incarnated pastoral efforts. This fraternal service should never be presented as a kind of school or course, with its grades, levels and systems, imposed on the person without any acceptance or knowledge of that person's history or experience of life.
In explaining here some general goals and methods ofthe formation programme of Youfra, we would like to emphasise the fact that these instruments of formation are constantly being verified and revised according to criteria and parameters chosen by all three obediences together. They are also subject to the pastoral and apostolic indications of the Church at the end of this millennium, with the special attention it gives to youth, and to the guidelines of the International Council of the SFO for Franciscan Youth.
2. The Form of Life "Our Vision"
A short historical excursus will help to understand the progress made by the Italian Youfra in seeking the best forms and methods to educate its youth to love Christ and his Church according to the example of Saint Francis.
The first and fundamental instrument which came to maturity in Youfra was its Statutes, or rather its Form of Life, formulated in "Our Vision". The Interobediential National Meeting of the Youfra at Paestum, in 1977, felt the need to identify and to clarify its position in the Church and in the Franciscan family. This started the long process of writing and revising the present document, approved in 1984 by letter of the Presidency of the International Council of the SFO, one year after the CIOFS, in 1983, published its fundamental Guidelines for Youfra.
In the letter of presentation, the Statutes ("Our Vision" ) are defined as: "... an instrument by which Youfra in the Secular Franciscan family and in unity with the whole Franciscan family, gives witness and ministers to the Church and to society".
The two fundamental sections Form of Life and Organisational Norms specify the identity and nature of Youfra and its consequences for Youfra's commitments and methods of giving witness daily, all in strict and faithful adherence to the Franciscan charism.
"Our Vision" considers the Rule of the SFO as a source of inspiration which stimulates, in its various articles, the vocational choices of youth who want to follow Jesus Christ in the light of the message of Francis. In this way "Our Vision" already presents a formation programme which, in a nutshell, contains all the important elements of a serious and penetrating theory of education, serving as a secure base for the development of youth towards maturity.
The explicit desire to confirm this goal before God and the fraternity, shows a clear conviction that the first step of any pedagogic action always implies the acceptance of responsibility, both on the part of the person giving as well as the one receiving formation. From this conviction follows the commitment of the Promise : the act which stands at the start of a journey of conversion and radical change of our own life, in the light of the Gospel, and of the Franciscan charism.
In each of its expressions and in each of its parts, "Our Vision" shows itself to be a precious witness in comparing our vocational choices. It is also an effective instrument to indicate the essential goals of the formation itinerary of the youth.
At present, more than 10 years after its approval,this document is undergoing revision and integration, which will result in a new redaction in the near future. This does not contradict what has been said above, on the contrary, it confirms that we want to be faithful to the intentions which gave birth to "Our Vision".
The changes of times, of society, of the dynamics of the Church in the field of evangelisation and the apostolate, call for a renewal of its contents and its values but, above all, of the methods and ways by which the Youfra approaches young Christians at the end of the millennium.
To be present in the world of today, in its historic and cultural reality means to query oneself and to discern the best ways to incarnate the values of the Reign of God without denaturalising it, or, even worse, to place it in a stagnant experience of faith without any dynamism. The Holy Spirit urges us to a newness of life and calls to our mind every teaching of the Master: our task is to listen attentively to His invitations and act eagerly on His indications.
3. From "Our Vision" to the "Pastoral Formation Programme"
The experiences of the individual provincial and local fraternities, the service offered by the national councils and the journey towards unity realised so far, from the approval of the Statutes onwards, gave rise to a clear and articulated need, namely, that the Franciscan Youth stood in need of a "great leap forward" in terms of quality. It did so by directing as much as energy as possible into a reformulation of the basic directions expressed in "Our Vision" in a Pastoral Formation Project which supports its intensity and width of vision and, at the same time, remains true to its contents.
And so, after three years of hard work and numerous contributions, the first Pastoral Formation Programme of the Italian Franciscan Youth, was published in 1989, to be used ad experimentum by animators, catechists, assistants and the fraternities themselves.
The needs which gave birth to this document sprang firstly from the pedagogical urgency to provide the fraternity with help to animate and educate the youth and, secondly, from the perceived fact that the Statutes were actually lived in quite different ways in the three obediences, or even inside the same religious family. Such a basis resulted in fragmentation, individualism and diversity of styles which needed to be overcome in favour of the communion, the credibility and the place of Youfra in the Church.
The decision to create a formation programme to support and, above all, to realise "Our Vision", was then put through the long process of defining its target-group; considering realistically the actual possibilities of the animators and the fraternity; sharing its purposes and methods of reaching its goal; and finally its correspondence, in terms of form and content, with the pastoral indications of the Church.
The best definition of the Document can be found in its Introduction. In between the lines we can also read the difficulty to capture the marvellous dynamism and freshness of the evangelical and Franciscan message:"... the global model is the Franciscan ideal proposed to the youth by the Statutes, whereas the project is the description of the itinerary to realise the ideal. The programme is not a norm (...), on the contrary, it remains an "open workshop", indicating a direction and a variety of forces to be put into play... "