A letter from Brother Alvaro to Young Lasallians :)
BEING A YOUNG LASALLIAN IN 2011
Many times the best way to place ourselves in the historic time in which we live is to look at the past and take advantage of the sources of wisdom of our ancestors. For that reason I would like to begin with a story attributed to American Indians.
An old tribal chief was chatting with his grandchildren about life. He told them: "There is a great struggle going on inside me...it is between two wolves! One of the wolves is wickedness, fear, anger, envy, sadness, bitterness, greed, arrogance, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, pride, egotism, competition, superiority. The other wolf is Kindness, Happiness, Peace, Love, Hope, Calmness, Humility, Sweetness, Generosity, Benevolence, Friendship, Empathy, Truth, Compassion and Faith.
This same struggle is happening within you and within all beings on the earth. The grandchildren thought for a minute and one of them asked the grandfather: Which of the wolves do you think will win? The chief simply replied: WHICHEVER ONE YOU FEED."
Being a young Lasallian in 2011 means to nourish the best instincts you have in your heart, but not just you personally, but in harmony and support with all those young people today who, no matter where they may be, have made their own the values of faith, fraternity-community and service that are our hallmarks. Young Lasallians – young Brothers, volunteers, former students, young teachers, students – are an important part of the Lasallian Family and they play a leading role in the Lasallian mission that we carry out in 82 countries in favor of children and young people from different races, cultures and religions. Together and by association with other Lasallians, young people feel that the mission commits them to building God's Kingdom, a Kingdom in which we can all experience what it means to be sons and daughters of God and to live as brothers and sisters. A Kingdom where creation is respected and cared for and where the poor come first and the unloved find affection and reasons to live.
This is not obvious and it never has been. English doctor Ronald Gibson began a conference on generational conflict, using these citations:
1 Our young people like luxury and they are bad-mannered, they do not pay attention to authority and they have no respect for elders. Our children today are true tyrants. They do not stand up when an older person enters a room. They talk back to their parents and they are simply bad.
2 I have no hope for the future of our country if today's youth take power tomorrow, because the young people are intolerable, insatiable, just horrible.
The first citation is from Socrates (470 -399 B.C.) and the second is from the Greek poet Hesiod (720 B.C.). There is no doubt that the struggle between the two wolves is not only an issue for today and neither is the matter of prejudice towards the young.
As I was writing this, I read in the newspaper yesterday, January 13, of the marvelous example given by a young Australian boy of 13 years of age, who drowned after refusing to be rescued before his 10 year old brother Blake, during the tremendous floods that afflicted his country at the beginning of the year. This act and many others, as well as my own experience during my trips to the different Regions of the Institute and my encounters with young people from various cultures and religions, filled with generosity, sensitive to and in solidarity towards others, wanting to fight for a world of peace and justice, make me believe firmly in young people. In 2011 we are experiencing a curious reality. In general, young people today live for a longer period of time at home with their parents than young people did in the past. In a certain sense and in spite of various family models that have been established, the family continues to be a fundamental element, as has been confirmed, for example, in the Report of the Holy Mary Foundation on young Spaniards from 15 to 24 years of age in 2010, in which 71% of the young people surveyed think that the most important thing for them is the family and 85% of them still live with their parents. I see in this a sign of the times for us as well. The Lasallian Family should be a center of interest for young people. In it they should find incentives and service programs, they should feel that they are valued as persons, find affection and a sense of closeness, the comradeship of their school years should last beyond those years, they should open themselves to the needs of others, find answers for their concerns, grow in their spirituality, and facilitate their encounter with God. In the heart of the Lasallian Family, young people should contribute the values proper to their age, such as courage, creativity, freedom, energy, mobility, the search for adventure and their ability to be open. This is their way of participating actively in association and making the mission their own – in favor of other young people, especially the poor and the less loved. In 2011 we will celebrate, with the entire Church, World Youth Day in Madrid from August 16 to 21. The slogan for the event is: Planted and built up in Jesus Christ, Firm in the Faith (cf. Colossians 2: 7). This event is also an invitation to all young Lasallian Christians to deepen their life of faith while focusing on the Lord Jesus, our teacher, brother and friend. As Saint John of the Cross said: "those who love end up resembling the beloved more and more." If we are planted in Christ, our faith will translate into a gratuitous but effective love to transform the world with the spirit of the Beatitudes. We shall also use the occasion of the World Youth Day in Madrid to have a meeting for all young Lasallians who are present, in order to share as a family, to live the communion that characterizes us and to deepen our values as members of a Church which is understood as the People of God in which we all have an important, fraternal and united mission; always attentive to the needs of the poor; committed to the fight for justice; in service of those who are last on the earth...It will also be an occasion to ask ourselves if what we have learned in our schools has translated into service, in accord with the well-known and wonderful slogan: Enter to learn, leave to serve.
On both the Church and Lasallian Family levels, young people have a special mission to respond to God's call and to commit themselves to his plan of salvation to be open to all without distinction, because what God wants is that all might be saved, as our Founder Saint John Baptist de La Salle reminded us so insistently. It is enough to recall how in the history of salvation young people have played a leading role. We can think of the young David and his friend Jonathan, in the call of Samuel, in John the Apostle and in the maiden Mary at the amazing moment of the Annunciation.
Madrid will also be the place for a longer meeting for young Lasallians from RELEM (Lasallian Region of Europe and the Mediterranean). I hope that this meeting will be for them a time of grace and that as they return to their respective countries, like the disciples of Emmaus after the encounter with the risen Jesus and following the invitation made to us by our last General Chapter, they will have eyes that are open and hearts that are burning, so that they do not stay closed in on their own small interests, but by being planted and built up in Christ, they will live an active faith in the practice of love, that they will be builders of fraternity, peace and justice. It will be a great joy for me to be able to participate in these two meetings, God willing.
Fraternally in De La Salle,
Brother Álvaro Rodríguez Echeverría Superior General
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