DB and Bible 3%2C Formation


DB and Bible 3%2C Formation

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DON BOSCO AND THE BIBLE
Part III
Source:
La Bibbia con don Bosco, Una lectio divina salesiana, 1. L’Antico Testamento, Morand Wirth.
TOPICS:
• The Bible in the Formation of Salesians
• Preaching Should be Based on Sacred Scriptures
• Don Bosco Was Very Much in Love the Bible
THE BIBLE IN THE FORMATION OF SALESIANS
Memorization
of verses
Remedy for
idleness and
cultivation of
chastity
Preaching
Retreats
Breviary
In 1859 when he founded the Society of St. Francis de Sales, Don Bosco made
an effort to convey to his followers the knowledge and love of the Word of
God. He wanted his future priests, students of philosophy and theology to
memorize every week 10 verses of the NT in the Latin Vulgate. He was not
satisfied in mere memorization. His biographer assures us that he offered “a
brief literal explanation with a few but magnificent commentaries. He would
conclude with a maxim which aroused love for God and which acted as a
norm of conduct” (MB VI, 206).
Don Bosco used to say to the Salesians during the spiritual retreats that there
is nothing better than the reading of the Word of God in order to avoid
idleness and to cultivate the virtue of chastity. He cited St. Jerome’s
recommendation: “Read the Scriptures more often; nay the sacred reading
should never be taken away from your hands” (MB IX, 992).
Addressing himself to future preachers, he insisted on the “importance and
the manner of proclaiming the Word of God, recommending simplicity and
clarity and the effort to touch the heart” (MB VI, 206).
On another occasion he gave the following advice: “The proofs they seek are
set forth in Sacred Scriptures and especially the facts and the words of our
Lord Jesus Christ…. The sacred orator obtains his eloquence not from the
wisdom of the world. Instead he speaks according to the spirit of God” (MB
IX, 23-24).
Beginning in 1866 he animated every year the spiritual retreat of the
confreres. The notes of his talks show that Sacred Scriptures occupied first
place in those talks.
The breviary is a true school of the Word of God. Don Bosco tells the story of
a close collaborator. This man crossed out from the list of “ordinadi” to the
subdiaconate certain young clerics of great value because they would have
to recite the breviary and doing so made them waste their time. This merited
a very spirited response. “These clerics reciting the breviary fulfills the
divine office of praying with the whole Church; in it they are instructed with
the inspired words of Sacred Scriptures, with the lessons of the holy fathers
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Program of
studies
The Missions
and with the live and examples of the saints; they pray with the psalms and
canticles of the people of God and with liturgical hymns. The breviary will
obtain for these clerics more knowledge than from so many books and
teachers and will inspire them in teaching their students the science of God
and of the soul” (MB XI, 293).
It is significant that the Constitutions of the Salesian Society gives first place
to the Bible in the program of studies for the priesthood. Afterwards does it
list Church history, dogmatic, speculative and moral theology and other
books dealing with the Christian instruction of the young.
Don Bosco reminded the Salesian missionaries who were leaving for South
America that the Word of God should be proclaimed to the whole world; it
is a command from the Lord and not merely a counsel. “This command or
mission,” he adds, “gave the name of missionary to all those who in our
country or in foreign countries proclaim and preach the truths of our faith.”
It is the continuation of the mission entrusted by Christ to the apostles who
from the beginning of the work of evangelization “associated others and
later also other evangelical workers who they sent here and there to spread
the Word of God.”
PREACHING SHOULD BE BASED ON SACRED SCRIPTURES
Preaching
Content: The
Bible and
Fathers of the
Church
Topics of
preaching
The traditional form used by Don Bosco to spread the Word of God was
preaching, which he used to do in the exercise of his ordinary ministry, in
the occasion of retreats or even in the course of extraordinary missions in the
parishes. “Very many parish priests of Piedmont wanted to have him (Don
Bosco) in the churches,” wrote Don Lemoyne, adding that “if it were
possible, he never refused them” (MB V, 765).
During the course of his life, Don Bosco preached a lot and he did so for all
kinds of people, starting with the young.
We know that his preaching was centered on the Bible, and in a particular
way, on the Gospel. His biographer assures us that he used to begin “with a
text from Scriptures” (MB III, 62) and that “his preaching were very effective
because they were based on Sacred Scriptures and the holy Fathers” (MB IX,
342).
One day, after having preached in a parish when he was only a seminarian,
the parish priest pointed to him some flaws regarding form but recognized
that his preaching was full of “scriptural thoughts” (MO, 86).
We have preserved some of his sermons which go back to the time when he
was a seminarian and when he was a young priest. One of them was
precisely “On the Word of God”. It begins with this citation taken from the
Gospel of Luke: “Blessed are they who listen to God’s Word and keep it” (Lk
11:28).
Other themes were the classical themes of the Last Things (death, judgment,
purgatory, hell and heaven), sin, the passion of Jesus, mercy, forgiveness,
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Retreats
charity, chastity, the institution of the Eucharist and frequent communion.
The spiritual retreats were considered special moments for listening and for
preaching the Word of God. Don Bosco prepared the majority of his sermons
for these retreats. In addition to the obligatory them of the Last Things, we
find the following themes: charity, forgiveness, chastity, the Word of God
and the Eucharist.
He himself joined every year the retreat organized at the Sanctuary of St.
Ignatius at Lanzo. We have in our hands the notes taken during the retreat of
1842. There we find references to the Good Shepherd and to the Hymn to
Charity by St. Paul.
In 1849 Don Bosco organized for the first time a series of spiritual retreats for
the youth of the oratories of Turin. On “The Sacred Counsel” with a
circulation of 1,500 copies, he announced the retreat. One can also read there
this exhortation: “The Lord calling you to listen to his sacred words puts
before us a favorable opportunity to receive his graces and his blessings.
Take advantage of it. Blessed are you if from your youth you learn to
observe the divine Law” (MB III, 605-606).
DON BOSCO WAS VERY MUCH IN LOVE WITH THE BIBLE
The influence
of Mama
Margaret
To understand Don Bosco’s love for the Bible it is necessary to begin from
the lessons he received from his mother.
Mama Margaret was illiterate, but he knew perfectly her catechism, a concise
and systematic exposition of the truths of divine revelation, which were
illustrated with examples from Sacred History and the lives of Saints.
Don Lemoyne writes in the Biographical Memoirs: “In those days it was not
uncommon to find in the houses of the farmers people who were well-
versed in Sacred History or the lives of Saints. Some elderly person used to
read some pages about them to the family gathered on Sunday evenings, in
the stall if it was winter, or under a pergola if it was summer or autumn.
Therefore, Mama Margaret memorized many examples from Sacred
Scriptures or the Life of Saints” (MB I, 52).
Catechism and
preaching
After the teaching of his mother, Don Bosco came in contact with the Word
of God by attending catechism and listening to sermons.
The dream at nine which he would later recount in the Memoirs of the
Oratory demonstrates that he was familiar with the figure of Jesus, the Good
Shepherd and his mother (MO 36-38).
At the age of ten he was able to repeat to his companions “the examples he
heard in the sermons or in catechism” and excerpts of “the explanation of
the gospel heard in the morning” (MO 40-41).
At eleven on the occasion of his first holy communion he wrote: “I knew the
entire little catechism” (MO 43).
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At Chieri
Self-study
The breviary
The encounter with Don Calosso at 14 years allowed him to “taste the
spiritual life”. This priest taught him to make “a brief meditatioin or better a
bit of spiritual reading” (MO 47) every day.
During his studies at Chier (1831-1835) Don Bosco participated in the
numerous religious practices which in those days were part of the scholastic
program: catechism, spiritual reading, explanation of the gospel, instruction,
recitation of the Office of the Blessed Virgin with the psalms, Christmas
triduum, and retreat during the Holy Week.
Together with his close friends, they frequented also the church of St.
Anthony, where the Jesuits taught a “wonderful catechism” (MO 58).
His friendship with Jonah brought him in contact with the Jewish
environment of Chieri and offered him the opportunity to deepen his
understanding of the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments.
The mother of Jonah gave this objection: “Christians do not believe in
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses, neither the prophets.” Don Bosco
responded: “On the contrary we believe in all the holy Patriarchs and in all
the prophets of the Bible. Their writings, their utterances, their prophecies
form the foundation of the Christian faith” (MO 68).
Much later in the second half of the century he wrote to a Milanese Jew: “We
Catholics follow strictly the teaching of Moses and all the books which this
great prophet left us. The only difference is in the interpretation”
(Epistolario, IV, 97).
But his interest in the Bible grew above all during his years in the Seminary
of Chieri (1835-1841). In those days when there was not a course that was
specifically about the Bible, he spent his free time and vacation to study his
favorite subjects.
He dedicated himself with passion to the reading of the works which were
not part of program of studies. Among these were “The History of the Old
and New Testament” by the French Benedictine, Augustin Calmet, “The
Jewish Antiquity” and “The Jewish Wars” of Flavius Josephus, as well as
“The Sacred Lessons on the Divine Scripture” of the Jesuit, Ferdinand
Zucconi (MO 93-94).
“The study of Greek was something I wanted so much,” Don Bosco wrote in
the Memoirs of the Oratory. With the help of a Jesuit who had “a deep
knowledge of Greek”, he was able to translate in four months “almost the
entire New Testament”. He also studied “the principles of Hebrew”, saying
that “these three languages, Hebrew, Greek and French were my favorites
after Latin and Italian” (MO 94-95).
According to his biographer, during the last four years in the seminary, Don
Bosco “read and studied the whole bible” (MB I, 412).
Beginning with his ordination to the subdiaconate, he was obliged to recited
the breviary everyday. It consisted of the entire psalmody and numerous
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Biblical
geography
biblical readings. We would not be mistaken to hold that the numerous
biblical citations of Don Bosco came from his recitation of the divine office.
After Don Bosco’s death, Don Lemoyne found written on the bookmarks of
his breviary eleven citations taken from the Bible. One was from the New
Testament (Second Letter to the Corinthians) and the rest, from the Old
Testament. Of the Old Testament citations, nine were from the wisdom
books (three from Proverbs, two from Ecclesiastes and four from Sirach) and
one from the prophet Nahum. According to his biographer, these were some
sort of program of conduct that Don Bosco had before his eyes everyday.
These texts, in fact, reveal in a meaningful way a biblical spirituality along
the following lines: trust in divine Providence and in God’s goodness,
worship owed to him, prudence in one’s relationship with women,
detachment from worldly goods, respect for one’s parents and superiors,
vigilance over one’s speech, almsgiving, pardon of offenses, joy, not
forgetting the judgment that one day God will pronounce over all our
actions (MB II, 523-526).
Don Bosco was interested in everything that enabled him to understand
Sacred Scriptures, in particular, biblical geography.
Don Lemoyne wrote: “To acquire a clearer understanding of Sacred
Scriptures, Don Bosco carefully studied the ancient geography of the holy
land and all the regions surrounding Palestine, not excluding Asia Minor,
Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece.” One of his closest friends recall that in
1849 Don Bosco had posted on the walls of his room a geographical map of
Palestine (MB III, 590).
In 1850 and in 1851, again according to his biographer, Don Bosco attended
lessons in “Sacred Geography” in one of the classrooms of the Turin
Seminary (MB III, 618).
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