AGC437_Artime_De_Sales


AGC437_Artime_De_Sales

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1. LETTER OF THE RECTOR MAJOR
Strenna 2022
“Do all through love, nothing through constraint”
(Saint Francis de Sales)
IN THE FOURTH CENTENARY
of the death of St Francis de Sales:
two giants in continuity with one another
in the Salesian charism.
Let me begin by stating that it is not my intention to be
writing a short book on the life of St Francis de Sales. There
are already excellent biographies written by true experts. It
would be absolutely presumptuous on my part and certainly
beyond my ability and intentions. On the other hand, in the
light of the splendid figure of St Francis de Sales I intend,
through these pages, to throw light on the occasion of the 4th
centenary of his death, and on our Salesian Family, the Family
of Don Bosco, which has its roots in and draws daily from this
Salesian spirituality.
From the outset I speak of two giants who are in continuity
with one another in the Salesian charism, since both are a great
gift in the Church and because Don Bosco, like no other, knew
how to translate the spiritual strength of Francis de Sales into
the day-by-day education and evangelisation of his poor boys.
And, therefore, the entire Salesian Family continues to have
this task in the Church and in today’s world.
This is why I would like to state from the outset that “sym-
bolically”, both Francis de Sales and John Bosco (Don Bosco)
have much in common from the cradle onwards.
Francis de Sales was born beneath the Savoyard sky that
crowns the valleys crossed by streams rising from the highest
peaks of the Alps.

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4  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
How could we not think that John Bosco, too, was a “Savo-
yard”? He was not born in a castle but had the same gift as
Francis did: a gentle, faith-filled mother. Françoise de Boisy
was very young when she was pregnant with her first child,
and at Annecy, before the Holy Shroud that spoke to her of the
passion of God’s blessed Son, she was deeply moved and made
a promise: this child would belong to Jesus forever.
One day Mamma Margaret would tell John: “When you
came into the world, I consecrated you to the Blessed Virgin.”
Don Bosco, too, would kneel before the same Shroud in
Turin. Christian mothers generate saints. In a castle, like
Francis, or in a run-down country shack like John.
They say that the first sentence Francis managed to put to-
gether was: “The good God and my mother love me very much.”
The good God watched over Francis and John and gave
them both a big heart. Francis studied in Paris and Padua, in
the most famous universities in the world at the time. John
studied by candlelight in an alcove in the “Caffè Pianta”. But
the Spirit is not hindered by small human difficulties. The two
were destined to somehow cross. And one day Don Bosco told a
group of young men who had grown up with him: “We will call
ourselves Salesians”. From that moment onwards, always led
by the Spirit, the great tree of Don Bosco’s Family, the Salesian
Family, began to grow.
St Francis de Sales is an historical figure who, with the
passing of time, has grown in relevance and significance,
thanks to the prolific dissemination of his insights, experiences
and spiritual convictions. Four hundred years later, his propos-
al of Christian life, his method of spiritual accompaniment and
his anthropological vision regarding the relationship between
human beings and God are still fascinating.
The theme chosen for this Strenna for the Family, ever
faithful to the legacy and tradition bequeathed to us by Don
Bosco himself, comes from the pen of Francis de Sales who is

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  5
today at the centre of our attention in celebrations for the
fourth centenary of his death.1
The Constitutions of the Salesians of Don Bosco contain
many of the elements and characteristics of the spirituality of
St Francis de Sales. The same goes for the Daughters of Mary
Help of Christians and for many other groups of Don Bosco’s
Family, given that their identity has so many Salesian ele-
ments to it. Thus it is not difficult to find harmony and direct
applications and links between texts written four hundred
years ago by Francis de Sales, and what belongs to our Sale-
sian spiritual patrimony as features of our identity.
In particular, as a guide for what I am writing here, I turn
to article 38 of the Constitutions of the Salesians of Don Bosco
which describe the characteristics of the Preventive System
in our mission within the framework of our educative and
pastoral service, and which expresses a summary of the aspects
I wish to develop, almost as if it were an updated index to read-
ing the thoughts of St Francis de Sales. Thus we read:
Don Bosco has handed on to us his Preventive System as a
means for carrying out our educational and pastoral service.
“This system is based entirely on reason, religion and
loving kindness”: Instead of constraint, it appeals to the
resources of intelligence, love and the desire for God,
which everyone has in the depths of his being.
1 Lettre CCXXXIV. A la Baronne de Chantal, OEA XII, 359. The letter is
dated 14 October 1604: “But if you really like the prayers you are used to
saying, please don’t drop them; and if you happen to leave out some of what
I am telling you to do, have no scruples about it, for here is the general rule
of our obedience written in capital letters: DO ALL THROUGH LOVE,
NOTHING THROUGH CONSTRAINT; LOVE OBEDIENCE MORE THAN
YOU FEAR DISOBEDIENCE. I want you to have the spirit of liberty, not
the kind that excludes obedience (this is freedom of the flesh), but the lib-
erty that excludes constraint, scruples and anxiety. If you really love obedi-
ence and docility, I’d like to think that when some legitimate or charitable
cause takes you away from your religious exercises, this would be for you
another form of obedience and that your love would make up for whatever
you have to omit in your religious practice.”

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6  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
It brings together educators and youngsters in a family
experience of trust and dialogue.
Imitating God's patience, we encounter the young at their
present stage of freedom. We then accompany them,
so that they may develop solid convictions and gradually
assume the responsibility for the delicate process of their
growth as human beings and as men of faith” (C. 38).
What distinguishes our Salesian Family in today's manifold
and different societies and cultures is precisely Don Bosco’s
Preventive System, which is capable of being applied, known
and accepted in the most diverse contexts. I find many common
elements in the article cited, and in the central lines of the
thought and spirituality of St Francis de Sales, which allow me
to initiate a dialogue between Francis de Sales and Don Bosco
on the basis of what we discover here:
1. Nothing through constraint. Freedom is God’s gift:
and it is because of this that our system of education ap-
peals to other resources “instead of constraint”.
2. God’s presence in the human heart: through which
we recognise the “love and the desire for God, which every-
one has in the depths of his being”.
3. Life in God: which “brings together educators and young-
sters [tr. note: the Italian Constitutional text here includes
the phrase: “in un’unica esperienza di vita” which literally
translates as “a unique experience of life”. This has been
omitted in the English text].
4. A kind and friendly way of dealing with people:
which leads to living with our youngsters “in a family expe-
rience of trust and dialogue”.
5. Unconditional and unrestrained love: which makes
it possible in our family that by “Imitating God’s patience,
we encounter the young at their present stage of freedom”.
6. With the need for a spiritual guide: hence “We then
accompany them, so that they may develop solid convic-
tions”.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  7
7. Ultimately doing “All through love”: so that they
“gradually assume the responsibility for the delicate process
of their growth as human beings and as men of faith”.
1. Nothing through constraint. Freedom is God’s gift
This is why our system of education appeals to other re-
sources “other than constraint”.
“The charity and kindness of St Francis de Sales will guide
me in everything.”2 At the seminary in Chieri, Don Bosco had
the opportunity to get to know the basic works of St Francis de
Sales. One of his resolutions before his priestly ordination
shows that he had found in him a model not only for his activities
but also for his life. The charity and kindness that St Francis
de Sales showed in his relationships with people throughout
his life made a compelling impact on Don Bosco that marked
him for the rest of his life, beginning with the dream he had
when he was nine years old: “Not by blows”3.
“Nothing through constraint” is a beautiful proposal, an
invitation to make it a precious gift of our personal life.
It is a guide, when accepting a task, to assume the attitude
with which one carries out a mission, a responsibility or a ser-
vice for others. It is what sustains and gives consistency to this
option, to this way of living as Christians, in harmony with the
decision of God himself who created us and made us free.
We have all had the experience that when things are im-
posed, without reason, without a “why”, simply by imposition
and constraint, they do not last long; or they last only while the
2 The young Don Bosco’s fourth resolution during the retreat before his
priestly ordination, in ISS, Fonti salesiane. 1. Don Bosco e la sua opera. Rac-
colta antologica, LAS, Roma 2014, 971.
3 G. BOSCO, Memoirs of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales, in ISS, Fonti
salesiane. 1. Don Bosco e la sua opera. Raccolta antologica, LAS, Roma
2014, 1176. The translation here and in subsequent references is from the
Memoirs of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales, Salesiana Publishers New
Rochelle, New York, 2010, p. 34.

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8  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
command lasts. God does not act this way and St Francis de
Sales experienced this in his pastoral activity. As a Tridentine
bishop and a promoter of the Catholic counter-reformation
raised in the struggle against lukewarm faith, he chose the life
of the heart and not that of constraint. And all he was doing
was contemplating and living God’s attitude. He wrote thus to
his spiritual daughter: “Like a good father holding his son by
the hand, he will adapt his steps to yours and will be happy
not to walk faster than you.”4
For the humanist St Francis de Sales, freedom is the indi-
vidual’s most precious element.5 The reality of the Incarnation
is the most sublime reason for affirming this dignity. It can be
said that God not only created us in his image and likeness,
but that, in Christ, God himself – these are St Francis de Sales’
words – “made himself to our image and likeness”6. This great-
ness of the human being, the human being’s value as an indi-
vidual, is manifested in the freedom that makes the human be-
4 Letter to Jeanne de Chantal (OEA XIV, 111). For the quotations from
Saint Francis de Sales, we see that many authors cite the same sources,
sometimes using different nomenclature. To avoid confusion, we will cite, if
possible, the original work with its book and chapter so that it can be found
more easily in any version or language. The most accepted reference of his
works is the complete edition of 27 volumes based on handwritten items and
original editions under the care of the Sisters of the Visitation of the first
Monastery at Annecy, Oeuvres de Saint François de Sales quoted with the
initials OEA (“Oeuvres Edition Annecy”, indicating the volume and page
from this work). Sometimes I will only cite the secondary source. There is a
magnificent digital library with all the works of St. Francis, available in
various digital formats, for your reference and reading pleasure:
https://www.donboscosanto.eu/francesco_di_sales/index-fr.php
5 Cf. M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales. Un progetto di formazione inte-
grale, LAS, Roma 2021, 76-77.
6 Cf. M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales, 76. The complete quote: “God
has signified unto us by so many ways and means that his will is that we
should all be saved, that none can be ignorant of it. To this purpose he made
us to his own image and likeness by creation, and made himself to our
image and likeness by his Incarnation, after which he suffered death to
ransom and save all mankind.”. Treatise on the Love of God, IV (English ed.
All references to this work here are to the edition held by the Christian
Classics Ethereal Library, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/desales/devout_life.html).

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  9
ing responsible. For Francis de Sales, freedom is the person’s
most important part because it is the life of the heart. And it
has so much value and dignity that God himself, who gave it to
us, does not demand it by force, and when he asks us for it, he
wants us to give it to him with sincerity and willingness. God
“never forced anyone to serve him and will never do so.”7
God’s intervention, his grace, never takes place without our
consent. He acts forcefully, but never to oblige or constrain, in-
stead to attract the heart, not to violate, but out of love for our
freedom. The freedom God gave the human individual is al-
ways respected. God, as Francis de Sales used say, draws us to
himself through his kind initiative, at times as a vocation or
call, at times as the voice of a friend, as an inspiration or invi-
tation and at times as a “prevention” because he always antic-
ipates. God never imposes himself: he knocks at our door and
waits for us to open it.8
In the same way Don Bosco, in his relationships with the
most disadvantaged and poorest youngsters at Valdocco,
learned to follow the way of the heart in accepting them and
accompanying them in their education. His implementation of
pastoral zeal, of the desire to save souls, of the commitment to
the full development of his boys, was carried out without coer-
cion, without imposition, always through the youngster’s accep-
tance of the proposal to enter into this relationship of friend-
ship because in his heart he felt that he was loved, that there
was someone who was thinking of his good and who wanted
him to be happy.
Human freedom will always be a value to safeguard, even
when other values come into play like faith, justice and truth.
For us, Don Bosco’s Family, this is fundamental. We do not be-
lieve it possible to educate without sacred respect for the free-
7 Cf. Homily on the conversion of St Augustine (OEA IX, 335). Cited in
M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales, 76.
8 Cf. M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales, 140.

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10  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
dom of every individual. Where the freedom of the individual
is not respected, God is absent. This is why, according to St
Francis de Sales, God attracts people through his love in the
way that most conforms to our nature. Here is how he puts it
in this wonderful text:
The band of the human will is delight and pleasure. We
show nuts to a child, says St Augustine, and he is drawn
by his love; he is drawn by the cords, not of the body but
of the heart. Mark then, how the Eternal Father draws
us: while teaching, he delights us, not imposing on us any
necessity... So sweet is God’s hand in the handling of our
hearts! So dexterous is it in communicating unto us its
strength without depriving us of liberty, and in imparting
unto us the motion of its power without hindering that of
our will! He adjusts his power to his sweetness in such
sort, that as in what regards good his might sweetly gives
us the power, so his sweetness mightily maintains the
freedom of the will. If thou didst know the gift of God, said
our Saviour to the Samaritan woman, and who he is that
saith to thee, give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have
asked of him, and he would have given thee living water...
Theotimus, inspirations prevent us, and even before they
are thought of make themselves felt, but after we have
felt them it is ours either to consent to them so as to
second and follow their attractions, or else to dissent and
repulse them. They make themselves felt by us without
us, but they do not make us consent without us9.
As Francis de Sales writes, God attracts like the perfumes
of which the Song of Songs speaks. The attempt to combine
human freedom and God's attraction occurs gently. The
strength of God’s attraction, powerful but not violent, lies in
9 Treatise on the Love of God, XII: That divine inspirations leave us in
full liberty to follow them or repulse them. (English ed. All references
to this work here are to the edition held by the Christian Classics Ethereal
Library, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/desales/love.html).

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  11
the sweetness of his attraction, and, moreover, God’s love
has nothing to envy with regard to human love for creatures in
the spiritual experience lived and shared by Francis de Sales.
No love ever turns our hearts away from God except what is
contrary to him. Far from excluding love for others, the Sale-
sian mystical experience, this love of God we are speaking of,
demands it.10
And so we understand that God respects human freedom
and at the same time wants our good and offers us so many
signs of his love. Undoubtedly, perhaps the first of these would
be his unconditional respect for our freedom. Love vanishes if
it seeks to impose or demand, and herein lies the intensity with
which Francis de Sales presents the positive image of a loving
God who offers his friendship, who gives of his goods, and who
leaves us room in freedom to reciprocate it through communi-
cation with him.
This is also enlightening for us regarding the care and
respect for each individual’s religious freedom. Having, as
Francis de Sales did, a friendly presence among non-Catholics,
a presence that we understand as a form of evangelisation
through witness, having a presence that at times must be calm,
silent, respectful, will be perfectly valid since it is based not
only on the principle of non-violence but, more importantly,
on a profound respect for people’s freedom.
We identify very much with this mode of presence that St
Francis de Sales was already practising in conflict zones due to
the religious wars of his time, offering a prophetic testimony of
patience and perseverance with a style focused on Christ’s
cross and Mary’s motherly intercession.
Our presence as a Salesian Family in so many parts of
the world demands that we make the choice of this kind of
presence.
10 Cf. F. VINCENT, Saint François de Sales, directeur d’âmes. L’éducation
de la volonté, 264 (note 1). Quoted in M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales, 140.

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12  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
And certainly, exploring the legacy of Francis de Sales and
seeking to apply his spirituality to the very real situations of
our time will be the best way to grow in “Salesianity”.
2. God’s presence in the human heart:
We recognise “the desire for God, which everyone has in the
depths of his being.”
Saying “Nothing through constraint” is not just a strategy
or method but above all a deep belief of trust and faith in the
human being – Christian humanism – that St Francis de Sales
had, going very much against the current, and that Don Bosco
was able to magnificently develop through his optimism and
complete trust in the young, in his boys: the human being,
the young person, every individual, each of us, carries the need
for God, the desire for God, “a natural inclination for God”,
inscribed in our being.11 The natural desire to see God is trans-
formed in our saints into the conviction that God is present and
makes himself present to each individual in those moments
of their life that only God himself chooses and in the way that
only God knows.12
These theological principles, so contemporary to us, are ex-
pressed concretely in the profoundly Salesian spiritual attitude
of collaboration with God's action: serving human beings in a
spirit of freedom that had already taken shape in St Francis de
11 Cf. Treatise on the Love of God, XVIII: “But seeing we have not power
naturally to love God above all things, why have we naturally an inclination
to it? Is not nature vain to incite us to a love which she cannot bestow upon
us? Why does she give us a thirst for a precious water of which she cannot
give us to drink? Ah! Theotimus, how good God has been to us!”
12 Cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22: “The truth is that only in the mystery of the
incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light [...] All this holds true
not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace
works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all men,(32) and since
the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe
that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the
possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.”

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  13
Sales in optimism, positivity, faith in human nature and, con-
sequently, in the value of friendship and the likely search for
happiness.
From this positive image of God who offers us his friend-
ship, it is easy to understand this element that throws light on
the lived Salesian spirituality proposed by Don Bosco: “Strive
to make yourself loved rather than feared.”13 Our father Don
Bosco, following Francis de Sales, wanted God to be loved
rather than feared, and if the “fear of God” should be how one
walks in holiness, it will not be out of fear of a terrible punish-
ment, but a fear closely united with trust in God’s goodness.
Far from sowing pessimism, negativity or fear, the presence
of God, the desire to meet God, the desire for his friendship and
for that to be returned, are the basis of Salesian spirituality.
Contrary to those who look on God as a guardian who represses
violations of the law, or as a distant and indifferent God, Fran-
cis de Sales experienced him as a God concerned for his crea-
tures and their happiness, always respectful of their freedom
and committed to guiding them with firmness and gentleness.14
Francis de Sales shares the Aristotelian idea that there is
an aspiration for happiness in every individual, a movement
towards that end, a natural desire that is common to all hu-
manity. But at the same time, from his personal experience, he
was aware that a first approach to happiness consists of self-
acceptance, accepting who we are, because happiness can be
confused with the means of achieving it. Some seek it in
wealth, others in pleasure, others in human glory. In fact, for
Francis de Sales, only the supreme good can fully satisfy the
human heart. This supreme good is God to whom the human
heart naturally tends. He had learned from his philosophy
13 Commentators on St Francis de Sales suggest that a line that ex-
presses the depth of this principle be attributed to St. Francis de Sales:
“Those who love to make themselves feared, fear to make themselves
loved...”
14 Cf. M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales, 145.

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14  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
teachers that “practical happiness” consists in possessing wis-
dom, honesty, goodness and pleasure, but that the “essential
happiness” of the human being can be found in God alone. As a
disciple of Thomas Aquinas he trusted in the ability of the hu-
man intellect and will to intuit or discover God as the ultimate
end. St Augustine’s Confessions comes to mind, marvellously
summing up these ideas and with which Francis de Sales com-
posed some of his homilies: “You have made us for yourself,
O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Confes-
sions, I, 1.1).15
But the tendency that we naturally feel towards God can-
not be achieved by ourselves, because it is God’s gift, he always
takes the initiative. St Francis de Sales offers us the conviction
in his spirituality that although we tend to happiness – identi-
fied with the encounter with God, and we cannot achieve this
alone – God is committed to giving it to us because this is what
he wants. And this promise of fullness, together with the desire
in us for God, is called to bear much fruit.
We can understand that Francis de Sales’ theological and
anthropological vision allows us to keep the dialogue between
faith and reason in its correct balance – and this is also very
important for us today. In his time when Francis de Sales was
in conversation with his adversaries (whom he called brothers)
he maintained that accepting God as the supreme good found
support in reason, in human nature itself. Unlike those who re-
lied solely on the Bible, Francis de Sales showed that reason
and faith spring from the same source, and being the work of
the same Author, they cannot be contrary to each other. Theol-
ogy does not destroy the use of reason but presumes it; it does
not cancel it out but completes it.
15 Cf. M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales, 130, note 1: “In the manuscript
of the philosophy course for the month of March 1586, he had copied in large
type this Latin phrase from St. Augustine: “Fecisti nos – inquit- Domine, ad
te, et inquietum est cor nosrum donec revertatur ad Te” (OEA XXII, 7). It is
also found in a homily from 1594 (OEA VII, 189).

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  15
This is the context in which Francis de Sales developed
his reflection and his spirituality. It is up to us today to give
continuity to this spiritual current that has brought so much
light into the lives of so many people in their search for happi-
ness and, ultimately, in their search for God himself.
Francis de Sales and Don Bosco, each in his own time, lived
with this strong conviction and bequeathed it to us. Francis
wrote: “There is no soil so thankless that the farmer’s dedication
cannot make it productive.”16 And so he proposes another funda-
mental element of Salesian spirituality and pedagogy: patience,
which is nothing other than the imitation of the patience that
God has with us. This was also a constant in Don Bosco’s life.
Today, as a family sharing in this spirituality, it is up to us
to continue to trust in and consolidate the resources of our in-
telligence, heart and desire for God in confronting any kind of
difficulty. Certainly this work requires a specific and well-
defined profile of the Salesian educator who has and strongly
guards within him or herself the conviction that the good is
always nestled in the heart of every person, of every young
person, however hidden it may be – as Don Bosco also believed
– and that every human heart is capable of encountering
God. It is up to us to help every young person and every other
individual on this path.
3. Life in God:
that “brings together educators and youngsters” in a unique
experience of life.
Francis de Sales was able to present spiritual life as some-
thing available to everyone. The term par excellence that he
uses to refer to this Christian life in God is “devotion”, as an
expression of love for God which is not exclusive.
Francis de Sales found no opposition in wanting to be com-
16 Cf. OEA XV, 28, quoted in M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales, 29.

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16  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
pletely of God while fully living his being in the world. Proba-
bly this is his most original and “revolutionary” proposal.
If devotion is love of God before anything else, it is also love
of neighbour, and this devotion is to be exercised by everyone
in any human situation. It is not necessary to withdraw from
the world, going into the desert or entering a convent, to lead a
genuine Christian life.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, addressing himself to
anyone, using the poetic name ‘Philothea’, who wants to love
God, he charts a way of living a Christian life amid the world,
showing that it is necessary to use one’s wings to achieve the
heights of prayer, while at the same time using one’s feet to
journey together with other human beings in holy and friendly
conversation.
But, in fact, all true and living devotion presupposes the
love of God; – and indeed it is neither more nor less than
a very real love of God, though not always of the same
kind; for that Love one while shining on the soul we call
grace, which makes us acceptable to His Divine Majesty;
– when it strengthens us to do well, it is called Charity;
– but when it attains its fullest perfection, in which it
not only leads us to do well, but to act carefully, diligent-
ly, and promptly, then it is called Devotion [...] In short,
devotion is simply a spiritual activity and liveliness by
means of which Divine Love works in us, and causes us
to work briskly and lovingly; and just as charity leads
us to a general practice of all God’s Commandments, so
devotion leads us to practise them readily and diligently.
And therefore we cannot call him who neglects to ob-
serve all God’s Commandments either good or devout,
because in order to be good, a man must be filled with
love, and to be devout, he must further be very ready
and apt to perform the deeds of love.17
17 Introduction to the Devout Life I, 1.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  17
I cannot resist quoting here some of the most luminous and
fruitful lines of our Author which refer to the conviction that
each individual comes into this world with a personal plan of
God for them; a plan of happiness and full realisation of God’s
will for each of his creatures.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, speaking of the need
for each one to find, in their state of life, the best way to give glory
to God, St Francis de Sales, in dialogue with Philothea, says:
A different exercise of devotion is required of each – the
noble, the artisan, the servant, the prince, the maiden and
the wife; and furthermore such practice must be modified
according to the strength, the calling, and the duties of
each individual. I ask you, my child, would it be fitting
that a Bishop should seek to lead the solitary life of a
Carthusian? And if the father of a family were as regard-
less in making provision for the future as a Capuchin, if
the artisan spent the day in church like a Religious, if the
Religious involved himself in all manner of business on
his neighbour’s behalf as a Bishop is called upon to do,
would not such a devotion be ridiculous, ill-regulated, and
intolerable? Nevertheless such a mistake is often made,
and the world, which cannot or will not discriminate
between real devotion and the indiscretion of those who
fancy themselves devout, grumbles and finds fault with
devotion, which is really nowise concerned in these errors.18
This path leads to a Christian theology of vocation in which
it is up to each one to carry out the process of searching for his
or her own vocation, in harmony with what was affirmed by
the Second Vatican Council: all the faithful, Christians of every
condition and state, strengthened by so many and so powerful
means of salvation, are called by the Lord, each one in his or
her own way, to the perfection of that holiness by which the
Father himself is perfect. (Cf. LG, 11).
18 Introduction to the Devout Life, I, 3.

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18  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
Both Francis de Sales and Don Bosco make daily life an ex-
pression of the love of God which is received and also returned
in exchange. Our saints wanted to bring the relationship with
God closer to life and life closer to the relationship with God.
This is the proposal of “next-door-neighbour holiness” or “the
middle-class of holiness” which Pope Francis speaks to us
about with so much affection.
I like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience
of God’s people: in those parents who raise their children
with immense love, in those men and women who work
hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly
religious who never lose their smile. In their daily
perseverance I see the holiness of the Church militant. Very
often it is a holiness found in our next-door neighbours,
those who, living in our midst, reflect God’s presence.
We might call them ‘the middle class of holiness.’19
Like Don Bosco, we too must be experts today in carrying
out this important task of accompanying the young in their
search for their vocation and holiness, as well as doing this our-
selves. Perhaps this is what they are asking of us most urgent-
ly, and how they are in need of it! We still hear the recent echo
of the appeal made to the Church during the Synod on young
people who ask, among other things, to be accompanied in the
discernment of their vocation. Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhor-
tation Christus Vivit, seeking to respond to the young, is also a
challenge for us as a Salesian Family:
There are many priests, men and women religious, lay and
professional persons, and indeed qualified young people,
who can help the young with their vocational discernment.
When we are called upon to help others discern their
path in life, what is uppermost is the ability to listen.20
19 JOSEPH MALÈGUE, Pierres noires. Les classes moyennes du Salut, París
1958, Quoted in FRANCIS, Gaudete et Exsultate, 7.
20 CV, 291

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  19
And so we touch, almost with our own hands, another fun-
damental element of our spirituality: presence and listening,
precisely to help all those who come to us, those we approach,
to establish a relationship of friendship, an encounter of close-
ness, something that once again acquires the Salesian flavour
of putting the young person, the human person, at the centre.
Don Bosco’s “Da mihi animas”, which before that was Francis
de Sales’, is still fully valid today.
St Francis de Sales oriented his pastoral life towards the
accomplishment of a mission entrusted to him. It was his par-
ticipation in God's love that led him to share in the saving mis-
sion of Christ the Good Shepherd. Beginning with his personal
experience of God's love, he felt that this ardent love, or loving
ardour, is translated into joy at the conversion of the sinner
and sorrow at the hardness of heart of those who reject this in-
vitation. This is the particular reading of the da mihi animas
of St Francis de Sales.21
We would be implementing this pastoral zeal and charity of
St Francis well if, like him, we were to keep our life firmly rooted
in Christ. Only this way can apostolic action be fruitful,
because it is carried out starting from the need we experience
to communicate the love with which we feel ourselves loved.
Yet again a beautiful homage to St Francis de Sales in
the fourth centenary of his death would be the renewal
and, in some cases, the recovery of the apostolic energy
of the da mihi animas coetera tolle, giving ourselves to
21 In dealing with zeal for souls in his book on the Spirit of Blessed
Francis de Sales, Bishop Jean Pierre Camus, Bishop of Belley and a per-
sonal friend of Francis de Sales praises the saint's detachment from mate-
rial goods, his purely pastoral concern, and puts on his lips the prayer ad-
dressed to the Lord: “da mihi animas, coetera tolle”. For this prolific writer,
these words express the ardent pastoral zeal that always guided all his un-
dertakings. Cf. J. P. CAMUS, El espíritu de San Francisco de Sales II,
Balmes, Barcelona 1947, p. 339. Cited in E. ALBURQUERQUE, Don Bosco y sus
amistades espirituales, CCS, Madrid 2021, San Francisco de Sales. Afinidad
y convergencia espiritual, p. 11-27.

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20  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
God and the young with the same pastoral charity that
he and Don Bosco had.
Don Bosco’s Salesian spirituality, compared with other spiritual
currents that certain specialists call “abstract”, falls along very
different lines because it is inspired by a master like Francis de
Sales, proposing a spirituality for ordinary life.22 In a happy ex-
pression attributed to the Saint, it is said that “we must flourish
where God has planted us”. This is a fundamental characteristic
of Salesian spirituality: it is realistic. Learning to love the cir-
cumstances that are ours, accepting life as it is, and loving it as
a manifestation of acceptance of God’s will, may seem a passive
thing, but it is not so when it comes to practising virtue, doing
good, carry out one's duty, the things of daily life, in the place
where God's providence planted us, and perhaps where we did
not always want to be, or perhaps would have liked to be. It is
to prepare the heart for the acceptance of God’s will.
It immediately comes to mind that this was the spirituality
proposed by Don Bosco himself to his boys and to the Salesians.
For example, Dominic Savio’s acts of mortification.
“You’ve got me in a real bind. Our Blessed Lord says that if
I don’t do penance I will not get to heaven. I am forbidden
to do any penance; what chance then have I of heaven?”
“The penance Jesus wants from you is complete obedience;
obey and that’s enough.”
“Can’t I do some other penance?”
“Yes, you can allow yourself the penance of being patient
with others and the unpleasant things of life; to accept
equally the heat and the cold and the rain; to be cheerful
when tired and not feeling so well and whatever God
wants to give you.”
22 Cf. M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales, 156. St Francis de Sales draws
his inspiration from spiritual masters who were preachers, pastors and spiri-
tual directors all in one, such as St Philip Neri, founder of the Oratory in Rome.
His main sources of spirituality are works of spirituality that bring Christian
perfection closer to the common condition of the Christian in the world.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  21
“But,” said Dominic “these things come to you whether
you like it or not.”
“Precisely,” I replied “offer them willingly to God; there
is nothing that will please him more, and you will be
doing real penance.”
Thus reassured, Dominic was very happy and completely
at peace.23
Our Salesian Family has embraced his way of living the
relationship with God through the fulfilment of duty, with the
knowledge that this is the way we correspond, participate and
cooperate with God in his creative action and with Christ in
the building up of the Kingdom.
Don Bosco promoted and lived the characteristics of this
simple, neighbourly, daily way of being in relationship with
God with his young people and his Salesians. It corresponds to
Francis de Sales’ way of proposing the daily practice of virtues,
but the virtues that correspond to one’s condition and status,
not that of others.
“When God created the world He commanded each tree to
bear fruit after its kind: and even so He bids Christians, –
the living trees of His Church, – to bring forth fruits of
devotion, each one according to his kind and vocation”24
4. A kind and friendly way of dealing with people:
which leads to living with our youngsters “in a family expe-
rience of trust and dialogue”
St Francis de Sales is known above all for his kindness and
gentleness. In one of his letters he writes:
23 G. BOSCO, Vita del giovanetto Savio Domenico, allievo dell’Oratorio di
S. Francis de Sales, in ISS, Fonti salesiane. 1. Don Bosco e la sua opera.
Raccolta antologica, LAS, Roma 2014, 1059. English translation here avail-
able at Salesian Digital Library, http://sdl.sdb.org/greenstone3/library/col-
lection/dbdonbos/browse/CL4#CL4.4,CL4.4.10
24 Introduction to the Devout Life I, 3.

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22  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
I love especially these three little virtues: Gentleness in
the heart, poverty in the spirit and simplicity in life.
And also, the rougher exercises: Visiting the sick, serving
the poor, comforting the afflicted and the like, but every-
thing without impetuosity, but in true freedom.25
Those who have studied his life and personality agree in
saying that his friendly and amiable character was not some-
thing spontaneous,26 just as it wasn’t in Don Bosco. St Francis
de Sales proposed the imitation of Jesus Christ, meek and
humble of heart, as a model to be imitated27 and it could be said
that meekness was his characteristic virtue. “His meekness,
however, differed altogether from that artificial gentility which
consists in the mere possession of polished manners and in the
display of a purely conventional affability. It differed, too, both
from the apathy which cannot be moved by any force and from
the timidity which does not dare to become indignant, even
when indignation is required of one. This virtue, which grew in
the heart of St. Francis as a delightful effect of his love of God
and was nourished by the spirit of compassion and tenderness,
so tempered with sweetness the natural gravity of his
demeanour and softened both his voice and manners that he won
the affectionate regard of everyone whom he encountered.”28
25 Letter 308. to Baronness de Chantal, 8 September 1605. Consulted in
digital edition, p. 83/321. OEA XIII, 92. Quoted in: Cf. EUNAN MCDONNELL,
God Desires You, DeSales Resource Center, Stella Niagra, N.Y., 2008, p. 56.
26 For example: “Many biographers say that he had a choleric tempera-
ment, strong, impatient, very much of his race, a true Savoyard. Because of
this, anger often boiled in his head, he felt discouraged by insolent language
or inconsiderate actions, he was irritated by disorder, his countenance
changed colour and he reddened at a contradiction. However, the constant
struggle against these temptations, vigilance, ascetic effort, personal mas-
tery and the help of grace, lead him to that exquisite meekness which
makes him a living image of Christ. We should not, therefore, speak of a
natural gentleness of Francis de Sales, but rather we should see in it the
fruit of a victorious struggle.” Cf. E. ALBURQUERQUE, Espíritu y espiritual-
idad salesiana, Editorial CCS, Madrid 20217, 105-12.
27 Cf. EUNAN MCDONNELL, God Desires You, p. 56-67.
28 Cf. PIUS XI, Encyclical Letter Rerum Omnium Perturbationem, 26

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  23
It was this meekness that also attracted Don Bosco from the
beginning of his pastoral work, and that also characterised his
educative style in relating to his boys. Reflecting today on kind-
ness and gentleness, from Rome, allows us to intuit some of the
feelings that Don Bosco himself had towards his boys and that
he passed on, not without pain, in his letter of 10 May 1884 to
his Salesians. He reminds us: “May the charity of those who
command and the charity of those who must obey cause the
spirit of St Francis de Sales to reign among us.”29
Don Bosco teaches us that acceptance, cordiality, courtesy,
kindness, patience, affection, trust, gentleness, meekness, are
expressions of love that generate confidence and familiarity. It
is in this environment that our Salesian spirituality was born,
rich in understanding and mercy, in acceptance and the ability
to wait patiently for young people to grow.
Like Francis de Sales, Don Bosco wanted to live with the
meekness and humility of Jesus’ heart. (Mt 11:29). In the
dream at nine years of age he received a command from the
“Teacher”, amid a crowd of goats, dogs, cats, bears and other
animals: “This is the field of your work. Make yourself humble,
strong and energetic. And what you will see happening to these
animals in a moment is what you must do for my children.”30
What is so moving is that in these early memories recorded in
January 1923. Pope Benedict XV intended to write an encyclical for the
third centenary of the death of St Francis de Sales. In 1923 it was his suc-
cessor who did so, Pius XI, emphasising a holiness that was kind and acces-
sible to all. His meekness of heart shone through, which could be said to be
his characteristic virtue.
29 G. BOSCO, Lettera da Roma alla comunità salesiana dell’Oratorio di
Torino-Valdocco, in ISS, Fonti salesiane. 1. Don Bosco e la sua opera. Raccolta
antologica, LAS, Roma 2014, 451. The English translation of the Letter from
Rome here is found in the appendix to the Constitutions and Regulations.
30 G. BOSCO, Memorie dell’Oratorio di S. Francis de Sales dal 1815 al
1855, in ISTITUTO STORICO SALESIANO, Fonti salesiane. 1. Don Bosco e la sua
opera. Raccolta antologica, LAS, Roma 2014, 1176-1177. The translation
here is from the Memoirs of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales, Salesiana
Publishers New Rochelle, New York, 2010.

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24  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
the Memoirs of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales, which Don
Bosco wrote out of obedience, there is a high priority given to
the humble attitude with which to confront difficulties.
The qualities of meekness and humility of heart were, for
Francis de Sales, the only help he had in his mission in the
Chablais region, where he carried out a wonderful pastoral
ministry as a missionary, a model for apostolic style today. In
a very different way to other missionaries, who sought to make
themselves feared, Francis de Sales attracted more flies with a
spoonful of his usual honey than with a barrel full of vinegar!31
This spirit of kindness, gentleness and meekness was deeply
ingrained in the first Salesians, since it belongs to our most an-
cient tradition. Everything indicates that we cannot neglect it,
nor even less lose it, at the risk of significantly damaging our
charismatic identity. The way in which this spirit of goodness
and kindness is transmitted and communicated among us can
be seen in the lives of the boys who became Salesians, precisely
because of their personal experience of the familiar, welcoming,
kind and respectful traits offered by living with Don Bosco and
the first Salesians at Valdocco. In fact, in the early days there
was talk of a “fourth Salesian vow” that included kindness (first
of all), work and the preventive system.32
Combining this testimony with the one left to us by the wit-
nesses in the dream in the Letter from Rome, especially Valfré
31 Cf. J.-P. CAMUS, L’Esprit du bienheureux François de Sales, partie I,
section 3. Quoted in M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales, 97. Bishop Jean
Pierre Camus, speaking of his personality, highlights the expressions he used
before his opponents and adversaries, which reflect well his humble disposi-
tion and his meekness. He spoke of brothers, sons of the Church in readiness,
brothers in hope in the same vocation to salvation, and he always called the
See of Geneva “my poor” or “my dear” Geneva, terms of compassion and love.
32 Cf. A. GIRAUDO, op.cit. p. 3-5, “[...] abbiamo tre quarti voti. Secondo i
vari aspetti: la bontà, il lavoro, il sistema preventivo [...]” (p. 70). Cf. com-
mentary by A. ALBURQUERQUE, Espíritu y espiritualidad salesiana, “El
cuarto voto salesiano” and in a note: A. CAVIGLIA, Conferenze sullo Spirito
Salesiano, Istituto Internazionale Don Bosco, Torino 1953, p. 107.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  25
who appears in the dream and who was at the Oratory before
1870, we read:
It was a scene full of life, full of movement, full of fun. Some
were running, some were jumping, some were skipping [...]
In one corner a group of youngsters were gathered around
a priest, hanging on his every word as he told them a story.
In another a cleric was playing with a group of lads at
chase the donkey and trades [...] You could see that the
greatest cordiality and confidence reigned between young-
sters and superiors [...] closeness leads to affection and
affection brings confidence [...] it is this that opens hearts.33
We cannot imagine a Salesian presence around the world,
a presence of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, of the
Salesians of Don Bosco or of the thirty-two groups that make
up the Salesian Family of Don Bosco, that does not have this
characteristic of kindness as its distinguishing element, or at
least we should have it, as Pope Francis sought to remind
us through his enlightening expression, the “Valdocco option”.34
It is our option for the Salesian style of kindness, affection, fa-
miliarity and presence. We have a treasure, a gift received from
Don Bosco, which it is now up to us to revive.
In the Charter of Charismatic Identity of the Salesian Family
we see that affection and Salesian loving-kindness are a char-
acteristic feature of the identity of the Salesian Family.
The loving kindness of Don Bosco is without doubt
a characteristic trait of his pedagogical method which
is considered still valid today, both in contexts still
33 G. BOSCO, Lettera da Roma alla comunità salesiana dell’Oratorio di
Torino-Valdocco, in ISS, Fonti salesiane. 1. Don Bosco e la sua opera. Rac-
colta antologica, LAS, Roma 2014, 444-445. Or in the appendix to the Consti-
tutions, Letter from Rome, p. 259.
34 Cf. POPE FRANCIS, Message of His Holiness Pope Francis to members of
GC28, in AGC 433, “What kind of Salesians for the youth of today?” Post-
Chapter Reflection of the Society of St Francis de Sales, Roma 2020.

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26  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
Christian and in those in which young people belonging
to other religions are living.
It cannot, however, be reduced to simply being a pedagogi-
cal principle but needs to be recognised as an essential
element of our spirituality.
It is, in fact, authentic love because it draws its strength
from God; it is love which shows itself in the language of
simplicity, cordiality and fidelity; it is love which gives
rise to a desire to correspond; it is love which calls forth
trust, opening the way to confidence and to profound com-
munication (“education is a matter of the heart”); it is love
which spreads out and in this way creates a family atmo-
sphere, where being together is beautiful and enriching.35
Francis de Sales drew people to himself through his gentle-
ness. St Vincent de Paul described him as the man who best
reproduced the Son of God living on earth.36 He had learned
from Jesus, meek and humble of heart. This heart of Jesus had
deep significance for Francis de Sales and for Don Bosco. God’s
love, become flesh, found in the human heart of Jesus the most
eloquent expression of love. Starting from the freedom with
which God creates humanity, through gentleness, goodness
and affection as God’s way of treating his sons and daughters,
we arrive at the core of Salesian spirituality, which is also the
model of our being and living: love.
For many of our young people, the most remembered expe-
rience of meeting the Salesian Family in the world is very often
the family trait, the acceptance and affection with which they
feel treated. In short, the family spirit.
Where does this capacity for love and amiability come from,
this gift of self in Francis de Sales? Undoubtedly from the deep
certainty he came to after surviving two powerful crises that
35 Letter of Charismatic Identity of the Salesian Family, no. 32.
36 Cf. EUNAN MCDONNELL, God Desires You, p. 57. Cf. Also André Ravier
SJ St Francis de Sales, ed. Aldo Giraudo, p. 12.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  27
made him feel unworthy of God’s love. In fact, the experience
of crisis and darkness, which we can all experience, was also
what other great saints went through, like Teresa of Avila,
Teresa of Calcutta, St John of the Cross etc... In Francis de
Sales a purified hope was born that led him to trust not in his
own merits, but in the mercy and goodness of God. He moved
in the direction of “pure love”, a love that loves God for Himself.
God does not love us because we are good, but because He is
good, and we do not love God because we want something good
from Him, but because He Himself is the greatest good.
Fulfilment of God’s will is not achieved through feelings of
“unworthiness”, but through hoping in the mercy and goodness
of God. This is Salesian optimism.
This perspective leads us to strongly reject any idea that
portrays God as arbitrary and vengeful, and to accept instead
the God revealed by Jesus – a God who is mercy and love – and
contemplate how in Francis de Sales his heart expands when
he perceives the infinite love of God. So when he is telling us
about God’s love he is speaking of his own experience. This is
his own story. So then, Francis de Sales responds to God’s love
with love. The following deeply sincere statement he makes in
prayer is truly moving:
Whatever happens, Lord, you who hold everything in
your hand and whose ways are justice and truth: what-
ever you have ordained for me regarding the eternal de-
cree of predestination and reprobation: you whose judge-
ments are a deep abyss, you who are ever a just judge
and merciful father, I will love you, Lord, at least in this
life if it is not granted me to love you in eternal life; I will
love you at least here, my God, and I will always hope in
your mercy, and will always repeat your praise, despite
all that Satan’s angel continues to inspire me to the con-
trary. O Lord Jesus, you will always be my hope and my
salvation in the land of the living. If, because my conduct
requires it, I must be cursed among the cursed who will

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28  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
not see your most sweet face, at least grant me that I will
not be among those who curse your holy name.37
Francis de Sales’ crisis revealed the deepest part of his be-
ing: a heart deeply in love with God. He understood that the
submission of one’s will, in imitation of Christ in the Garden of
Olives, is the apex of pure love. Such an answer can only be
given out of pure love, and it springs from the most sublime
centre of the spirit. It is a heroic love based on perseverance
and sacrifice for the beloved. Jesus, in the agony in the garden,
is our model in this regard: “Yet, not what I want, but what
you want” (Mk 14:36)38.
The conviction that God's love is not based on feeling good,
but on doing the will of God the Father, is the core of Francis
de Sales’s spirituality and must be the model for the whole
Family of Don Bosco. Francis expressed this splendidly by al-
luding to the need to move on from the consolations of God to
the God of consolations, from enthusiasm to true love, remain-
ing faithful amid trials; passing from falling in love to true love
for others. A pure, disinterested love that seeks nothing for it-
self, is detached from self. God, who wishes all to be saved,
shows us that perfect love drives away all fear. Do all through
love, nothing out of fear, because it is the mercy of God and not
our merits that urges us to love.
Starting from this Salesian spirituality, it will be significant
for us to discover the unconditional love of God as the centre of
all the dynamics of charity and pastoral zeal toward others
that Francis de Sales first, and Don Bosco later, developed so
magnificently.
37 OEA XXII, 19-20.
38 Cf. EUNAN MCDONNELL, God Desires You, p.18.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  29
5. Unconditional and unrestrained love:
“Imitating God’s patience, we encounter the young at their
present stage of freedom.”
Holiness for everyone is an essential element of Francis de
Sales’ spiritual proposal, based on love of God, and for each and
every person. It is in devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that
this love has a solid model to imitate and follow. Together with
meekness and humility, submitting one’s will, the imitation
of Christ in the Garden of Olives, it is the apex of pure love.
To love is an act of the will, an act of abandonment in which
one chooses God’s will.
Francis de Sales mentions the heart more than three
hundred times in the Treatise on the Love of God. Being a
Christian humanist, he continually refers to the person created
in the image and likeness of God; and in the human person
he finds the “perfection of the universe”:
Man is the perfection of the universe; the spirit is the
perfection of man; love, that of the spirit; and charity,
that of love. Wherefore the love of God is the end, the
perfection and the excellence of the universe. In this,
Theotimus, consists the greatness and the primacy of
the commandment of divine love, which the Saviour
calls the first and greatest commandment.39
The heart of the human being (woman and man), a
prodigal heart, when it turns away from the good, will always
keep that will which continues to draw it to the good, because
this is the way God has created us, and we cannot reach God
by our own strength alone, depending only on our human
nature, if he does not help us with his providence, his grace
and his love. The natural inclination towards the good,
the beautiful and the true may be enough to set us off, to set
us on our way, and it is there that God’s action in us, his
39 Treatise on the Love of God, X, 1

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30  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
grace, which is not denied to anyone who seeks it, assists and
guides us.
If St Augustine said that “our heart is restless until it rests
in Thee”40, by following the thinking of Francis de Sales we
could say with von Balthasar “Your heart, O God, is restless,
until we rest in You.”41
In the Salesian tradition we find numerous examples of the
preferential devotion to the Heart of Jesus, both in Francis de
Sales and in Jeanne de Chantal, and especially in one of her
daughters of the Visitation, St Margaret Mary Alacoque; and
right up to the time of Don Bosco with the particular impulse
given to this devotion by Pope Pius IX,42 who beatified Mar-
garet Mary Alacoque and in 1877 declared St Francis de Sales
a Doctor of the Church. Don Bosco’s era was marked by devo-
tion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and since the building of
the Basilica accomplished by our father at the request of Pope
Pius IX, the Salesian Family has been bound to the Love of
Jesus expressed in the heart. Perhaps this is another point of
likeness and contact between St Francis de Sales and Don
Bosco: fidelity to the Church and to the mission of proclaiming
the Gospel, placing Christ at the centre of pastoral activity in
order to reach everyone. It is not inconsequential to describe the
40 Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, I, 1.
41 Cf. H. U. VON BALTHASAR, The Heart of the World, Ignatius Press,
1979, quoted in EUNAN MCDONNELL, God Desires You, p. 30.
42 Pius IX published various documents on the Office of the Mass of the
Sacred Heart, erected numerous confraternities, granted indulgences to
multiple devotional practices, and also beatified Margaret Mary Alacoque
(August 19, 1864). Some of these important motifs are reflected in the
Basilica of the Sacred Heart in the Castro Pretorio in Rome: The painting
over the high altar is a canvas by artist Francesco de Rohden whom Don
Bosco commissioned. It represents the third apparition of the Sacred Heart
of Jesus to St Margaret Alacoque in 1687. The composition was designed by
Don Bosco himself: Christ is placed in the centre with a flaming heart in his
hand. Surrounding him is a multitude of angels. At the bottom is a kneeler
with depictions of St Francis de Sales and St Margaret Alacoque. At the top,
a cherub holds a scroll with the quotation from the Book of Proverbs.:
“Praebe, fili mi, cor tuum mihi” (Prov. 23:26): My child, give me your heart.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  31
minor Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Rome an “International
church”, like “Tibidabo” in Barcelona and many other churches
dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus throughout the Salesian
world and, of course, in the whole Church.
Alive in the Heart of Jesus there is the incarnate presence
of God’s love and His will for the redemption of the world. This
assures us that God's last word in the world is Him, love.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his precious and masterful
encyclical Deus Caritas Est, describes Jesus Christ as the in-
carnation of God’s love, the manifestation of God’s intervention
in human history, which finds its highest expression in Jesus:
When Jesus speaks in his parables of the shepherd who
goes after the lost sheep, of the woman who looks for the
lost coin, of the father who goes to meet and embrace his
prodigal son, these are no mere words: they constitute
an explanation of his very being and activity. His death
on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God
against himself in which he gives himself in order
to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most
radical form. By contemplating the pierced side of Christ
(cf. 19:37), we can understand the starting-point of this
Encyclical Letter: “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). It is there that
this truth can be contemplated. It is from there that our
definition of love must begin. In this contemplation the
Christian discovers the path along which his life and
love must move.43
This brief excursus on devotion to the Sacred Heart brings
us to the centre of our spirituality. There is no goodness, there
is no dedication to the needy, there is no kindness or freedom,
there is no charity or any of the traits we have presented, if the
original source of God's love is missing. It is love and not sin
that explains God’s free decision to be part of humanity and to
be one of us. Thus we understand that the Incarnation, the be-
43 BENEDICT XVI, Deus caritas est, 12.

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32  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
coming man, was eternally willed by God. It is not a kind of
plan “B” that God invents because of man’s sin. Even if there
had been no sin from which to redeem us, God would still have
become man. This is the deep conviction of Francis de Sales.
Furthermore, the Incarnation is not just an historical
fact, but a continuous, metaphysical and personal one. God is
incarnated in our history, through His pure and free initiative.
Hence the apostolate and our dedication to the mission take
on their fullness of meaning, as an imitation of the One who
gave his life out of love for us; loving in the same way, with the
gift of our life, with that humility that Francis de Sales called
“descending charity”, entering into relationships with others,
making ourselves small with the little ones, out of love, to lift
them up. This is the “ecstasy”, going out of ourselves to en-
counter others in an attitude of service like Jesus’ washing of
the feet (Jn 13): “Jesus called them to him and said... ‘whoever
wishes to be first among you must be your slave, just as the
Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his
life a ransom for many’ ” (Mt 20:27-28).
We can read Don Bosco’s fatherliness in the light of the
Word of the Lord and following the good example of Francis
de Sales. It was an expression of his unconditional love for
poor, abandoned and at risk young people.
In our Salesian spirituality, devotion and the spiritual life
are not separate from the apostolate and the exercising of char-
ity. For this reason, next to the church, Don Bosco wanted an
educational and formation centre for his boys; a house that,
like the one in Valdocco and like all the others around the
world, would be a home for the neediest youngsters. Play-
grounds where they could meet with their friends. This is
how genuine devotion, which leads to the exercise of charity to-
wards one’s neighbour, is made complete and fully realised.
Don Bosco wants love for Christ to lead us to love for the young,
a Salesian characteristic of our life and an ongoing challenge
for Don Bosco’s Family today and always.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  33
6. The need for a spiritual guide:
“we then accompany them so that they may develop solid
convictions.”
The Salesian Family continues to develop the art of accom-
paniment, the same art that Francis de Sales and Don Bosco
developed, each in his own time.
The ministry, the service of spiritual direction has been and
is esteemed in the Church as something that is really impor-
tant in the Salesian system of education and pedagogy and that
we should put into practice even better: accompaniment. For
this challenge, too, we implement Salesian principles, those in-
herited from Francis de Sales: goodness, kindness, patience,
listening, waiting...
The young people of today, like those of all times, are wait-
ing for a helping hand on their journey. The spiritual direction
that Francis de Sales offered to so many people, helping them
to journey towards God in the state of life in which they found
themselves, was what Don Bosco did with his young people. Ac-
companying each of them through an educational environment
and personal contact. After all, it was Don Bosco who invented
the “word in the ear”, his way of saying that he was suggesting
a personal journey of holiness and growth to each of them, in
their own lives, to the point of becoming what God had
“dreamed” for each of them.
Reflecting on this service to young people encourages us to
explore the meaning that the accompaniment of individuals
has for us. It is a precious way of serving others by generously
giving of our time to listen to others. There is nothing more
appreciated in the relationship between people than the time
generously given to listening to the other: leaving aside other
commitments, other tasks, offering full availability to welcome,
listen, orient, guide, make suggestions, accompany.
During the fourth centenary of the death of Saint Francis de
Sales we cannot forget this simple and humble service to young

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34  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
people, which clearly expresses the appreciation and importance
we place on their lives when we dedicate our time to be with
them, listen to them, understand them and help them follow the
plan that God proposes to them in their life. For us, followers of
the spirituality of St Francis de Sales in Don Bosco, helping
young people to discover and follow God’s will gives meaning to
our educative and evangelising vocation. This is also the reason
why we came into being in the Church, the reason why the Holy
Spirit gave rise to the Salesian charism in Don Bosco and which
his religious family puts into practice today.
Our predilection for poor and abandoned young people is
made concrete and expressed in this dimension of the pastoral
service of accompaniment. It is certainly not the same cultural
environment, nor are they the same kinds of people whom
Francis de Sales accompanied. However, there is no difference
in the importance given to the search for God’s will in the life
of each individual, each young person, each beneficiary of
our mission. It becomes clear that the individual before us is
important when we leave other things aside to pay attention to
their life, their story, their situation. This is the concrete way
to put into practice Don Bosco’s motto: “Da mihi animas,
caetera tolle” – as urgent and important for us today as it was
for him.
We find Don Bosco’s desire to become the “soul friend” of many
young people in the vividness of Salesian language. Just as
Francis de Sales had experienced the spiritual friendship that
ensued from the people he accompanied, Don Bosco, following
in the footsteps of Francis de Sales, sought to lead his young
people to friendship with God, the centre of all spiritual life: in
daily life, in the most ordinary circumstances as well as in spe-
cial and difficult moments. He wanted to be that kind of friend
for young people who could trust him, and as a friend and
father bring them closer to God. Don Bosco himself recounts:
On such occasions I found out how quite a few were
brought back to that place; it was because they were

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  35
abandoned to their own resources. “Who knows?” I
thought to myself, “If these youngsters had a friend out-
side who would take care of them, help them, teach
them religion on feast days... who knows but they could
be steered away from ruin or at least the number of
those who return to prison could be lessened?” I talked
this idea over with Fr Cafasso. With his encouragement
and inspiration I began to work out in my mind how to,
leaving to the Lord’s grace what the outcome would be.
Without God’s grace all human effort is in vain.44
In the Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales
places no conditions when suggesting looking for a “friend of
the soul” in life’s journey. Unconditional acceptance also con-
sists of this. This is the “Salesian style of accompaniment”.45
When Tobias was bidden to go to Rages, he was willing
to obey his father, but he objected that he knew not the
way; – to which Tobit answered, “Seek thee a man which
may go with thee:” and even so, daughter, I say to you,
If you would really tread the paths of the devout life,
seek some holy man to guide and conduct you. This is
the precept of precepts, says the devout Avila, – seek as
you will you can never so surely discover God’s Will as
through the channel of humble obedience so universally
taught and practised by all the Saints of olden time.”46
Finding a friend of our soul who will accompany us on our
44 G. BOSCO, Memorie dell’Oratorio di S. Francis de Sales dal 1815 al
1855, in ISS, Fonti salesiane. 1. Don Bosco e la sua opera. Raccolta anto-
logica, LAS, Roma 2014, 1234-1235. Memoirs of the Oratory of St Francis de
Sales, Salesiana Publishers, New Rochelle, New York, 2010, pp. 101-102.
45 The study of accompaniment has regained interest in recent years,
and there is no lack of works that present interesting proposals for further
study. In our Salesian environment, cf. FABIO ATTARD - MIGUEL ANGEL
GARCÍA (EDS), L’accompagnamento spirituale. Itinerario pedagógico spiri-
tuale in chiave salesiana al servizio dei giovani, Elledici, Torino 2014, and
also CRESPO-BUEIS, J. (coord.), Acompañar a los jóvenes, CCS, Madrid, 2021.
46 Introduction to the Devout Life, I, 4

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36  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
journey would also be a beautiful fruit of this Salesian cente-
nary. Don Bosco took much account of this, and made it con-
crete with unconditional acceptance, seeing to the setting and
presence, friendship, affection, trust, the search for the good
of each person, listening to God who put the very person who
can accompany us on our path. He himself shows from his own
experience the great value of accompaniment in his life, espe-
cially at certain decisive moments. He says:
Fr Cafasso, who for six years had been my guide, was
especially my spiritual director. If I have been able to do
any good, I owe it this worthy priest in whose hands
I placed every decision I made, all my study and every
activity of my life.47
Francis de Sales had written about this in his Introduction
to the Devout Life:
In truth, your spiritual guide should always be as a heav-
en-sent angel to you; – by which I mean that when you
have found him, you are not to look upon him, or trust in
him or his wisdom as an ordinary man; but you must
look to God, Who will help you and speak to you through
this man, putting into his heart and mouth that which is
needful to you; so that you ought to hearken as though
he were an angel come down from Heaven to lead you
thither. Deal with him in all sincerity and faithfulness,
and with open heart; manifesting alike your good and
your evil, without pretence or dissimulation. Thus your
good will be examined and confirmed, and your evil cor-
rected and remedied; – you will be soothed and strength-
ened in trouble, moderated and regulated in prosperity.
Give your guide a hearty confidence mingled with sacred
47 Cf. ISTITUTO STORICO SALESIANO, Fonti salesiane. 1. Don Bosco e la sua
opera. Raccolta antologica, LAS, Roma 2014, document no. 309: “memorie
dell’Oratorio di S. Francis de Sales dal 1815 al 1855”, p. 1234. Memoirs of
the Oratory of St Francis de Sales, Salesiana Publishers, New Rochelle, New
York, 2010, p. 101.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  37
reverence, so that reverence in no way shall hinder your
confidence, and confidence nowise lessen your reverence:
trust him with the respect of a daughter for her father;
respect him with the confidence of a son in his mother.
In a word, such a friendship should be strong and sweet;
altogether holy, sacred, divine and spiritual.48
At the end of the time he spent at the Convitto ecclesiastico
in Turin, Don Bosco wanted God’s will to guide his steps in
what he had to begin, and he entrusted himself to the judge-
ment of the one who knew him best and could guide him:
Fr Cafasso. He shows us, in the following brief dialogue with
him, how he had fully assimilated what Francis de Sales had
taught about indifference, sincere research and obedience in
accompaniment. He shows us a way of living – not a proposal
addressed to others, but to be put into practice ourselves first.
One day, Fr Cafasso took me aside and said, “Now that
you’ve finished your studies you must get to work. These
days the harvest is abundant enough. What is your
particular bent?”
“Whatever you would like to point me towards.”
“There are three posts open: curate at Buttigliera d’Asti;
tutor in moral theology here at the Convitto and director at the
little hospital beside the Refuge. Which would you choose?”
“Whatever you judge best”.
“Don’t you feel any preference for one thing rather than
another?”
“My inclination is to work for young people So do with
me whatever you want I shall know the Lord’s will in
whatever you advise.”
“At the moment, what’s the wish nearest your heart?
What’s on your mind?”
“At this moment I see myself in the midst of a multitude
of boys appealing to me for help.”
48 FRANCIS DE SALES, op. cit., I. 4

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38  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
“Then go away for a few weeks holiday. When you come
back I’ll tell you your destination.”
I came back from the holiday, but for several weeks Fr
Cafasso never said a word. And I asked him nothing.
One day he said to me, “Why don’t you ask me about
your destination?”
“Because I want to see the will of God in your choice,
and I don’t want my desires in it at all.”
“Pack your bag and go with Dr Borrelli. You’ll be direc-
tor at the Little Hospital of St Philomena, and you’ll also
work in the Refuge Meanwhile God will show you what
you have to do for the young.”
At first this advice seemed to cut across my inclinations.
With a hospital to take care of, preaching, and confes-
sions in an institute for more than four hundred girls,
there would be no time for anything else Nevertheless
this was the will of heaven, as I was soon assured.49
In the spirituality of Francis de Sales we discover, there-
fore, with regard to accompaniment, that our educational style
is a “spiritual mystagogy” that assumes responsibility for the
other with an educational friendship that enlightens, intro-
duces to interior life and generates a relationship with God;
with a lifestyle and a friendly, jovial, close relationship that
is not superficial but capable of accompanying each one on a
journey that leads to the Love of God. And the Salesian who
does the accompaniment must also have the attitudes proper
to those who live the preventive system and pastoral charity.50
49 Cf. ISTITUTO STORICO SALESIANO, Fonti salesiane. 1. Don Bosco e la sua
opera. Raccolta antologica, LAS, Roma 2014, documento n. 309: “memorie
dell’Oratorio di S. Francesco di Sales dal 1815 al 1855”, p. 1240. Memoirs
of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales, Salesiana Publishers, New Rochelle,
New York, 2010, p. 108.
50 Cf. ALDO GIRAUDO, «Direzione spirituale in san Giovanni Bosco. Con-
notazioni peculiari della direzione spirituale offerta da don Bosco ai gio-
vani», in: FABIO ATTARD – MIGUEL ANGEL GARCÍA (EDS), L’accompagnamento
spirituale. Itinerario pedagogico spirituale in chiave salesiana al servizio dei

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  39
7. “All through love”:
so that “they may gradually assume the responsibility for
the delicate process of their growth as human beings and as
men of faith.”
One element that runs through all Salesian spirituality (of
Francis de Sales) is the great value given to prayer.
I have referred in these pages to some forms of devotional
expression such as to the Sacred Heart, the fundamental atti-
tude of trust, abandonment into the hands of Providence, the
awareness of having an “inner sanctuary” in us, the friendship
with God that we must cultivate, and to the goodness of God
who never refuses his help to those who do all they can and are
faithful in small things.
One can perceive in all this the pastoral zeal of Francis de
Sales, his patience with everyone, his kindness, optimism, for-
titude and also his desire to communicate the good news of the
Gospel to all. This is all the result of his profound and simple,
daily relationship of true friendship with God. His prayer life
is his personal love story with God, of his progress and what he
did to avoid his relationship with the Heart of his heart, the
centre of his life, growing cold.
For Francis de Sales, prayer as communication with God is
the heart of the person who speaks to the Lord’s heart. It is the
prayer form of embodied spirituality. God is not only God of the
human heart but is the “friend of the human heart”.
Prayer allows us to find this heart of God and conform our
hearts to His.
giovani, Elledici, Torino 2014, 160. “Don Bosco is a model: he tends to iden-
tify in himself the educator, the confessor and the spiritual director; he in-
sists on affectionate acceptance, kindness, magnanimity and care for indi-
viduals, the intensity of affection shown in such a way that the young people
have confidence and trust, and collaborate in the formative action with
willing and cordial obedience.”

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40  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
We unite our understanding to God to behold and pene-
trate the features of his infinite beauty; and upon the
seventh, we join our wills to God, to taste and experience
the sweetness of his incomprehensible goodness; for up-
on the top of this ladder, God bending towards us, gives
us the kiss of love, and makes us taste the sacred
breasts of his sweetness, better than wine.51
Francis de Sales experiences prayer as a dialogue of hearts
in which God takes the initiative.
A friend’s present is always grateful. The sweetest com-
mandments become bitter when they are imposed by a
tyrannical and cruel heart. Jacob's service seemed a roy-
alty unto him, because it proceeded from love... Many
keep the commandments as sick men take medicines,
more from fear of dying in a state of damnation, than
from love of living according to our Saviour’s pleasure.
On the contrary, the loving heart loves the command-
ments; and the harder they are, the more sweet and
agreeable it finds them, because it more perfectly pleas-
es the beloved, and gives him more honour.52
It is about loving God's will, putting it into practice, and
finding the best support for accomplishing it in prayer. The key
to this spirituality is that we turn to prayer to be with the One
we know loves us, to make the beating of our heart coincide
with that of the Master, like the beloved disciple, to contem-
plate, since prayer is not about thinking much but loving much;
and to rest in Him, as a way to recover and find the strength to
continue loving.
Charity as the measure of our prayer
Charity is the measure of our prayer because our love of
God is manifested in our love for our neighbour. This is
51 FRANCIS DE SALES, Treatise..., op. cit.,XI,12
52 Ibid, VIII, 5.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  41
the“prayer of life” that is so important for St Francis de Sales.53
It consists in doing all our activities in love and for love of
God, so that our whole life becomes a continuous prayer. Those
who do works of charity, visit the sick, assist in the courtyard,
give time to others to listen, welcome those in need ... are pray-
ing. Commitments and occupations should not hinder union
with God, and whoever practises this form of prayer does not
run the risk of forgetting God. When two people love each other
– Francis de Sales concludes – their thoughts are always for
each other.
The simple means he suggests for achieving union with God
– a question so dear to our spirituality as sons and daughters
of Don Bosco – are ones we recognise in the practices of piety
Don Bosco proposed for his boys and his first Salesians. To
those who are busy with temporal things, he advises finding
moments, even very short ones, of recollection to unite the
heart to God with brief aspirations, short prayers and good
thoughts, or to just be aware of God in our spirit. While in the
midst of conversations or activities, we can always remain in
God's presence. In this way, true prayer does not neglect the
obligations of daily life.
Anyone who has experienced all this recognises that Fran-
cis de Sales lived what he advised and taught others. What he
did, he did for God and in God. He considered this “active
prayer” better than the others. When he was overwhelmed
with tasks and commitments, he devoted almost no time to
formal prayer: “his life was a continuous prayer.”54
Francis de Sales offers the degrees of prayer in the Introduc-
tion to the Devout Life, closely following the example of St Tere-
sa of Jesus (vocal, mental, contemplative and silent prayer). For
53 Cf. M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales, 160.
54 Cf. M. WIRTH, San Francesco di Sales, 160. In a note, he refers to this
fact in the letter from Chantal’s mother to dom Jean de Saint-François, in
JEANNE-FRANÇOISE FRÉMYOT DE CHANTAL, Correspondance, t. II, 305.

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42  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
our daily practice, it would be worthwhile to elaborate on the
value of meditation for Francis de Sales, who considers that
just as a watch is wound up so as not to stop, so prayer and
time devoted to the Lord in meditation and examination of
conscience, and other practices of piety, keep alive our zeal, our
apostolic ardour, and our desire to belong to God. It is good to
find moments to retreat into your heart, away from the hustle
and bustle, and have a heart-to-heart conversation with God.
There is no clock, however good, but must be continually
wound up; and moreover, during the course of each year
it will need taking to pieces, to cleanse away the rust
which clogs it, to straighten bent works, and renew such
as are worn. Even so, any one who really cares for his
heart’s devotion will wind it up to God night and morn-
ing, and examine into its condition, correcting and im-
proving it; and at least once a year he will take the
works to pieces and examine them carefully; – I mean
his affections and passions, – so as to repair whatever
may be amiss. And just as the clockmaker applies a del-
icate oil to all the wheels and springs of a clock, so that
it may work properly and be less liable to rust, so the
devout soul, after thus taking the works of his heart to
pieces, will lubricate them with the Sacraments of Con-
fession and the Eucharist. These exercises will repair
the waste caused by time, will kindle your heart, revive
your good resolutions, and cause the graces of your mind
to flourish anew.55
When the process is a genuine one, prayer leads to action
and vice versa. The added value is that prayer is practised with
simplicity and with the abandonment of “ask for nothing,
refuse nothing”. And this helps to purify the motivations for
following Christ, allows us to be guided by God and readies us
to be genuinely free.
55 Cf. FRANCIS DE SALES, Introduction to the Devout Life, op.cit. V, 1.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  43
Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Let us turn to this Mother
and call on her motherly love
I will only make a brief and concise reference to this, but
I want to emphasise that human growth in faith also finds a
model in Mary, the mother of Jesus.56
St Francis de Sales said that the work of the Visitation,
founded together with Jeanne de Chantal, would have as
its symbol a heart pierced by two arrows, crowned by a cross,
surrounded by a crown of thorns and with the holy names of
Jesus and Mary engraved on it.
Mary’s role in Francis de Sales’ theology is identical with
that of the Second Vatican Council. She is placed firmly in the
heart of the Church. And her mission is to “attract and lead all
people to her Son”.57 This is why Francis de Sales encourages
us to join with Mary, like the disciples, to receive the source of
unity, the Holy Spirit.
Honour, revere and respect the Blessed Virgin Mary
with a very special love; she is the Mother of our
Sovereign Lord, and so we are her children. Let us think
of her with all the love and confidence of affectionate
children; let us desire her love, and strive with true filial
hearts to imitate her graces.58
Furthermore, the figure of Mary, model of all virtues, pre-
sented as “clothed in Christ”, walks the path of humility like
her Son, with her total dependence on God, available to him;
she receives God’s generosity in abundance. When she sings
the humility of her servant in her Magnificat, it is because she
has attracted God’s gaze.
Finally, the Salesian trait of devotion to the Virgin, our
56 EUNAN MCDONNELL, God Desires You, p.127-135.
57 Cf. OEA XXVI, 266. Quoted in EUNAN MCDONNELL, God Desires You,
p.128.
58 Introduction to the Devout Life., II,16

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mother and guide, corresponds to the trust that Don Bosco
placed in Mary as the Consolata (Consoled), Mary Immaculate
and Help of all of her Son’s brothers and sisters. She cooperates
in God's plan of salvation and, in the words of Francis de Sales,
God made Mary “pass through all states of life, so that all
people may find in her whatever they need to live well in their
own state of life.”59 In her we see what God is ready to do with
his love when he finds willing hearts like Mary’s. By emptying
herself, she receives the fullness of God. By remaining avail-
able to God, He is able to accomplish great things in her.
Mary’s contemplation, with her life and her yes to God, in-
vites us to open ourselves to God’s love in the knowledge that
the heart of Jesus, on the tree of the cross, contemplates us and
loves us. In Mary we see completed the true destiny of our
heart, the heart of God.
Francis de Sales, a Christian humanist who com-
municates God
There is another characteristic of Francis de Sales for which
he is perhaps best known in the cultural circles of our world:
he is the Patron Saint of journalists. At a time when communi-
cation is carried out in many ways, with its undeniable advan-
tages and defects, Francis de Sales stands out for a value that
gives dignity to the journalistic profession: the search for and
dissemination of the truth.
In 1923, when Pope Pius XI declared Francis de Sales
patron of journalists,60 he pointed to his principal characteristics
as a communicator. His gracious manner of holiness showed
others, through his writings, the sure and simple way of
Christian perfection.
Demonstrating, as Francis de Sales did, that holiness is for
59 OEA IX, 342. Quoted in EUNAN MCDONNELL, God Desires You, p.134.
60 PIUS XI, Encyclical Letter Rerum Omnium Perturbationem, 26 January
1923.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  45
everyone and that it is perfectly reconcilable with all the offices
and conditions of civil life, also involves knowing how to
communicate the contents of faith and religion in simple,
understandable and pleasant language. And this is the
Salesian virtue and characteristic of communicating the truth,
using every possible means so that the proclamation reaches
everyone and helps everyone to understand the message that
is intended to be transmitted.
This desire to communicate the truth of the Gospel was
accompanied by an unparalleled creativity and originality,
such as the posters he hung in public places or distributed
under doors when he did not have a pulpit to give his catechesis
to the people of God who had been entrusted to him as their pastor.
In this simple, free and accessible way he made himself present.
In his encyclical for the third centenary of the death of
Francis de Sales, Pius XI spells out the fundamental principles
which are still current and worthy of consideration as a model
of upright, professional and honest behaviour.
It is Our wish that the greatest fruits should be gained
from this solemn Centenary [the third centenary of the
death of Francis de Sales] by those Catholics who as
journalists and writers expound, spread, and defend the
doctrines of the Church. It is necessary that they, in
their writings, imitate and exhibit at all times that
strength joined always to moderation and charity, which
was the special characteristic of St. Francis. He, by his
example, teaches them in no uncertain manner precisely
how they should write. In the first place, and this the
most important of all, each writer should endeavour in
every way and as far as this may be possible, to obtain
a complete comprehension of the teachings of the
Church. They should never compromise where the truth
is involved, nor, because of fear of possibly offending an
opponent, minimise or dissimulate it. They should pay

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46  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
particular attention to literary style and should try to
express their thoughts clearly and in beautiful language
so that their readers will the more readily come to love
the truth. When it is necessary to enter into controversy,
they should be prepared to refute error and to overcome
the wiles of the wicked, but always in a way that will
demonstrate clearly that they are animated by the high-
est principles and moved only by Christian charity. Since
St. Francis, up to this time, has not been named the
Patron of Writers in any solemn and public document of
this Apostolic See, We take this happy occasion, after ma-
ture deliberation and in full knowledge, by Our Apostolic
authority, to hereby publish, confirm and declare by this
encyclical, everything to the contrary notwithstanding,
St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva and Doctor of
the Church, to be the Heavenly Patron of all Writers.61
We have here a valuable commitment to truth and its
proclamation, to the Salesian style of goodness and gentleness,
to simple proclamation and to the right intention of getting the
proclamation of truth out to everyone, always seeking the good
of people.
In addition to what we have just said, proclaiming, an-
nouncing the faith entails another important aspect to consider
because Francis de Sales was faithful to it. As Bishop of Geneva,
he was always concerned with the evangelisation of the people
of God and especially with catechesis. We cannot lose this
charismatic value as Don Bosco’s Family. Communicating the
message of the Gospel so that it may be lived is part of our
charism. The Salesian Congregation, the Salesian Family,
were born from a simple catechism lesson.62 The Church has
61 PIUS XI, Encyclical Letter Rerum Omnium Perturbationem, 26 January
1923. Italics and parentheses are mine.
62 The meeting with Bartholomew Garelli in the Church of St Francis of
Assisi, 8 December 1841. “[...] I stood up and made the sign of the cross to
begin; but my pupil made no response because he did not know how to do it.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  47
recently instituted the Ministry of Catechist.63 We are offered a
wonderful opportunity to revitalise our evangelising dimension
with these perspectives.
Let us not forget that Don Bosco, too, with the means he
had at his disposal at the time, published three hundred and
eighteen works over the course of forty years, because, like
Francis de Sales, he was convinced that a good word or a rich
reading could do great good. Whatever the effort, it was noth-
ing to him if it meant gaining someone’s good and salvation.
Finally, it was always Francis de Sales' intention to reach
out to everyone and proclaim the salvation and liberation that
God’s Love offers. This became a reality in the particular and
amiable way he practised pastoral zeal, going out to visit, meet,
seek and encourage people in various ways. The founding of the
Order of the Visitation together with Jeanne de Chantal,
speaks to us, in the language of the time, of this “Church going
forth” proposed by Pope Francis, a Church which goes out to
meet anyone who wants to hear the message of Jesus.
The image of Don Bosco visiting the boys during the week
in their places of work, the image of Francis de Sales visiting
his parishioners and leaving a message of faith and love for
God under the doors of their homes, the inspiring image of the
Virgin Mary visiting her relative Elizabeth, should encourage
and enthuse us, and be pretty much a challenge to us.
In that first catechism I taught him how to make the sign of the cross. C I
also taught him to know God the creator and why he created us. [...] This
was the beginning of our Oratory. It was to be blessed by the Lord with
growth beyond my imagining at that time.” Cf. ISTITUTO STORICO SALESIANO,
Fonti salesiane. 1. Don Bosco e la sua opera. Raccolta antologica, LAS, Roma
2014, documento n. 309: “Memorie dell’Oratorio di S. Francis de Sales dal
1815 al 1855”, p. 1237. Memoirs of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales, Sale-
siana Publishers, New Rochelle, New York, 2010, p. 104-105.
63 Cf. FRANCIS, Apostolic Letter in the form of the “Motu Proprio”
Antiquum Ministerium, 10 May 2021 (Liturgical Memorial of St John of
Avila) with which he instituted the ministry of catechist.

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48  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
Conclusion
We too, as a Salesian Family, need to make the “charism of
the visitation” explicit as a desire of the heart to announce,
without waiting for others to come to us, going into areas and
places inhabited by so many people for whom a kind word,
an encounter, a look full of respect can open their horizons
towards a better life.
In short, going out to meet young people, wherever they may
be and in whatever situation, continues to be our most distinc-
tive feature, confirming Don Bosco’s desire to love what young
people love so that they will love what we love, spreading the
Salesian spirit, our “Valdocco option”, wherever the desire to
be with young people takes us, living a true “Salesian sacra-
ment of presence”, and the commitment to carry out “small
charity works”. This is how we were born and this is how
we want to follow Don Bosco, who found in Francis de Sales a
model and a kindred spirit, a sort of soul mate.
May the anniversary we are celebrating this year help us to
continue to grow in our dedication to poor and abandoned
youth with the Salesian charism of Don Bosco imbued with
the spirit of St Francis de Sales.
Fr Ángel FERNÁNDEZ ARTIME, sdb
Rector Major
******

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  49
SOMETHING TO READ OVER ONCE MORE AND REFLECT
ON, AND FOR OUR HEART TO DWELL ON
Let me end this essay with some thoughts from St Francis
de Sales, Don Bosco, Pope Francis, and even from what I have
written myself. Perhaps these, among others, might help us to
reflect, be something for our hearts to dwell on after reading
the Strenna. Among others, I have “collected” the following:
• The charity and kindness of St Francis de Sales will guide
me in everything.
• “Nothing through constraint” is a beautiful proposal, an
invitation to make it a precious gift of our personal life.
• As a Tridentine bishop and a promoter of the Catholic
counter-reformation raised in the struggle against luke-
warm faith, he chose the life of the heart and not that of
constraint. And all he was doing was contemplating and
living God’s attitude.
• God’s intervention, his grace, never takes place without our
consent. He acts forcefully, but never to oblige or constrain,
instead to attract the heart, not to violate, but out of love
for our freedom.
• God, as Francis de Sales used say, draws us to himself
through his kind initiative, at times as a vocation or call, at
times as the voice of a friend, as an inspiration or invitation
and at times as a “prevention” because he always antici-
pates. God never imposes himself: he knocks at our door
and waits for us to open it.
• We do not believe it possible to educate without sacred
respect for the freedom of every individual. Where the
freedom of the individual is not respected, God is absent.
• The strength of God’s attraction, powerful but not violent,
lies in the sweetness of his attraction.

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50  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
• Far from excluding love for others, the Salesian mystical
experience, this love of God we are speaking of, demands it.
• The human being, the young person, every individual, each
of us, carries the need for God, the desire for God, “a natural
inclination for God”, inscribed in our being.
• God is present and makes himself present to each individu-
al in those moments of their life that only God himself
chooses and in the way that only God knows.
• Both Francis de Sales and Don Bosco make daily life an
expression of the love of God which is received and also
returned in exchange. Our saints wanted to bring the
relationship with God closer to life and life closer to the
relationship with God. This is the proposal of “next-door-
neighbour holiness” or “the middle-class of holiness” which
Pope Francis speaks to us about with so much affection.
“I like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience
of God’s people: in those parents who raise their children
with immense love, in those men and women who work
hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly reli-
gious who never lose their smile. In their daily perseverance
I see the holiness of the Church militant. Very often it is
a holiness found in our next-door neighbours, those who,
living in our midst, reflect God’s presence. We might call
them ‘the middle class of holiness.’”
• God does not love us because we are good, but because
He is good.
• Fulfilment of God’s will is not achieved through feelings of
“unworthiness”, but through hoping in the mercy and good-
ness of God. This is Salesian optimism.
• Francis de Sales responds to God’s love with love.
• I will love you, Lord, at least in this life if it is not granted
me to love you in eternal life; I will love you at least here,
my God, and I will always hope in your mercy.

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THE RECTOR MAJOR  51
• Francis de Sales’ crisis revealed the deepest part of his
being: a heart deeply in love with God.
• The conviction that God's love is not based on feeling good,
but on doing the will of God the Father, is the core of Fran-
cis de Sales’s spirituality and must be the model for the
whole Family of Don Bosco.
• Move on from the consolations of God to the God of consola-
tions, from enthusiasm to true love
• Passing from falling in love to true love for others.
• Do all through love, nothing out of fear, because it is the
mercy of God and not our merits that urges us to love.
• If St Augustine said that “our heart is restless until it rests
in Thee” , by following the thinking of Francis de Sales
we could say with von Balthasar “Your heart, O God, is
restless, until we rest in You.”
• Don Bosco wants love for Christ to lead us to love for the
young, a Salesian characteristic of our life and an ongoing
challenge for Don Bosco’s Family today and always.
• His prayer life is his personal love story with God.
• For Francis de Sales, prayer as communication with God is
the heart of the person who speaks to the Lord’s heart. It is
the prayer form of embodied spirituality.
• Prayer allows us to find this heart of God and conform our
hearts to His.
• Charity is the measure of our prayer because our love of
God is manifested in our love for our neighbour.
• This is the“prayer of life”: It consists in doing all our activi-
ties in love and for love of God, so that our whole life
becomes a continuous prayer.
• It is good to find moments to retreat into your heart, away

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52  ACTS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
from the hustle and bustle, and have a heart-to-heart con-
versation with God.
• In her we see what God is ready to do with his love when
he finds willing hearts like Mary’s. By emptying herself, she
receives the fullness of God. By remaining available to God,
He is able to accomplish great things in her.