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The 2013 Strenna - Presentation
“Rejoice in the Lord always;
again I will say, Rejoice”
(Phil 4:4)
Like Don Bosco the educator,
we offer young people the
Gospel of joy
through a pedagogy of kindness
Dear Brothers and Sisters of the
Salesian Family,
After focusing attention on
the history of Don Bosco and
having sought to come to a
better understanding of his
life as a whole, marked by a
predilection for the young, the
2013 Strenna aims to come to
a better understanding of what
he proposed in educational
terms. In practice we would
like to get closer to Don Bosco
the educator. So it is a case of
understanding and updating the
Preventive System.
In this task, too, our approach
is not just an intellectual one.
A deeper study of Salesian
pedagogy is certainly necessary,
on the one hand, so that it can
be updated according to the
sensitivity and demands of our
time. Today, in fact, the social,
economic, cultural, political,
and religious contexts in which
we find ourselves living out our
vocation and carrying out the
Salesian mission have altered
profoundly. On the other hand,
to be faithful to our Father’s
charism, it is equally necessary
to make the content and
approach of what he offered in
educational and pastoral terms
our own. In the context of today’s
society, we are called to be holy
educators as he was, giving our
lives as he did, working with and
for the young.
REDISCOVERING THE
PREVENTIVE SYSTEM
In rethinking Don Bosco’s
pedagogical experience, we are
called to give it life faithfully again
today. For a correct updating
of the Preventive System today,
more than thinking straight off
of programs or of formulas, or of
repeating generic “slogans” to fit
all seasons, our efforts instead
should be to gain a historical
appreciation of Don Bosco’s
approach. In practice this means
analyzing how diverse his work
was for the young, the populace,
the Church, society, religious
life, and also how diverse was his
way of educating young people
at his first festive oratory and
the junior seminary at Valdocco,
Salesian and non-Salesian clerics,
missionaries. One could observe
how already in the first oratory
at the Pinardi house certain
important insights were present
that would afterward acquire a
deeper value as part of a complex
human and Christian synthesis:
1. flexible structure, which
mediated between Church, urban
society, and the youthful bracket
of the population;
2. respect and appreciation
for the popular setting;
3. religion as a basis
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for education, following the
teaching of Catholic pedagogy
that was passed on to him at
the Ecclesiastical College (the
Convitto);
4. the dynamic interplay
between religious formation and
human development, catechism
and education;
5. the conviction that
education is the essential
instrument for enlightening the
mind;
6. education, like
catechesis, developed in all kinds
of ways compatible with the
limitations of time and resources;
7. keeping busy while
appreciating free time;
8. loving kindness as
an educational style, and more
generally as a Christian lifestyle.
Once we have a correct
understanding of the past, we
need to translate the Preventive
System’s major insights and
virtues for today. We need
to modernize its principles,
concepts, and original guidelines
to reinterpret its major underlying
ideas and key methodological
guidelines both theoretically
and practically. And all this
needs to be to the advantage
of the formation of the “new”
youth of the 21st century,
called to experience and deal
with a vast, totally new range
of circumstances and problems
in times that have changed
decisively, and which the human
sciences themselves are now
critically reflecting upon.
I want to suggest three
perspectives in particular,
analyzing the first of them at some
depth.
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