3. IN FAMILY SPIRIT

The Salesian family spirit characterises our way of being, welcoming all those who are eager to cultivate love for the two pillars – Eucharistic Jesus and Mary Help of Christians - and to help young people and the poor in particular, in keeping with the preventive system. We therefore feel ourselves to be the door of the Salesian Family. Through the same door, we want to look also ‘outside’ and go out through the same door to meet those young in material and spiritual poverty.

In the same way, we live the responsibility of the Association, seeking to offer qualified and effective animation that also helps us to fully express our lay vocation.

Co-responsibility in the mission of the Church and the lay Christian apostolate are a way of following Don Bosco and contributing to the mission of the Church.

We experience the beauty and fruitfulness of complementarity between lay people, consecrated men and women and priests: sharing the journey with the diversity of vocations is a witness to unity and mutual support. In this journey, let us be careful not to clericalise the laity or consider the different states of life as interchangeable, but to value the coexistence with different gifts, tasks and ministries.

Hic domus mea inde Gloria Mea: a journey that extends from Valdocco to the whole world.

From the discernment started by the Council of the Primary ADMA, with the interaction with the local groups, the Salesian Congregation and the Salesian Family, the need for a more continuous, wide and articulated animation of the Groups of the Association in the world and of a greater sharing of what the Primary ADMA does is emerging.

On the first look, we know that we have a long way to go in gathering a greater knowledge of ADMA in the world, where it is present, to whom it is addressed, what paths and activities it proposes, how it fits into the life of the works and local realities, what the good practices and needs are. To favour the meeting, dialogue and listening among the various realities by continuing and consolidating the experience of the meetings at a regional level, also evaluating the identification of regional referents with whom we can facilitate the animation of the association at a world level.

As Primary ADMA, we feel privileged to represent everyone and each local group of the Association here at the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians. A bond, the oneness with the Basilica, which belongs to the whole ADMA, is the basis of its being and its mission. We, each and every one of us, are living stones of the Basilica, to bring Jesus' presence to the world, with Mary's help!

Over the last 15 years, we have witnessed how Jesus, through Mary's hands, has profoundly renewed the Primary ADMA at Valdocco. This has been possible with the inclusion of a group of young families who for several years, accompanied by some Salesian priests, have been walking in Don Bosco's footsteps, praying with the Word, the Eucharist and putting Jesus at the centre of marriage and the education of their children. The proposal of the Primary ADMA thus put back at the centre the personal relationship with Jesus, to be lived in daily life and family life. Alongside the celebration on the 24th of the month, which represents the central and indispensable moment of the Association's journey, monthly retreats have been introduced (one Sunday a month, now proposed two dates and two places to encourage participation) and annual spiritual Retreat (now 4 days in the summer on the mountains and at Valdocco). At the same time, the proposal has expanded: both because of the growth in the number of families, with the enrichment of the proposal for the life of couples and the education of children, and with the presence of adults of all ages.

With such a large number of families, the ADMA Primary had the grace of being able to take a direct interest in young people, especially the children of the participating couples. We offer young people a proposal which is consistent with that of adults by studying different ways of collaboration with the Provincial Youth Ministry and the Oratory. The Spirit of the Family is what drives us to recommit ourselves to the local realities. We want to enhance the belonging of the members to the local communities, so that ADMA is not a ‘movement’ in itself which attracts people away from the local reality, but a vital cell of the local Salesian Family where we live and work.

Finally, we underline the importance of being inserted in the life of the Salesian Family, at a local, provincial and world level, through the participation in the Provincial and World Consultation of the Salesian Family.