austraLasia #1727

MO - real story, real people

SAMPRAN: 4th January 2007 -- More questions about the 'Three Lives', but the focus of day three was the Memoirs of the Oratory. Again very much a learning experience for participants. What is the MO as an 'autobiography'?  Technically not an autobiography at all - except of the Oratory. Don Bosco selects some elements from his own life story inasmuch as they highlight the story and identity of the Oratory.
    Fr Giraudo took up a number of features of the MO whose authenticity some have queried, to throw more light upon them, or to suggest their quite secondary role as the case may be.  Bartholomew Garelli - what do we say of this character? Here Giraudo's weight of scholarship suggests at least a position.  After an intense doctoral study drawing on documents from Turin, Chieri, and elsewhere in Piedmont, Fr Giraudo found that Don Bosco's facts, names, circumstances referred to were generally accurate.  He had no need to invent. Where he did use a little elasticity was in his dealings with Rome in difficult times.  There he would adjust numbers to help the cause.  But in this scholar's view, The MO is about real life and real people.
    What is more important than firing scholarly salvos, far more important than worrying about at which window of the Pinardi building Don Bosco was shot at, is that as readers who are intended to be 'partners in dialogue' his Salesians are meant to share his vision. Our future depends on our joining the narrative as partners in this vision which is one of spirituality and pedagogy.
    Participants moved into an impromptu workshop mode with the materials they had; there is a sense that with just one more day to go, the time may not be enough to complete the task. That will need to be ongoing work by individuals in their communities.
    Apart from the work of the day, opportunities were taken up, as offered, for visits to the elephant and crocodile farm, while others took advantage of the massage offered by the vocational centre for the blind.
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