For our Lenten reflections this year, in partnership with our Mission Office, we have taken the theme for Salesian Mission Day 2017. We will be returning to the roots of the Salesian missionary vocation by learning more about our missionary presence with the indigenous peoples of America. This week, hear about the Mapuche (People of the Land) of Argentina, where Don Bosco sent the first missionaries.

From an article by Fr Natalino Venancio Freitas de Jesus, SDB - East Timorese Missionary in Argentina:

I am in the Salesian mission of West Pampeano. During the week I'm working in the morning at the hospice of Istituto San Juan Bosco, which has an enrollment of 640 students, from preschool to secondary. Many of them are vulnerable due to the socio-economic reality and complex family realities that exist among the population. Then, in the afternoon I work in the day care center with vulnerable and defenceless boys and girls in Inaun Don Bosco. We provide tutoring, crafts, and an afternoon snack.

These realities invite me to reflect once again on the youth situation, especially the situation of abandonment. I feel called to offer the tenderness and mercy of God the Father to those who live in situations of abandonment. In the mission of the West Pampeano, I work together with the confreres and the Salesian Sisters, different realities, according the areas. The popular and rural settings are those that we give priority to in this missionary presence.

On weekends, together with the SDBs and FMAs, we head to the west of the province to share moments of celebration, catechetical meetings, visits to rural areas, home visits, regular meetings with teenagers on Saturday night, radio programs. What I'm doing together with the SDB and FMA is to meet people in rural villages, home visits and sharing the Word of God in small communities.

Working with indigenous peoples, especially the Mapuches, remains a fundamental option of our ARS Province. The Salesian confreres in Patagonia continue to work with the Mapuche. This missionary work in Patagonia is the proclamation of the Good News, denouncing that which offends the dignity of the Mapuche people and land, defence of the territory, proximity to the people, respect and appreciation of the culture and self-determination of peoples, seeking along with the communities, possibilities and alternatives for a decent life.

Patagonia and the area where I'm working are still mission territories. There are a lot of simple town life and young people who need support.

I am happy being a missionary in the land of the dreams of our father Don Bosco.

Blessed Zeferino Namuncurá, 'the Prince of the Pampas', was the son of the last great Mapuche leader. As a child, he witnessed the turmoil that followed the 'Conquest of the Desert', which almost destroyed the Mapuche way of life, bringing tremendous suffering and desperate poverty. He saw the Salesian education he had received as the path to a better life for all of his his people, and felt called to become a Salsian priest, hoping to return to his own land to help his people spititually and practically. This was not to be, as h died from tuberculosis at the age of 18, though his influence continues.

Fr Pascual Chavez SDB, who was Rector Major at the time of Ceferino's beatification in 2007, described him as 'a fruit of Salesian youth spirituality', and he is seen as an example of how a distinctive culture can be integrated with faith to create harmony, in times when there are so many tensions and conflicts between cultures.

Read more about his life

Prayer for Salesian Missions Day 2017

Father Creator, we praise you,
For the seeds of sanctity and beauty,
sown among the American peoples.
Grant us to contemplate, appreciate and defend
your wisdom in the indigenous cultures.
Help us to proclaim with the light of the Spirit
the unfathomable riches of your Son, Jesus Christ
that transfigures and fully fills every culture.
Lord Jesus, we praise and thank you
because you have made each one of us,
really sharing our lives,
loving us until the end,
so that we may have Life in all its fullness.
Help us to welcome and give life
on behalf of all our brothers and sisters.
Send us your sanctifying Spirit,
raise up in this continent missionaries,
witnesses of your love and of your resurrection,
proclaimers of your fraternity and truth,
prophets of your justice and unity.
Lord, you who are One in diversity
with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
help our peoples to live
with respect for diversity,
united in the same charity.
Amen