The YOUTH SPOT

by Carlo Di Cicco

REPLY

TO A DREAMER

On 31 January 2007 on the occasion of the feast of Don Bosco, which is celebrated throughout the world, the Rector Major of the Salesians sent a letter from Rome addressed to all the young people of the SYM.

T

he letter arrived. It is one of those rare sorts of missives that if one knew the contents one would like to receive often: since they are a solace in life’s trials. They disperse the clouds covering a future that is ever more disturbing. It was written to the young people by the “successor of a dreamer.” The dreamer is no less than Don Bosco, and the signature is that of Fr Pascual Chavez Villanueva, his IXth successor.

□ He had the idea of writing it “like a new letter from Rome”, referring to that written by Don Bosco from the capital in 1884 to reawaken in the Salesians of the time the original spirit of the first oratory, that was centred on the preventive system based on loving kindness: in other words the unfailing way of opening an effective dialogue with the young, and making even the message of the gospel intriguing to them. For this reason, the new “Letter from Rome” signed Fr Chavez, speaks to the young but speaks no less to adults. To the young it suggests horizons of life and hope so that they can set themselves the task of creating a new world different to that in which we are all struggling to live.

Indirectly the Letter is an invitation to educators especially Salesians, who nowadays are fulfilling the educational and pastoral mission of Don Bosco who decided to spend his life “freeing the young from all kinds of prisons, the material ones and those of loneliness, of ignorance, of delinquency, of confusion and of desperation.”

□ The Letter is a tactical masterpiece: it considers those to whom it is addressed as partners in a dialogue not tailor’s dummies, and focuses on an approach to life that is forward-looking, aimed at building the future starting from that moment in everyone’s life when the past is the past and the value of the present is its ability to create the future. In fact, the young don’t waste time over the past; they look ahead and ponder on what the future holds in store for them.

The future is something that discourages adults as they think of it as being similar to their own past, and they are less inclined to be innovative to create something better. They tend to waste the future – the more or the little that remains to them – in the uncertain waiting for the end, as they no longer make any further plans. The almond tree announces springtime – Fr Chavez writes – and the young should raise their eyes to grasp the new meaning of things. This raising of the eyes is best done in the Church which is the house of God, “the place where human suffering is listened to, in a special way that of the young and the poor.” The poor are the “holy land” of the Church, the fertile field for youthful commitment. And the Church “must make visible, in a transparent way, the beauty and the love of God who wants to live in our midst today.”

□ In Don Bosco’s first oratory there was a conviction of “being able to change the world,” and the love that united those living there was already a sign of a changed world.

The times in which we are now living are difficult ones, but it is possible to dream. Fr Chavez sums up the current dream of his predecessor and founder like this: “My dream is to see you, the young people of the Third Millennium, as the resource of the present, developing your talents and your energies for good, putting yourselves at the service of others, in order to rejuvenate society and the Church.” And the dream becomes reality in the commitment of the whole Salesian Family “to be always clearly and explicitly promoters of the culture of life against all that can threaten and diminish it; bearers of the love of God, fathers and teachers of the spirit, intelligent guides capable of accompanying you in the search for beautiful and all-embracing projects of life.”

□ The Letter sets a demanding challenge before the young and educators alike: a new approach to life getting away from empty generalisations to discover the practical steps that need to be taken, and their cost, in order to get rid of the things in the world that conspire against the beatitudes of the gospel. It would be a very effective way of replying to a letter and of keeping the difficult dialogue between the generations going.

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