2.4. Courses of personal growth

The formation of vocation identity is done by way of formation courses that move basically through areas that are closely connected among themselves: the areas of personal and cultural identity, of growth in faith, and of mission and spirituality of the charism.

Looking in particular at the area of personal and cultural identity we can point out some specific

courses of re-appropriation.

a)      Progressive becoming aware of one’s cultural and personal identity

The re-appropriation of identity happens through a progressive awareness of one’s personal and cultural identity. And that, not only at a cognitive level, but especially at the emotion-affection level (background, experiences, resonance, memory…), relational and social.

Those who develop this awareness takes on a power of projection and openness toward others and toward cultures which enables a serene and free interaction. The person is enabled to live in respect of diversity of cultures, ages and formation, and is prompted to discover its values or seek common roots, without feeling belittled or inferior by this.

A particular attention must be given to the symbolizing of experiences, that is to the degree of cognitive elaboration and reflected awareness of self and one’s experiences, facts and events, symbols and norms of one’s culture. Such a process demands the maturing of a formal logical thinking which renders the person capable of going beyond the immediate, concrete and visible, in order to grasp in depth the nucleus of meaning hidden in each experience and connect it through a guiding thread to the whole of one’s life and story. It presupposes a course of objective knowledge of one’s history and culture, also through study and intellectual research.

b)      Acceptance of one’s story

A second obligatory course is in the acceptance of one’s story, that is of the events lived, of persons encountered, relationships, experiences, problems resolved, but especially of the meanings and reflections done on them. In fact, “identity corresponds to the acceptance of what has happened to us: of all that we have included and excluded, of what we have become or have not at all become, of that little that we have faced trying to find an existential trajectory sufficiently linked together to practical reasons or ideals, or, of that much that we did not manage at all to coordinate, hold on to forever, rationalize to our satisfaction” ²¹

c)      Learn to speak and write about oneself (autobiography)

The experience of oneself and one’s individuality is built and solidified already in adolescence by the reflectiveness that, however, needs to avoid the risk of an emotional closing in on itself (“wild” introspection) through the “telling about self” in the framework of a story. Identity, in fact, can find substance from the story that a person recounts, revives and modifies according to the various experiences.

The autobiographical account can become a growth space, in which the unity of the story leads to the unity of the identity even in the multiplicity of experiences the make up our life.  Learning to speak and write about oneself is like undertaking a “formation trip”, in which we return to live more those--sometimes not completely positive--experiences more profoundly, which make up the plot of our life. It is a reconfirming, and at the same time, a re-elaborating of background, facts and events in light of a new meaning of life. That journey at an adult age can become a real journey of self-formation and care of self.

In these courses of re-appropriation  it is important to be attentive to some needs that can be formulated thus:

*        how remain oneself and identical to oneself (an interior nucleus that endures over time) in spite of many external and internal, personal and environmental changes;

*        how be oneself with one’s own qualities and characteristics that distinguish us from others (proprium), but also through the integration of those characters common to other things or persons and in an integrated whole of different components and elements (unity);

*        how to become ever more oneself assuming the trait and values of one’s vocational-charismatic identity (identification with Christ and with the charism, but also with the roles and tasks relative to the mission of the Institute and community organization) for the fulfillment of God’s call and his plan of salvation.