Message of the Rector Major to the SYM

2011

My Dear Young People,

I greet you and assure you of my great joy in sending you this message. They are words and feelings which I express in the presence of the Lord Jesus the Good Shepherd. I pray that his merciful heart may enlighten your minds, warm your hearts and fill your lives with meaning and dynamism.

Every day I keep you in my heart, and I constantly pray for you; yes, I pray for you so that you may remain united with Christ, and giving myself totally to you is what profoundly guides my whole life. In this way l am always praying for you, and when, visiting the Salesian houses scattered around the world, I am able to meet you face to face it gives me great joy and I bless the Lord. In your bright, joy-filled eyes I see a great desire for life and a hidden desire to make of your lives something beautiful. Naturally you ask the question: what should we do and how? I am struck by how many of you are still uncertain and confused; and I know very well that you are not waiting for some abstract theory or programme. Therefore in answer to your question I can do nothing better than speak with the heart of our Father Don Bosco. He it is who now speaks to you through me; it is he who shows his care for your life now and in the future, because he wants you to be happy in this world and for ever.

I should like you to know my dear young people what led me to come to understand every day more deeply the meaning of my life. For me this happened and resulted from my meeting with a real “living” person.

For me this was first of all my Mamma, Margaret. When we looked at a fine field of ripe grain together she would say to me: “Let us thank the Lord, Johnny. He has been good to us. He has given us our daily bread.» When I told her about the dream I had had which would leave a mark on my whole life, with that insight which only a mother’s heart can have she declared. “Who knows but you are to become a priest.» Simple words, but they made me understand that God had a dream for me to be fulfilled, a plan, a marvellous idea, a story of love which in a mysterious and silent way he was weaving within me: to give my life to the young, for them and with them. All this made me dream on a large scale.

My Mamma taught me the religious meaning of life not only in words but also and especially by her example, such as when, wakened in the middle of the night by the neighbours, and asked to go to the help of someone seriously ill she got up, and quickly went to do what she could. The same readiness and the same love she showed to the beggar who knocked at the door, as she never failed to give a piece of bread or some hot soup. In this way I learned that it was not enough to dream, but that one had to pay the price so that the dreams became true. From her I learned simple religious behaviour, the practice of prayer, doing one’s duty, sacrifice. Her loving presence reminded me that life is the most precious gift that God has given us, and that we have to give it back to him filled with the fruit of good deeds.

Throughout my life, especially when I had to make important decisions, I came across people enlightened by the Holy Spirit who helped me to understand that life is a vocation and implies self-giving, and they guided me in listening to the Lord’s call and in accepting the mission He was entrusting to me. This personal experience firmly convinced me of the importance, for young people, of finding an environment in which human and Christian values were the atmosphere one lived in and breathed, as well as the importance of meeting significant adults, spiritual guides capable of putting flesh and blood on the values they speak about, showing themselves to be credible witnesses and models for life. At the Oratory in Valdocco, the family atmosphere which I created was not that of a greenhouse, a nursery where the timid and those sensitive to the cold could feel at ease, without venturing out beyond their restricted view of life. Oh no! Valdocco was a workshop where a vocational culture was fashioned. I used to lead my sons to reach their real maturity as men and as Christians according to the spirit of freedom of the gospel, so that they would become “people-for-others”. The strong personalities who grew up at Valdocco are the proof of this: from Dominic Savio and Michael Magone to the missionary pioneers: Cagliero, Lasagna, Costamagna, Fagnano; and then Rua, Albera and Rinaldi, my first successors, and so many other outstanding figures, priests and Salesian brothers, religious and lay people fully involved in society and in the Church. Vocation was in the air they breathed, a desire to make life a great gift to the Church and to society. After me, many other Salesians and lay people in the Salesian Family have done the same thing in their houses.

You too, my dear young people can meet significant people in your families or in the area around you. There are marvellous people full of humanity and capable of living and bearing witness to a deep spirituality. You can look to them as practical examples for your own lives. There are priests, consecrated persons, lay men and women, who are living with joy the fullness of baptism. Led by the Spirit and listening to the Word of God, they have been enabled to develop their Christian lives and so make courageous and demanding life-choices. In this way they have become authentic witnesses of Christ in the Church and in society.

These people are for you a little like John the Baptist, witnesses and facilitators of the meeting with Jesus. In fact the Baptist pointed out Jesus of Nazareth to his disciples as the One who could satisfy their hearts’ deepest desires, the One who could fill their lives with meaning and with joy, the One who really was the way, the truth and the life. Today’s witnesses, those we meet on our life’s journey are “our John the Baptists.” Those who once again can show us the Lord of Life!

And this happens not only along the path of life of believers, the life of every person at some precise moment comes across the face and the gaze of Jesus and this encounter can be decisive. From the encounter with Jesus of those first disciples up to today, the invitation has “caught” many young people, men and women. «We have found the Messiah» Andrew will tell his brother Simon. «We have found the One Moses and the prophets spoke about, Jesus of Nazareth,» Philip will tell Nathanael. «To whom shall we go? Only you have the words of eternal life » Peter will say to him. For all of them it was, and it will be an encounter which colours the whole of their lives. One of John’s disciples even remembers the precise time of that meeting with Jesus: «It was about four in the afternoon.»

To you as to them, Jesus asks the basic question: «What are you looking for?» or better «Who are you looking for?» We are troubled by this question which won’t go away, piercing our hearts and plumbing the depths of our very being: we cannot escape it or remain indifferent to it. Then the mystery of grace moves us and we desperately seek an answer: «Master, where do you live?» «Come and see,» is Jesus’s reply. And they went and saw where he was living and stayed that day with him. A meeting, a personal friendly relationship which fills the heart and changes one’s life, today as then. All those who meet him, who follow him, are impressed by the depth and the fullness of his life. A life which remains for ever the model of a vocation lived with absolute fidelity to God and to other people.

When you ask, my dear young people «what should we do to give to our lives real meaning?» look at that Man who has loved us so much as to give himself totally for us. He is the model for every plan of life, and the faithful and full response to every vocation, because he is a Man totally focused on a central idea. In Him, everything – every power, physical, mental, intellectual, affective, of his will – is concentrated harmoniously around the core of what He has and what He is. He is not a “butterfly person” who moves constantly from one flower to another seeking an ephemeral beauty, but he is a “rock of a man,” firmly anchored and rooted in a solid foundation which unifies and harmonises his life with the will of the Father, which guides everything he does and everything he says, which fills all his activity and his prayer. This unifying focal point around which hetotally concentrates his whole being is his great dream, a far-reaching project, his vocation.

One of the parables he tells us - about the man who is ploughing in a field, finds a treasure and sells everything he has in order to possess it - describes very well his own experience: that dream which has filled his heart so that, as he himself says: “where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”

Jesus lives with genuine passion his dedication to the dream he has in his heart: the preaching and the building of the Kingdom of his Father who wants all men to be saved and to reach the fulness of life. His is not a life lived in indifference and indolence. Rather it is a life lived with boundless intensity. It is a life lived with energy and dynamism. His words leave us in no doubt: «I have come to bring fire on the earth and how I wish it were already kindled!». The image of fire is very expressive and describes the ardour with which he pursues the cause he has embraced.

This fire is the Holy Spirit which renews us, first of all in prayer. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love which shows itself in the peace within us, in the joy of our surroundings, and in the dynamism of our life. Renewed by the Spirit, we become people who are fulfilled: patient, faithful, committed.

This same fire, my dear young people, should warm your hearts today.

You cannot allow yourselves to be resigned to living your life as though it were a simple biological process (birth, growth, reproduction, death); you cannot organise your way of living as though it were a life without energy, anaemic, without passion for God and one’s neighbour. You cannot waste your lives by becoming merely consumers or spectators. You are called to be protagonists in society and in the Church: «you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world» Jesus would say.

The decision to follow Jesus in a radical manner all depends on our committing everything we have to being able to be in love with God and to spend ourselves in the service of people, especially the poor and the abandoned.

Yes, my dear young people! “Today” God needs you to “re-make” the world. Every man, every woman has a dream to live by and to speak about. Moved by the Spirit of Jesus, I too have always had a dream and today still have it: a vast movement of adults and of young people which can be the prophecy of this new world. A world in which every man and woman can obtain justice. A world in which at the centre are always the “little ones,” the least. A world in which people can be brothers and sisters for each other. This new world can take shape, it can become real, if you follow Jesus, if you take to heart his words, and in this way make God’s dream become true.

All of us together we can give life to a great Salesian Movement ready to help the young, especially the poorest ones and those in difficulty, planning for the present and for the future, focusing on the important aims for the renewal of ourselves and of others, making a significant contribution to changing the world and history. The Salesian Family wants to take up this task as a vocation and as a special mission. And you dear young people, you need to feel yourselves at home in this Family, aware that you are the joy and the most mature fruit of our work.

In the Church and in the Salesian Family there are a variety of vocations, but always the work of education and evangelisation, to which we are called, puts down its roots in the depths and in the tenderness of the love of God, reaches us through the dedicated love of Christ and is transmitted to the human race through total dedication to other men and women.

. Vocation is never a flight from a hostile world, seen as difficult or as a disappointment, nor is it a choice which has as its primary objective apostolic efficiency but rather a path of love which leads to the Love. It is from the fundamental experience of a love which presents itself as unique and exclusive, that a new way of seeing and responding to reality flows. The heart purified by the gift of itself to God and by the Holy Spirit, becomes capable of appreciating the inner beauty of every creature and of loving it without self-interest. It is God’s own mercy which takes possession of the human heart and cures every sorrow and every weakness.

I pray for you my dear young people, so that today many of you will allow yourselves to be captivated, fascinated by God to the point of giving yourselves totally to Him. If you place yourselves at the service of Love the deepest joys will not be lacking for you. These are the joys of a fruitfulness which comes from intimacy with God and the labours of a worker who lives solely for the cause of the Kingdom.

I also pray for my beloved sons the Salesians, so that they may live with joy and fidelity the great experience of spiritual fatherhood. May they be your skilled guides in the search for meaning and in the drawing up of your plan of life; sincere brothers who make themselves your travelling companions and for you break the Word of God which gives life, enlightens and gives comfort on the tiring journey; the Word which opens the way to prayer and rekindles the secret flame we carry in our hearts. Without this capacity for contemplation our spiritual and apostolic life will not be sustained. May you my dear Salesians, be enlightened guides for those who seek spiritual direction and who are already living in practice a sacramental and church life; wise and patient teachers for those who are searching for their vocation.

I pray, in particular, that the Holy Spirit may raise up zealous creative workers capable of coming to the aid of all those young people who nowadays no longer knock on the doors of the Church. These are young people who on their way following the star would rather meet the Magi than the scribes in Jerusalem; young people who no longer ask us what they should believe but rather what does it mean to believe. For all these reasons a real change in our pastoral approach is necessary.

My dear young people and beloved Salesians, let us place our lives as a vocation and our mission as educators under the motherly protection of Mary. It was Mary who became a disciple of Jesus, in her heart and in her life constantly listening to the Word of God. It was She who responded to God’s call with the total, courageous and free gift of herself: «Behold the handmaid of the Lord.» From Her, the new woman, teacher of faith and of wonder, the Salesian Family learns how to be the disciple of the Lord, and the “Mother” who gives birth to and educates young people so that they give their life generously in order to achieve its complete fulfilment.

Turin, 31 January 2011

Sac. Giovanni Bosco