Prayer of Entrustment of Salesian Work to Mary Help of Christians

Written in 1918 by Rector Major Fr. Paolo Albera, Second Successor of St. John Bosco, Used by Don Luigi Versiglia in 1919, and by Bishop Michele Arduino in 1949

O Mary, powerful Help of the Christian people, listen kindly to the fervent prayers that rise up to You in this solemn hour.

Because of Your motherly concern for the moral and religious needs of the new generations growing up in these new times, You inspired the Venerable Don Bosco to devote himself to their education and upbringing. That faithful servant of Yours, as soon as he saw the beginning of the work entrusted to him, decided to build in Your honour the Church of Mary Help of Christians in Turin. His purpose was to see to it that, in the fullness of the future expansion of his mission, all his children would revive the memory of Your help and motherly protection. If he were alive today, used as he was to proclaim himself totally indebted to You, what a song of praise would he raise up to You!

You now see how, together with his Successor, the threefold Family that was born of Your inspiration and Your will, lies prostrate before Your altar. The Salesians, the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, the Cooperators, men and women, are overcome with joy in contemplating the glitter of the golden scepter that they have put into Your hand. Of one heart, they yearn to proclaim You their august Queen.

O Mary Help of Christians, the Work of Don Bosco is Yours, all Yours, Yours by right. But we, in the lively desire to show You our filial gratitude, want it to be Yours also because of our unanimous, absolute, and irrevocable consecration. We want to consecrate to You our mind, our heart, all the forces and faculties of our soul, every moment of our life, because it is Your graceful gift that we all are children of Don Bosco and Your children. To You, then, O Mother most tender, collectively and individually we consecrate ourselves today, with the firm intention of being always, with Your help, more hard-working apostles of charity in every part of the earth.

With the most joyous hopes, we consecrate to You also our works, most especially the youthful masses that are gathered or will gather in the future at the foot of Your altars, under the banner of Don Bosco. Make them grow, O Mother of God and our Teacher, and keep them ever Yours, even amid the dangers and pitfalls of the world, so that the Vicar of Jesus Christ may delight in seeing the Kingdom of God spread, also through them, everywhere.

O Mother of Jesus and our Mother most amiable, accept this devoted and affectionate offer with Your usual kindness. Let Your royal scepter be always raised to protect and defend the houses and missions of the Pious Salesian Society and of Your Daughters; let it point the way to Paradise to the souls gathered in all their works; let it protect and defend the family and the work of Cooperators, both men and women. Let the whole world see and know that the children, the admirers, and the friends of the Venerable Don Bosco are, and want to be, Yours, today, always, and forever. Amen.