Intervention of the Rector Major

at the conclusion of the VIII International Congress of Mary Help of Christians

Buenos Aires - Basilica of Mary Help of Christians Sunday, November 10, 2019

I'd like to start with a Hail Mary. We are here in the house of the Mother, living an authentic Marian pilgrimage and, as a sign of how much we love her Son and how much we love God, together we say: "Hail Mary". They asked me to conclude these days. I would like to offer you a summary of what I think should be considered in our Marian journey as a Salesian Family. I would like to do it in a simple way and touching on aspects of our daily life.

CHAPTER 1: my first contact with the Virgin

I'll start by talking about me. I was wondering these days: how was my Marian devotion born? I ask all of you so that you too can think of how your love for Mary was born.

Let me tell you my story: I was born in a small fishing village and my first contacts with the faith and with the Virgin were my grandmother and my mother. My grandmother Carmen was born ten years after the death of Don Bosco, that is, in the very century of Don Bosco and lived many years. She was an illiterate woman, she could not read, she could not write but she had a great devotion to the Virgin. She went to hear the mass in Latin, who knows what she understood... well, she understood the love of the Virgin. I remember her house, where I slept and remember this great painting of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel redeeming the souls of purgatory and I remember my grandmother and my mother reciting the rosary. I have in mind the scene of my father with my uncle in the sea, and in the evenings and nights of winter my grandmother and my mother praying the rosary. I didn't understand much, but I still have their witnesses. To pray for those who were in the sea whose distant lights we saw. A few words, little theology, but I learned that the Virgin in my family was important!

CHAPTER 2: the origin of my Salesian Marian devotion.

I was a student in a Salesian school and I discovered how beautiful the love of the Virgin was through beautiful images of Mary Help of Christians that I saw in the Salesian house. There, they taught me the three Hail Marys and to visit the Blessed Sacrament. We also celebrated the feast of Mary Help of Christians. This makes me think: we, the educators of the faith, must be attentive to our iconoclastic style, attentive to our modernism which maintains that images are useless or that a prayer to Mary Help of Christians is in vain. Be careful because we do not offer anything if we cannot overcome this. And I say this without wanting to enter into an ideological war, but I speak from experience where they taught me to love Mary through the beauty of a statue, a Hail Mary and a feast.

CHAPTER 3 : the presence of Mary in my life.

Young people often ask me to tell them about special experiences I have had and in which I have felt the strength of the Virgin. I feel like disappointing them, but I have to say: "None!". I have not had any apparitions or things of this kind, except a certainty that I want to share and that is a certainty of the Christian life, of the Christian life in daily life. It is the certainty that in my life Mary Help of Christians, the Mother, is always present. I have experienced what it means to feel guided and to feel the grace that comes to me from the prayer of others, for this reason I understand so much Pope Francis when he asks us to pray for him. I am certain that the Blessed Mother holds my hand and accompanies and guides me every day. But this is played out in the personal sphere. That is why each of us has his/her own experience, because each of us could say how Jesus and Mary are present in his/her life and how they manifest themselves. I am certain that the Blessed Mother continues to do extraordinary things.

CHAPTER 4: To say Mary for us, the Salesian Family is to say Don Bosco.

First scene: Don Bosco left us in the Memoirs of the oratory the dream he had at the age of 9 that deeply impressed him. How many times have we seen him and remember the phrase: "I will give you a teacher". And Don Bosco tells us that he has kept this very much in his heart.

Let's see the second scene of this chapter: a 72-year-old Don Bosco who goes to bless, to consecrate the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Rome, that 17 May 1887, 7 months before his death, in which he celebrates his last Eucharist. On the right altar of Mary Help of Christians, it is 6:30 in the morning. Don Bosco is old, with little voice that almost fails to celebrate mass, he stops, delays. After many interruptions, the Eucharist ended and, in the sacristy,, he was asked what he had, whether he felt sick. Don Bosco, an elderly man, crying with deep emotion, says: "It happened to me that now I have understood everything, that she has done everything in these years". This is the synthesis of Don Bosco's life and Marian life. But in between there are 62 years between that day and his nine years of dreaming, of a Don Bosco who walks, who makes decisions, who asks for help, who asks the Mother. In these 62 years Don Bosco has the certainty that the Mother has always accompanied him.

CHAPTER 5: The presence of the mother in the oratory.

The other day, one of our brothers said an expression on which I totally agree, namely that Mamma Margaret is the founder of the oratory. I would say that she is the founder along with her son. Mamma Margaret was the founder with her son of the oratory of Valdocco. Don Bosco took her with him and they began to live in that house and to welcome boys. Did Don Bosco have a project? No, his was a project of the heart: he lives with his mother and wants to welcome the boys and give them the warmth of a house. Have you ever thought that Don Bosco has always wanted to keep with him the figure of a mother in the oratory? A PHYSICAL figure. So we remember Mamma Margaret as the mother of the oratory, the mother of Michele Rua, the mother of Gastaldi, with whom he had dialogues and meetings and many other moments of a mother who was part of the life of the oratory. Don Bosco knew that his boys needed the love of a mother because they didn't have one.

Don Bosco sensed that he had to make his boys understand that the other mother, the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of Heaven, would always have taken them by the hand, would have loved them, would have guided them.

Don Bosco, who makes sure that his boys keep an "revitalized" heart. The Mother is the one to whom he goes and through Mary he brought his children very close to the encounter with Jesus. He followed a whole spiritual pedagogy. It is a Don Bosco who does all this... devotion to the Our Lady of Consolation, devotion to the Immaculate Mary, devotion to the Help of Christians. We can't say that Don Bosco never, for a single day, hasn't stimulated his boys to love Mary. It seems to me that this is another great lesson. Before I said aloud: "Beware of the iconoclastic current that says: let's stop with this nonsense". This nonsense marked my life, this nonsense marked the life of many brothers. Every day a word about Mary.

CHAPTER 6: Be careful not to misunderstand devotion.

Let me explain myself better: on this iconoclastic line of some currents, it's enough to say that devotion is silly, that it's something for the elderly only, to stigmatize something that is very profound. Let me explain myself better: I'm addressing my grandmother (who will ask why I'm naming her so much today 😊). A woman so "simple" as I said before, wife, bride, mother of 11 children, who lived through a civil war, who experienced what hunger means, who never gave in and in whose life never lacked faith. It is here that I believe is the beauty of the woman, the fortress that the woman has always had in herself and that continues to manifest today. So my grandmother was not simply a woman who recited the rosary with her image of the Virgin of Carmel beside her. No, it wasn't just this, it was much more. For this elderly woman, her rosary and her image were the connecting cable with God. For this reason, her devotion was not a false devotionalism, but devotion in the deepest sense understood by St. Francis de Sales, the way of life connected to God, to the mystery, to the divinity. For Don Bosco the Consolata, the Immaculate, the Help of Christians was the possibility of bringing Jesus and God very close to his children.

We, the Salesian Family, must not accept to be in a mess: today there is a community in prayer here, made up of different people, of men and women, of young people, of brothers and sisters. I like to see young people here, I think it's a Salesian lesson. As it has been said well these days, if Youth Ministry accompanies young people in finding their personal way of serving Jesus in the world, then it is a mature ministry. That is why I insist that Marian devotion touches the daily life of Christian life and for us in particular is not an ornamental element. In the Salesian Family, if devotion to Mary is lacking, one cannot say that one is of a Salesian Family. I say this to my Salesian brothers in the world: if we educate young people by putting Mary outside, we do not behave like Don Bosco's Salesians. We will be socio-cultural animators, we will be economic-social workers, workers of good will, but not Salesians. And here, forgive me if I say this in a blunt way, it is not an ideological dialogue, but a charismatic theme of identity. If you do not feel in this current, well, but do not ask to start a dialogue to open other possibilities. The Marian dimension for us is essentially charismatic and so for the whole Salesian Family. This is what we are.

CHAPTER 7: What is the message of the Congress?

As the message of our Congress we can say that first of all the authenticity of our life and of our witness of life counts and I would like to go deeper into this point because I find it very important. Let me also speak with the heart, with great sincerity, with great respect and truth. Our Salesian Family, with the gaze of Mary as a believing woman, can give something to others if we offer a way of being, a healthy, credible, sensitive life. What do I ask of my Salesian brothers and sisters? I shout: "We were born for the young, the boys, the girls, the neediest. We do not get involved in unnecessary things. We don't put so much energy into other things, however good they may be. I hold a phrase from Don Vecchi like a treasure in my heart, which seems to me to be a wonderful vital synthesis: "In all the realities of the Salesian world good is done. But I ask myself: Does one do the good that we must do?". That's the point. Doing the good we must do passes through the authenticity of our lives, because there are many temptations, temptations like ... I deal with many things, I have many things to administer. And it applies both to those who are in a sanctuary and to those who are in a school. In many witnesses there has been talk of success, of success. This is a temptation. If what I am looking for, is the success of things, or a career, we are not on the right track. And I am thinking of the consecrated women of the Salesian Family, our FMA, but also the other 7 congregations. I say this: "Today the world needs your witness". I say proudly: "They do not need to see good administrators or coordinators. They need to see free women, sisters, mothers among young girls. It is the most genuine thing we can offer.

Yesterday in this Congress I saw many young people. We will only do the right thing if we offer them what is more essential to us. Last night I was talking to a brother present here and he said something very beautiful to me: "I have thought a lot, but what is the most essential thing that we can offer as consecrated men and women in the world? And he said to me: "I believe that the most genuine thing we can offer is FREE, life for young people". So it is my opinion today to say Mary as a woman of faith, to say Salesian Family, to say that the most important thing is to give what is most authentic and true in us. And I speak to each of you, not just to someone. How many are married? Remember that your families are domestic churches, marriage and love must grow despite the difficulties of life; in your families the children see your witnesses (the problem is not whether they go to church or not - God meets everyone whenever he wants), but the testimony of his father and his mother. Men and women, before preparing a rosary in your neighborhood, think that our first mission is to make life and the family a visible reading of the Gospel for those who see us.

CHAPTER 8: How much we are Marian, personally and in the Salesian Family.

Let's summarize everything in these points:

• We must be more and more Marian, more and more of Mary.

• Without Mary we are not the sons and daughters that Don Bosco dreamed of (we will be something else, but not of Don Bosco's dream).

• We have the duty to announce and propose Jesus and his Mother Mary, without fear and shame (Don Bosco always had the name of Mary on his lips. The first Salesians were crazy about love for Mary Help of Christians. Are we like them today?).

• In our journey Mary cannot be a decorative element. she is essential.

• Without her, our education and pastoral work will be empty, poor and without consistency.

• Let us make more explicit proclamation of Jesus and keep more Mary on our lips.