Father General talks to young people
“Our challenge as Piarists is to be authentic”.
On the occasion of the feast of the Piarist vocation on 31 January, Father General shared an informal conversation with young people in a live account on Instagram. Father Pedro recalled his first vocation as a student at the Piarist School in Bilbao and responded to the various contributions of the young people, coordinated by Juan Diego, Piarist Junior of the Province of Nazareth.
Fr Pedro emphasised that one of his great challenges as General of the Order is to “put himself in the other person’s shoes” in order to understand them. “It is about understanding what is happening in each place in order to be able to accompany them,” he said. “All the provinces of the Order – he explained – are struggling to be faithful to Calasanz, to the mission, to Calasanz, to the children… and the key is to understand that these answers are different in India, in Bogota or in the Philippines…”. And this task “can only be done with a lot of listening, with a lot of time, with prayer and reflection,” says Fr Pedro.
It makes no sense to accompany people without setting a good example: “They will not believe you”.
Father General emphasised the celebration of the Vocation Sexennium, which has been promoted by the General Congregation since last year. “We want to change the vocation culture of the Order” explains Father General, emphasising accompaniment as a key element. And what does this piaristic accompaniment look like? “Well, it consists of a lot of listening, but also of provocation in order to reach the depths of the young person,” he emphasises. It is necessary to accompany them in prayer, in research and, of course, by example. In this sense, Father General was clear: “Accompanying without setting an example makes no sense: they will not believe you”.
In a conversation full of anecdotes from his life, Father Pedro admits that he always discovers the keys to his vocation in the children and young people he comes into contact with on his travels. “A vocation that was born from Joseph Calasanz’s intuition more than four centuries ago and that is still as relevant as it is necessary”.
Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel:
