austraLasia #3379
Tale
of Two Churches
Work
and temperance as seen and interpreted by Don Bosco's Successors
TURIN: 24 February 2014 -- San Giovanni Evangelista and the Consolata -
two churches indelibly stamped on the Salesian character, the
first-named because Don Bosco built it, the second is Turin's
and Don Bosco's 'mother' church. Long before the title 'Help
of Christians' came onto the scene, Our Lady of Consolation
was the church and title Don Bosco looked to.
Today the Chapter members visit both churches - in one they
hear the final talk on Work and Temperance, given in the three
language groups, and in the other, they listen to the
Archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia.
After lunch back at Valdocco, everyone hops aboard the coaches
and they begin their long trip back to Rome, where they may
arrive towards midnight.
Some details
regarding St John the Evangelist's and the Consolata
churches
St John the Evangelist's
- 1847 Don Bosco
builds a second Oratory down from the new Railway Station
(Porta Nuova) towards the river Po, on land outside the city
confines used by local washerwomen to dry clothes. They were
not happy! The Oratory was named after St Aloysius (San
Luigi's). It was also a developing urban area in the 1850's
and a hotbed of Waldensian activity. Also a Jewish area.
- 1870-1875 Don
Bosco buys up some extra land. He wants to build a church and
a hostel for poor boys. He does both. It is worth noting that
St Callistus Caravario, whose Feast (along with St Louis
Versiglia) we celebrate on 25 February, was a resident at the
hostel.
- 1877: He begins the
construction of the church, which is consecrated in
1882. But he wants to make it a monument in honour of
his favourite Pope, Pius IX and runs foul of the Archbishop
who also wants to build his own monument to Pius IX! Don Bosco
is not put off and places a statue of the Pope in front of the
Church.
The Consolata
- It probably goes back as
far as the 4th century. Still today you can see old
Roman ruins to one side of the church; it is not far from the
main original Roman area. Turin still bears the marks of this
Roman camp - one of the most orderly cities in Italy! Was Rome
ever like that one wonders?
- In the 10th and 11th
centuries it was rebuilt Roman style then later in
Baroque style. In fact today's 'Consolata' is three churches
and you see them quite distinctly once you enter. Off to the
right is a lower, older chapel of Our Lady of Graces (and St
Joseph Cafasso's remains are nearby in a small side chapel).
Then at the centre of it all up a few steps and through an
iron gate is the Consolata Sanctuary proper. The rest is St
Andrew's church.
- The nearby monastery,
emptied of Cistercians during the time of the law of
Suppression (as happened at Valsalice, recall, to the De la
Salles), was taken over by the diocese and became the new
'Convitto' after the one next to St Francis of Assissi's that
Don Bosco attended, was closed down.
- The Consolata was the
Oratory's church before Don Bosco built the St
Francis church and when the Pinardi chapel got too small for
numbers. The Consolata was only a hop, skip and a jump for the
boys, with Don Bosco hopping, skipping and jumping with them,
probably. When Mama Margaret died, it was here that he came
and told Our Lady that she was to be his mother.
--------------
St
John the Evangelist and the Consolata
"Work and Temperance:
as seen and interpreted by Don Bosco's Successors"
Fr Giraudo takes just the first two of Don Bosco's Successors
(Rua and Albera) as a way of looking at how they interpreted
Don Bosco's 'Work and Temperance'. Perhaps the punchline comes
right at the end of his talk:
So then, in the
sensitivities and outlook of the first two successors of Don
Bosco, the motto of the Congregation, Work and Temperance,
is enriched by a third element, Prayer or Piety. This aspect
is certainly not absent in the teaching and practices of Don
Bosco's life, but it became urgent to emphasis it in new
historical contexts to correct what is revealed to be the
“dominant defect” of the Salesians: undisciplined hard work,
excessive agitation, educative superficiality. Thus was the
"spirit of Don Bosco" being clarified in all its wealth of
spiritual nuances and its ascetic implications for the daily
life of Salesian communities.
He begins with Fr Rua, noting that reference
to the substance of Don Bosco's motto 'Work and Temperance'
is a constant one, even though it appears only once in the
circulars, formulated as such at the beginning of the
1892-1893 school year. Drawing on his circular
letters (all of which, along with his correspondence, is
available in SDL, by the way) he notes that Fr Rua's Circulars show a marked
insistence on ascetics and abstemiousness, piety, religious
regularity, pastoral zeal and the primacy of religion in the
education of the young. He was aware that with the growth of
the Congregation there was the risk that there might be a
lessening of its spiritual impulse.
Turning to Fr Albera, the presentation notes that his spiritual magisterium
particularly emphasised the link between the spirit of piety
and discipline of life, and offered an overall
interpretation of the 'spirit of Don Bosco' ... From his
contemplation of this ideal, Fr Albera then moved on to
suggest practical resolutions. Fr Albera has in mind a
spiritual pathology which was widespread in the Salesian
Congregation: “the great illness of many given to God's
service is agitation and excessive zeal given to exterior
matters. How difficult it is to reign in our activity and
keep it within the right limits!"
The
Archbishop of Turin looking to the Bicentneary year 2015
The archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia, speaks
enthusiastically about the upcoming celebrations for the
Bicentenary of St John Bosco's birth, and speaks just as
proudly of the fact that this
is why we have also decided to offer the many pilgrims who
will come to Turin an extraordinary showing of the Shroud,
the cloth which according to tradition Jesus’ body in the
Sepulchre was wrapped in. The fact that this display
will take place in the Jubilee year of St John Bosco commits
us to encouraging the world of the young through particular
events and initiatives so they can discover the spiritual
wealth of the Saint, Father, teacher and friend of youth on
the one hand and on the other be accompanied in meditating
and praying before the Shroud.
Archbishop Nosiglia reveals that as a child, he attended the
Salesian Sisters' school in Campo Liguore, where he grew up,
and that as he watched
the filmstrips on Don Bosco with much interest every Sunday,
it seemed to me that the Saint was truly there amongst us
kids. I confess that last month, too, when we bore the
Casket in procession with so many young people from Turin, I
felt the compelling prayer of this hymn [he is
referring to the fact that in the parish they regularly sang
'Don Bosco ritorna'] within
me and heard it as a stimulus asking me, as bishop and
pastor of the Church in Turin: are we capable of returning
to throwing ourselves amidst the young to listen to their
criticisms and expectations regarding the Church and the joy
of finding ourselves all there together on the journey in
the same faith and love?
He reminds his listeners that Don Bosco not only speaks
to young people today. He speaks to parents and teachers,
other educators, and he speaks to the Church: encouraging it to change its
approach to the young and their problems in life. He helps
us to understand that it is not only the young who must
return to the Church; it is rather the Church that must
return to the young.
--------------
Reminder of timetable for these
days.
24 February Monday
8.30 a.m. Off to St
John the Evangelist's in Turin, the church built by Don Bosco
close to his second oratory of 'San Luigi' (St Aloysius).
10.00 a.m. 4th and final
talk by Giraudo: Work and Temperance: Don Bosco's motto as
seen by his Successors. And again, 3 groups.
11.00 .a.m. back down
towards Valdocco again, but this time to the Church of the
Consolata where the Archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia, will
be main celebrant and homilist at the Mass to be celebrated at
12 noon. Our Lady of Consolation (the 'Consolata') is the
Patroness of Turin. It is a fascinating history as to how this
came about - check it
out on the Internet
1.30 p.m. Lunch at
Valdocco and by 2.30 p.m. departure by coach(es) to Rome.
25 February (Feast of Sts
Louis Versiglia and Callistus Caravario)
Presentation of the
Rector Major's Report and reports from Sectors and Regions
26 February
Presentation of the Rector Major's Report and reports from
Sectors and Regions. Retreat begins in the evening.
PS: The North American
Provinces are
running a Facebook page which will also help with
information and background.
Terminology
If there is any terminology used that you are unsure of, and
you don't have the app, look it up in the Salesians
A-Z
web page.
-------------
Yesterday's
beautiful country was Australia. And
the first lot (which we said was China) includes a border
issue - half of the beautiful volcanic lake you saw is Korean,
so we can't really say it is a Chinese lake! Not only that,
but it is the spiritual soul, the 'birthplace' of everything
that is Korean - so people who have just visited Colle and
Valdocco have a sense of what that must mean to Koreans.
Unfortunately for half of the Korean Peninsula, access to the
Lake tends to be through China since difficult politics makes
direct access impossible.
Hope you didn't make the mistake of confusing yesterday's pics
with Korea - or that would be a border dispute with beautiful
Australia! The 'Korean' signs are from multicultural Sydney.
The Southern Lights (the Aurora Australis) are as seen from
south of Hobart. The camels - you can guess where - the
Red Centre. The vineyards are South Australia.
And -
here
is an extraordinary video with a beautiful message from Pope
Francis.
Addressing
Tony Palmer, an Evangelical Penteocstal bishop as "my brother, a
bishop-brother" and saying they had "been friends for years," the
pope offered what he said were greetings "both joyful and full of
longing" to participants in a forthcoming meeting of the Kenneth
Copeland Ministries, a Pentecostal group that sponsors large
prayer gatherings around the world.
