Colle Don Bosco, 23 February 2014

The Memoirs of the Oratory are no mere chronicle of events but a spiritual and charismatic testament drawn up in narrative form. Through this retelling of situations, people and particular events, carefully selected and linked to one another in a plot, Don Bosco is describing for us his inner journey which led him to carry out his oratory mission, following the vocation he had received. Through this act of recall the Saint is also passing on to his “beloved Salesian sons” a view of the features which ought characterise Salesian spiritual identity. He does this by telling of key occasions and moments of transition along his journey of formation, by including the important people in his formation who are living embodiments of the typical attitudes and virtues of the ideal and model Salesian.