TEACHER AND FRIEND

by Pascual Chávez Villanueva

T

OF DON BOSCO

THERE ONLY REMAINS …

We are coming to the end of this series of biblical reflections on Don Bosco in which we have been comparing him with Moses. Many other ideas could have been developed and other comparisons made about this multi-faceted “Father and Teacher” of ours, since there are thousands of fascinating aspects to his personality. There will be other opportunities to indicate various different features of Don Bosco’s holiness. On this occasion we conclude with this final consideration.

AS though seeing the invisible is a good decription of Don Bosco’s experience of God. Someone wishing to follow in his footsteps and as a believer to imitate the way of life that made Don Bosco a saint must of necessity be determined also to live “as though seeing God”. In the Bible, this feature is a characteristic of those destined to be mediators of salvation for God’s people. It is therefore the pattern for all those believers who feel themselves called by God to be:

■people of the exodus, believers who know how to abolish slavery wherever they find it because they are convinced that God’s salvation cannot be achieved where his people are suffering exploitation and injustice (Ex 3,3-7-10). Don Bosco’s sons and daughters know that in today’s world numberless groups of young people don’t even know what childhood is because they are immediately caught up in a manufacturing system that exploits them and so they pass directly, not without traumas and psychological damage, from infancy to adulthood.

As in the times of Moses, to be aware of a God who does not remain unmoved by the sufferings of his people (Ex 3,16-17) is to believe that one is seeing the invisible; to be convinced that there must be an Exodus precisely because a God exists who wants to be recognised, who does not tolerate other Gods (Ex 3,12.18), it is to believe that one is seeing the invisible. This means making one’s own the experience of Moses and not remaining indifferent in the presence of evil, but freeing people from those situations that do not allow them to live their lives with dignity.

■guides of the people, believers who follow the paths of God even when they lead into the desert, since they know that God’s children come to birth in those places where only those possibilities of life are to be found which come from the Father (Dt 8,3; Mt 4,4). Don Bosco’s sons and daughters know that material and cultural progress has created among today’s youngsters an extraordinary and bewildered desire to live and to experience everything they can possibly discover. They want to live freely on the margins of traditional values, ignoring the ordinarily accepted ways of doing things that are offered them; they want to go in a new direction, following their own designs which they feel they have really chosen for themselves.

As in the times of Moses, this world of youth needs guides who, without condemning their transgressions and without imitating them can convince them of the presence of the invisible God, of His walking beside them so that they may discover Him in the shadows of the day and the heat of the night; guides who resist the pressures of the people when the people oppose God, since they can see beyond what appearances have to offer.

■people of the covenant, believers who bridge the gap between God and His people because they are in close touch with both and appreciate the importance of both. As in the times of Moses, God’s people have need of those who know how to speak about God because they have spoken with God; believers whose faces, as Paul says, are transfigured, and through whom the glory of the Invisible one appears; those who make known to the people the will of this inaccessible God. Today, as in the times of Moses, God needs men and women who will present to Him the needs and the cries of His people..

Don Bosco knew how to correspond fully to God’s designs and to the expectations of “morally endangered youngsters” (MB 14, 536). Those who feel called to imitate him know that they must be determined to live “as though seeing the Invisible one”. ■