Abstract

The liturgical reform that started 40 years ago during the Vatican Council II also concerned the act of Religious Profession and its liturgical rites and the need to prepare new instructions in accordance with development of the liturgical theology. The Fathers of Council directed that a rite of religious profession and renewal of vows be drawn up that would contribute to greater unity, simplicity, and dignity and that it should be adopted by those who make their profession or renewal of vows within Mass. As a result of that the new Rite of Religious Profession had been prepared and further published in 1970. All religious congregation were expected to revise their own particular rites of religious profession in accordance with that part of Roman Ritual. So, from 1970, a group of Salesian liturgists started to work in adapting the recommended rites for the benefit of the Congregation. Several schemes were presented to the Congregation for Divine Worship for ratification and finally in 1989 the revisions were accepted and a Ritual for Salesian Congregation purposes was publised in Italian. The new Ritual of Salesian religious profession is very rich in its content. The book includes several kinds of celebrations such as temporal, perpetual, renewal of vows, the various jubilees of profession. It has a comprehensive euchological texts for the Mass and biblical readings. Up to this point the making of vows in Salesian Congregation was a quite simple celebration. The first vows made by 22 candidates in 1862 in the presence of Don Bosco had a private character. After several years the celebration took on a new richness with scrutinies, hymns and several added prayers. The celebration was being conducted in the sanctuary before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, which is now disallowed. Since the first published Salesian Constitution in 1874, the rites of religious profession have been included in every edition. After 15 years since publishig the Rites of Salesian Religious Profession in Italian we are now expecting its edition in Polish.