1431 India: Thanjavur - RM
austraLasia #1431
What we have seen and heard in Don Bosco is what we
are called to continue
THANJAVUR: 5th February 2006 -- "servants, mystics and
prophets", a phrase taken from the Rector Major's closing words for the
centenary, is a phrase that has become emblematic of this leader's
insistent message, a message delivered with passion and the missionary
thrust of the 'da mihi animas'. Like father, like son was his
message today, as he turned from the drawing up and dreaming of Delhi's
opening a year ago to the actual beginnings at the Becchi, traced
via Thanjavur to today's Salesian India.
In something of a rare departure for Fr Chávez, a
scripture scholar, there was but a single phrase from Scripture today,
and that was paraphrased from Phil 4:9: What you have heard and seen in
me is what you must do. But it was a phrase that contained it
all, as he focused directly on the 'me' around which the phrase pivots,
the identity behind the 'splendid mission, history and charism of Don
Bosco in this splendid country'. Today the Rector Major, while
pointing to the mystic and prophetic quality of Don Bosco, decided to
be especially a servant of the facts that would help his listeners
understand, interpret and faithfully imitate him for India today.
First the Risorgimento and the drama of a
people distanced from the faith, of youth abandoned in their ideals and
aspirations by politicians, people of money and, perhaps even by people
of the Church.....are there parallels in India today?
Don Bosco discovered new ways of fighting evil,
resisting negative forces by condemning the ambiguity and danger in
them, realising how youth might react...shades of Paris and France in
recent times. He garnered possibilities for empowering and
developing young people, using what he found in society's very
ambiguity: the paternalistic social structure of the ancien regime,
the liberal political arrangements open to decentralised charity and
philanthropy, the availability of resources for charitable works.
What was ambiguous by nature he made positive by choice in
irrepressible creativity
Don Bosco was successful thanks to his outstanding
gift as a communicator, and his superior zeal and faith - superior to
all his limitations of cultural and theological baggage, and lack of
finance! It was his passion for God and for the young which won
the day.
His was not just condemnation but prophetic and
mystic challenge to those who would close their heart to the painful
reality of their (young) neighbour.
The reconstructed historical context above in which
Don Bosco lived needs interpretation. The Rector Major offered
the following:
- DB's intellectual and emotional
perception of the problem of 'poor and abandoned youth' as a universal,
theological and socially significant problem.
- his intuition that society had become
sensitive to the need for and possibilities of educating young people,
along with his knowledge of public and informed opinion.
- his launching of a much-needed
intervention a massive scale involving Catholic and civilian life
touching the very existence of the Church and the social order itself.
- his ability to communicate it to
large groups of co-workers, benefactors and admirers.
And yet he was not a politician, nor sociologist,
nor trade unionist but a priest-educator who transformed his strong
beliefs into social realities, practical gestures, made 'real life' an
incarnated dimension of ideals and values, kept his freedom and his
Salesians' freedom but informed it with fierce autonomy.
Only dynamic fidelity to all this can be our path to
the future of Salesian India.
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