This weekend the Oblate seminarians in formation, various Oblate and lay school ministers, and I will be beginning our annual Salesian Leadership Camp (SLC) at Camp DeSales in Brooklyn, Michigan. This camp, which has been happening for over 30 years, is often described by us Oblates who have worked it as one of the best Salesian things we do as a community. It brings together people from current and former schools where Oblates have ministered across the country, from Wilmington, DE to Stockton, CA, as well as from schools attached to communities of the Sisters of the Visitation scattered across the country.
SLC attempts to teach students about leadership from a Christian and Salesian perspective, focussing very specifically on the little virtues of St. Francis de Sales as a way of gently leading and persuading others. The lessons taught reflect the Salesian maxim that “you can attract more flies with a spoonful of honey than a barrel of vinegar.” When we lead by example and present our ideas as joyful and attractive through our own manner of living, others can’t help but be drawn to it and want to enter in. Through lessons about communication, relationship building, and prayer, these students learn that leadership in the Salesian tradition is packed with knowledge that is both centuries old and incredibly relevant to the modern age, just like the teachings of St. Francis himself.
In fact, I personally attribute to SLC a large part of my early interest in the Oblates which eventually led to my taking perpetual vows 20 years later. In 2001, when I was between my sophomore and junior year of high school, a younger, shyer, and more awkward version of me showed up at Camp DeSales for the first time. It was the joyful and human interactions that I had with the Oblates there, added to the ones I had with Oblates and teachers in the pews and classrooms at St. Francis de Sales School in Toledo, that got the idea of a religious vocation into my head. And it was the lessons I learned as part of leadership camp that helped me to feel comfortable “being myself and being that well” and that shaped me into a Salesian leader and Oblate at heart before I was ever even an official member.
So, as these other Oblates, lay ministers, and I prepare to begin this week-long adventure of Salesian Leadership Camp, please join us through your prayers. Let us pray that the young men and women who attend this camp may come to a new appreciation and greater understanding of our Salesian tradition and its leadership style. And let us pray that, if God so wills, there may be new men and women who hear the early whispers of God calling them to enter into the Salesian family in a deeper way by becoming an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales or a Sister of the Visitation.
Father Craig Irwin, OSFS
Associate Pastor
Gesu Catholic Church, Toledo, OH
