2. The specific charism of the institute

At this point it is possible to present the charismatic content but in this perspective.

2. 1 The heart of the charism

It is important to concentrate on essentials, to see the main elements of the gift of the Spirit beginning from that intuition which is constitutive of the gift itself. Every charism has a central nucleus, a pulsating heart, a dominant motive which synthesises, with unique phrases and words, its essential meaning. It is around this vital core that the formator must build and articulate the formative journey as if it were the common denominator, the constant refrain, that which gives the tone, colour and warmth to all the formative content forming a back ground for the whole educational journey.

The educator should follow the principle of redundancy by which the same value is repeated in all sorts of ways, in different but complementary forms. This principle can and must be lived in all places and contexts. It will then be feasible and even necessary to seek and to discover ever new ways of expressing it.

2.2 Constitutive Components

A charism is to be presented by taking apart its basic components which are as follows: mystical experience, ascetic journey, apostolic service. This has to be done in a clear and coincised manner, in a language understandable to the young person; not only with the sole preoccupation that it may be faithful to the original inspiration, and to the experience of the founder, but it must be articulated in definite spiritual journeys which are related to the psychological make up of the person’s identity.

The person has to grasp that he, himself, is called to live this mystical-ascetic-apostolic experience, or better that it is part of his ideal identity, of what he was called to be, both on a personal and relational level as well as on the human and spiritual one. Therefore, he has to live it out not merely as an assignment he received from the outside, but must seek to discover the spirit and the profound uniqueness and be able to express and translate all this in his personality and through all his uniqueness-individuality-irrepeatability.

Undoubtedly such an attitude opens up to new ways of interpretation of the charism since it respects the fundamental rule: firstly the "given" charismatic inspiration whose constitutive elements are lived faithfully, then the effort of reinterpretation within the classical itineraries of the charism, namely the mystical-ascetic-apostolic ones which are being discovered anew as means towards self-fulfilment.