COMING TO KNOW DON BOSCO

PASCUAL CHÁVEZ VILLANUEVA

«I always needed the help of everybody»

Don Bosco was never afraid to ask. In order to enter the seminary he went begging for the first time, the first of a long series throughout his life.

«All that remained now was to supply him with the clerical habit and accessories that his mother could not afford to provide. Fr Cinzano discussed this problem with some of his parishioners who eagerly agreed to help. Mr Sartoris supplied the cassock, Mayor Pescarmona the hat, the pastor gave him his own cape. Others donated a clerical collar, a biretta and a few pairs of socks while a good woman of the parish volunteered to take up a collection to buy him a pair of shoes. The good Lord will act thus again in later years. Through charitable people He will assist John in all his undertakings. We heard Don Bosco repeat more than once: - I always needed the help of everybody!» (Biographical Memoirs I, 274-5).

Don Bosco was never ashamed to beg.

At Toulon, in 1881, after a conference, «Don Bosco made the rounds of the church to take up a collection. As he did so, something out of the ordinary occurred. When he held out the plate to a workman, the latter rudely turned away. Don Bosco passed him by and softly said, “God bless you.” The man then thrust his hand into his pocket and dropped the equivalent of five cents in the plate. Looking into his eyes, Don Bosco said, “May God reward you.” The man repeated his gesture, this time giving ten cents. Thereupon Don Bosco told him. “My friend, God reward you even more!” On hearing this the man took out his purse and donated a franc. With a telling glance of tenderness Don Bosco moved on. As though drawn by a magnet, the man followed him through the church into the sacristy, and later even into the town, keeping after him until Don Bosco disappeared from view.» (Biographical Memoirs XV, 45).

The Don Bosco Cooperators

Before giving a name to his non-religious helpers Don Bosco hesitated for quite some time prior to deciding to settle on the name «Salesian Cooperators», only after a long series of events .

The introduction to the text of the Regulations, published in Albenga in 1876, opens with the words : «To the Reader. No sooner had the Work of the Oratories begun in 1841 than some pious and zealous priests and lay people came to help in the cultivation of the copious harvest among the young people in danger. These Co-workers or Co-operators were always the support of the Pious Works which Divine Providence placed in our hands.»

Not only Cooperators who have made their promise, but a vast network of cooperation, support, friendship, charitable donations …, very well cared for. There is a need to recover this original idea of Don Bosco, developed by Don Rua and his successors, which made it possible for the Salesian work to spread throughout the world.

In recent years an attempt has been made to make the Cooperator better understood, appreciating more one of the aspects in Don Bosco vision (that of the “external” Salesian.)

Don Bosco had the idea of a re-organisation of Catholics in order to re-Christianise society; the idea of giving financial support to Salesian works; the idea of Catholic lay “voluntary service” in the pastoral area (teaching catechism, helping the parish clergy) or the social area (through education, assistance, training, safeguarding).

The things Don Bosco said in conferences and did himself clarified the nature, the forms and the significance of cooperation. He was addressing cooperators and benefactors, but also people engaged in various apostolates (autonomous or as part of Church-sponsored activities). Practical forms of charity constitute a large part of what he said and did, as he made appeals which were more and more insistent and demanding.

At a Formal Conference on 1 June 1885, Don Bosco declared: “To be a Salesian Cooperator means to cooperate with other people in the support of a work, the purpose of which is to help Holy Church in her most immediate needs. By so doing, one helps to promote an undertaking warmly recommended by the Holy Father since it will educate the boys in virtue and guide them towards the sanctuary. Its main purpose is to educate the young who are today the target of evil people, and to promote the love of our religion in the midst of the world, in schools, in hospices, festive oratories, and the fa­mily circle and to promote also morals, prayer, approach to the Sacraments and so on .”

In the XXI century

Appro­ved by the Holy See on 9 May 1986, promulgated by the Rector Major Fr Egidio Viganò the following 24 May, the New Regulations define the renewed image of the Salesian Cooperator at the dawn of the XXI century, with regard to the identity, the spirit, the mission and the organisation of the Association.

«Cooperators are Catholics who living their faith within the framework of their own secular condition, draw their inspiration from Don Bosco’s apostolic project: by committing themselves to the same mission among the young and poor in partnership and in a brotherly way; in close communion with the other members of the Salesian Family; working for the good of the Church and of society; to the best of their ability.»

Those who drew up this article wanted to go back to Don Bosco’s original intentions, according to which the Cooperators are real Salesians in the world, in other words Christia­ns, lay people or priests, who without the ties of the religious vows, live their own call to holiness in the service of the young and the working classes according to the spirit of Don Bosco. Defined in this way Cooperators have three characteristics: Catholics, in the world and Sa­lesian.