2. THE PRAYER OF THE SALESIAN. – The seeds: Mamma Margaret. - Don Bosco man of prayer. – Following St Francis de Sales. – The oratory hallmark. – A contemplative in action. – Some conditions: Interior attitude. – Intention. – Feeling ourselves God’s instruments for the benefit of the young – Discovering the presence of the Spirit in the life of the young.

Rome, 1 January 2001

Solemnity of Mary Most Holy, Mother of God

For the season of Lent 1999 a group of dioceses in Spain sent to the faithful a letter on Christian prayer at the present day with the title: “Your face, O Lord, I shall seek”.¹ Other Bishops have done the same thing.²

The Bishops were pointing out the disorientation of Christians with respect to the sense of prayer (why pray? is there still any sense in praying regularly?) and the sources and original forms of Christian prayer. There was also the fact of the progressive loss of the habit of prayer, because of the changes that were taking place in family life, in which days on end could pass without any sign of prayer in common. In the Christian community too, apart from Sunday Mass, other practices were going out of use with which Christian communities through the years had been accustomed to express their fundamental relationship with the Lord.

At the same time was emphasized the multiplying of places and opportunities for a self-service kind of prayer, offered by various religious groups for anyone who wanted to make use of them, and the growing search for such places.

We have experienced the same kind of thing ourselves: we offer prayer evenings in our churches, we have very popular vigil services, our houses of prayer are growing in number – but not only things like these. Only a fortnight ago I was listening to an evangelical Radio which listed twenty places of worship in the city of Rome, with their respective timetables, for those who wanted to frequent them. In the backgrounds could be heard the words of psalms with electronic musical accompaniment and the involvement of the participants.

The Jubilee, with its moving prayer gatherings in St Peter’s Square and the numerous celebrations, has also given emphasis to this expression of Christian religious feeling.

We are living in a globalized world, unique from a religious standpoint: it is both humanistic and secularized, almost unbalanced in asserting the right of the individual to make personal choices in every field and hence somewhat allergic to anything imposed on him from without – “savagely religious” about his privacy, you could call it. There are those who live as “agnostics” (in the sense of non-believers). There are those who practise religion after the manner of a snack-bar or a McDonald’s, in line with their own selection and combination of times, places and formulas. There are even those who go in for esoteric religious practices. Sometimes the only one you will ever see praying in a railway compartment is a Moslem. In the airports rooms have been set aside for the practice of various religions.

From all this one thing at least is evident: whoever gets into any religious experience or emotional situation, discovers and accepts the fact that prayer is one of its main manifestations. Requests made to the Lord, felt to be present, expressions of praise and thanksgiving, the desire for his company and protection, arise spontaneously and almost inevitably.

It is in no way strange therefore that young Christians, living in this atmosphere and in contact with us, feel an attraction towards Jesus Christ and the Gospel and have accepted the challenge of their deepest meaning, or have already expressed their deliberate choice for a living presence of faith, should wonder about the prayer of the Salesians. They wonder to what extent they feel it in their heart, and especially whether the Salesians are capable of launching them on a process of prayer which will traverse their whole life, giving rise to convictions and prompting experiences, so that prayer becomes a habit, something relished, support and light.

1. “YOU ARE MY LIGHT...”.³

With young people you can experience extraordinary instances of solemn celebrations, well prepared from the aspects of content, symbolism and choreography. But with respect to ourselves the Constitutions, after putting forward all the community expressions, tell us: “We can form praying communities only if individually we become men of prayer. Each one needs to express his own personal and heartfelt way of being a son of God, expressing his gratitude, telling him about his yearnings and his concerns in the apostolate”.⁴

It is one thing, in fact, to recite prayers or take part in collective celebrations, things which are certainly both useful and praiseworthy, but quite another to become praying individuals. We have heard this from the young people themselves and from commentators with reference to large scale events like the Youth Forum and the Jubilee: without any doubt it all constituted a valid experience, but will it endure and develop further in life? What is at stake is religious education, follow-up, the interiorization following the extraordinary event, heartfelt communication with the Father after the manner of sons.

It is clear, in fact, that if our evangelization provides only explanations without creating a relationship of communion with the Father, it is empty and not much more than an ideology. The great work of Jesus was that of making the Father known, in the biblical sense, and of teaching the disciples to have recourse to him by listening to the voice of the Spirit, and the words and teaching he suggests to the heart.⁵

For this reason the Gospel is rich in teachings about prayer. The evangelist Luke, in chapter 11 of his Gospel, gathers some of these together: the unifying word “Father”, perseverance and effectiveness of prayer. And it is in the Gospel that we find the explanation of our communication with the Father, and the presence of the Spirit who prays with Christ in us and for us.

It is not my intention at this point to speak to you of salesian community prayer. Enough has already been written⁶ and there is sufficient animation in this regard, and efforts at improvement are clearly visible in the communities. There is no doubt that this well expresses the life of both individuals and communities, and is also a school in itself, as well as being a guarantee of richness, continuity, perseverance and ecclesial experience. The Salesian prays with the community and in the community.

What I want to do now is dwell particularly on the personal process which, with the help of the community, leads each of us to become a man of prayer, wanting and able to guide young people in that direction, and leading to levels of regularity and fervour those who show themselves capable.

A look into our own heart.

The prayer of the Salesian, his communication and filial dialogue with the Lord, is certainly coherent with and reflects his life. But there are some “clichés” in that connection which are unlisted; just as there are real conditionings to be overcome before we can be men of prayer in the salesian manner.

Among these clichés is one that wants to see action at the centre of salesian life, not always understood as conscious saving activity but sometimes as action which is simply human, with all that this implies: movement, skill, the multiplying of environments, relationships and activities, etc.

In this case prayer becomes “relegated to certain times during the day”, confined to some common moments. But the advice of Jesus the Good Shepherd was to pray “without ceasing”: a conversation with the Father who comes to us in the Spirit and goes out from us in many ways: through thought and feelings, guidance of activity, relationship with our neighbour, sharing in the celebrations and life of the Christian community. And all this carried out with our eyes turned towards Him and with the desire to fulfil “God’s good pleasure”,⁷ to use the expression of St Francis de Sales.

Another cliché is the interpretation of Don Bosco’s words: “The active life towards which our Society specially tends, means that its members are not able to perform many practices of piety in common”.⁸ This is true, but we need to go back to his own time to grasp the implications of this statement, by comparing it with the prescriptions of other Institutes: to the daily morning and evening prayers were added triduums, novenas, and detailed practices of piety linked with the liturgical seasons. This is the context in which Don Bosco’s words have to be read and interpreted. Common occasions must not be confused with personal ones, even those occurring in poorly organized activity.

Among our typical conditioning elements must be included a certain natural exposure to the multiplicity of commitments that for some, ready to accept anything that crops up, can become a state of agitation. This not only leads to lack of sharing in community moments but also to the skipping of time that should be given to study, reading, the serious preparation for work of ministry or an educative task, which is becoming all the more complex from such aspects as the evangelical interpretation of life and the methodology of youth guidance.

We must recognize the fact that both the pastoral context, to which I referred earlier, and our personal reflection lead us today to specific conclusions concerning the conditions to be created for prayer.

It is possible to speak of prayer only by adopting the experience of Jesus, Son of the Father, re-expressed in his own life under the guidance of the Spirit. To speak of prayer is to investigate the most sacred and unifying element of our life.⁹

“Prayer is the synthesis of our relationship with God. We can say that we are what we pray, and how we pray. The level of our faith is the level of our prayer; the strength of our hope is the strength of our prayer; the ardour of our charity is the ardour of our prayer”.¹⁰

Praying and living become fused in a single reality in the conscience of one who prays. Until life itself becomes prayer, not even prayer itself will be alive and authentic.

On the other hand, Sacred Scripture and ecclesial tradition are full of the prayer of the poor who turn to God in the spirit of Jesus like children. The way must be simple, and the communication childlike in the Spirit.

Some attitudes can be listed that foster personal prayer.

Sometimes when we speak of God, with reference to ourselves and still more in religious discussions with others, we put on a mask, we adopt a terminology suited to the occasion, and we use words that are exact and well stated.

These masks do not correspond to what we really are. They represent insuperable barriers to a deep sharing with God and to an open dialogue with him.

God wants to communicate with us on the wavelength of sincerity. And this is by no means something that happens at once: it usually requires grace and time. This is why the Jubilee has called us to conversion, to start again from God and re-plan our journey. It has been first of all an invitation to conversion of heart, even though the celebrations transmitted by television may have conveyed a different idea.

There are many ways and types of prayer, depending on whether feeling or meditation, set formula or spontaneity, is the prevailing factor. In the last analysis each one has his own way of praying, just as he has his own way of walking or of self-expression. But there is always in prayer the desire for a communication which aims at being filial, direct and deeply felt. Whatever kind of prayer has been reached, its essence is the desire for a sincere sharing of oneself. This is how Jesus expressed himself: “I thank you, Father”;¹¹ “Keep in your name those you have given me”;¹² “Let them be one as we are one”.¹³

Ability for listening.

For us who are educators, the ability to speak about God and with him depends in the first place on our ability to listen to him. He, who spoke at creation’s beginning, has said a great deal to us in the History of Salvation through words and events, and has recounted everything in Christ. Now he speaks to us through the mediation of the Church and daily happenings, he makes the voice of his Spirit re-echo within us and reveals new things for new times.

The believer is one who before all else listens to the Word, as Mary did. “Listening means not only being intellectually conscious of the presence of the other, but willingly making space within oneself for such presence so as to welcome it and enjoy it”.¹⁴

It is not always easy to distinguish the voice of God from that of men. For this we must lend a willing ear, as in the episode of Samuel,¹⁵ to the one who speaks, to educate ourselves and those for whom we work, to listen to the Truth: “Speak, for your servant is listening”. We must be always on the alert, to lead our young people towards the Truth, urging them to listen to Him who has the “words of eternal life”. This is one of the aims of education. The laws and precepts, the Word of the Lord, are presented as the source from which comes in a mysterious way a complete and deep knowledge, intelligible to the simple but superior to anything produced by the keenest human thought.

On the part of man, this readiness to obey and listen to the Word constitutes the indispensable condition for discovering the plan which God entrusts to every individual, in the time and place where he has been called to live, and will also be the fundamental condition for the continual renewal of his commitment to conversion to God: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it”.¹⁶

The best place for listening to and hence meditating on the Word, is that of Mary at Bethany, “who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching”.¹⁷ Everything begins therefore with attention directed to the Word, which is then developed in meditation, prayer and contemplation.¹⁸ Listening to God,¹⁹ with its aspects of silence, centering on Him and not on ourselves, becomes an act of welcome or, rather, of the revelation in us of a presence more intimately present to us than we are to ourselves. “Late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved you! For behold you were within me and I outside; and I sought you outside and in my ugliness fell upon those lovely things that you have made. You were with me and I was not with you. I was kept from you by those things, yet had they not been in you, they would not have been at all. You called and cried to me and broke open my deafness: and you sent forth your beams and shone upon me and chased away my blindness: you breathed fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and do now pant for you: I tasted you and now hunger and thirst for you: you touched me, and I have burned for your peace”.²⁰

Not only did Vatican II open a happy period for returning to the Word, but we ourselves are witnessing a new taste for it felt nowadays among young people. It is a new kind of meeting of the young with the Word, and has been encouraged in his Exhortations by John Paul II with respect to the Lectio divina.

Savouring silence.

Silence is the special characteristic of the Word. Silence and the Word are complementary and mutually strengthen each other. Without silence it is difficult to attain self-knowledge or to discern God’s plan for our own life. Silence gives depth and is a unifying element.

Salesian moderation in speech implies neither distance nor artificial self-control; it means that our attention is always given to the other person, with understanding and the desire to give and receive. In this way we pass to an internal aspect, to being at peace with ourselves, to taking a calm view of persons and situations, to an internal peace and tranquility which enjoys the other’s presence.

This leads also to an attitude of self-control and resistance which silences disordered sentiments towards others, arbitrary ideas about oneself, rebellions, rash judgements, grumbling and gossiping which spring up from the heart. A controlled silence is the guardian of the internal self and makes it possible to listen willingly to the one who is speaking. The God we are trying to find is within us, not outside.²¹.

The internal self needs time and space to examine and judge. As regards the first we should not be afraid to reserve in our daily timetable some periods for personal meditation, study and prayer and – why not? – contemplation: that total attitude as though mesmerized by truth or beauty.

The Gospel advises us to “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret”.²² It is a matter of choosing a place where attention and spirit find fewer obstacles in reaching God. Without any doubt the church or chapel are the most suitable places for “silent prayer”, but not the only ones. “For prayer our Saviour chose solitary places, those which would not attract the senses too much but lift up the soul to God, like mountains (which rise from the earth, and are usually bleak and bare with little to attract the senses)”.²³

Walks and rambles, for example, can acquire a new meaning: they can become a means of discovering the presence of the Lord who – in the poetical words of St John of the Cross – “passed swiftly through these woods, and by his very glance adorned them with every beauty”.²⁴

The individual therefore does not look to see whether the place for prayer has this or that facility, because that would mean he is still attached to the senses: he should be concerned above all about interior recollection; for this purpose he leaves all else aside and finds for the purpose a place least encumbered by attractions of the senses; he detaches his attention from all such things so as to better enjoy his God in the solitude of created things.²⁵

Discovering our weaknesses.

The Spirit works in us and sanctifies us in the measure of our openness. This involves the conversion of resistance on our part to a docile and filial openness to the Father and to the love of our neighbour rooted in the heart. Our interior feelings must be educated, our love purified and our relationships made more respectful. It is a question of unmasking the dynamic elements that lurk within us and prevent us from giving ourselves freely and wholeheartedly.²⁶

We must have the courage to single out and identify our weaknesses and the negative traits that mark our life; we must know our own points of resistance so that we can share them with the Father. We must accept the patient work that is needed if we want God’s will to shape our thoughts and our conscience. There is no man of prayer who has not felt the need and advantages of internal and external ascesis.

Anyone with a little experience in the spiritual life knows that this process demands patience and perseverance, that it is not a path he travels alone for the Spirit both precedes and accompanies him. As he goes on his way he will gradually come to know also the fruits of a growing interior peace and degree of freedom, of meekness and charity, which are also the consequences of a process of prayer.²⁷

Approaching the Father with trust and confidence.

This is suggested by St Paul,²⁸ and is the indication of Christ himself.²⁹ The Lord accepts formal worship, but as a means and condition for spontaneous and transparent trust.³⁰ There are times when we can pray without words, but we can never pray without a deep desire to be with the Lord and stay with him. “Your face, Lord, do I seek”³¹ is already a form of prayer. There is a frequent desire nowadays for those moments of enjoyment and emotion which are experienced only rarely or under the pressure of powerful stimulants. They are a grace with which the Lord sustains us, but not one on which we base our relationship with God. We are living in times when religious emotion is the order of the day, when there is a desire to try out something “further”, something that lies beyond the world of the senses. This is true also for young people, for whom authenticity and feeling go together also in religious experience.

Friendship with God requires that our desire to meet him be enshrined in prayer, and this in turn enshrined in life as a practical guideline. “O God, you are my God, I look for you at daybreak”.³² It is not, therefore, a matter of wanting to fulfil obligations of prayer, but of an intense yearning for the Lord’s presence and his friendship.

Sometimes we are afraid of getting too close to God, or that he will make known his will too clearly. A thousand questions invade our mind: what will God ask of me? where will he lead me? The stakes are high: my whole life is involved. All I have done may have to change direction; I could be called upon to reconsider all my values. It happened to the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, the saints, who in this matter of prayer are outstanding examples. It happens also to us, through unforeseen events which can change the course, rhythm or tenor of our life.

With others, each of us enters into dialogue on equal terms. But with God it is quite different. He says to me: “I am the Lord, your God”.³³ Einstein once remarked: “when I come close to this God, I have to take the shoes from my feet and walk on tiptoe because I am on sacred ground”. And yet we are not in a distant area and one of fear, but in a filial relationship, that of the Spirit, who is mysterious and inexhaustible: from him always comes something new on the part of the Father, and on our part too, as life proceeds.

In prayer too there is a process of formation and continued growth. No one, as an adult or in old age, prays as he did when a child, even though some personal traits may persist, matured by life. Prayer not only enriches us; it moulds us through what it stands for, and through the events of our life that we interpret in its light. Some of us may have shared the experience of monks who have led a life of pure prayer. But even with our own confreres, who have reached maturity in age and suffering, dialogue on prayer is interesting and fruitful.

When I take on the commitment to prayer, I entrust myself completely to God and place myself in his hands. It is God whom I welcome; to him I give myself; with him I intend to journey, and from him receive myself back again, always renewed by his gifts and his love.

Contemplation provides the loftiest moment of prayer. But, as Vita Consecrata tells us, it is not the privilege of a certain state, but an essential dimension in those who feel their life “transfigured” in Christ.³⁴ It is the vision of faith, enjoyed in its unifying quality, that radiates light and beauty.

Understood in this fashion, prayer becomes the adult action through which is opened up my personal relationship in God’s regard, conscious of my unquenchable thirst for him as also of his loving search for me.

Prayer supposes also the safeguarding of sufficient time for the act of prayer to become deeply rooted in me and find its highest expression. If I want to attain to a living and life-giving form of prayer, which is an experience of love with my one and only “partner”, I cannot fail to reserve some space in my life and consecrate it to being on close terms with God.

Perseverance in this pure and unalloyed act of faith, at a moment without haste or thought of personal advantage, given over to simply remaining in the presence of God the Father (he is looking on me, loving me and working in me during these deep moments of solitude), when I have the feeling of being bereft of words and wasting my time: there you have the demand and guarantee of an adoration in spirit and in truth. It is interesting to examine the journey of prayer of our Servants of God, where we always find three characteristics: participation in the community practices, eagerly sought personal moments, and union in life.

While it is true that prayer can bring interior peace to my life, serenity of spirit and effectiveness in activity, the principal objective will not be merely to seek such advantages but, if I want to meet in prayer the Father of Jesus and our Father too, the experience of freely given love.

In giving to the Lord my human time, without asking for anything in return (by way of extraordinary effects, notable and rapid spiritual progress, etc.) I leave myself exposed to the very sun of divine gratuitousness. This is the grace par excellence that follows commitment to prayer: to become educated to free self-giving in a society like ours in which everything is subject to trading. To possess the unquestionable wisdom of being loved by him and to love him in return is the greatest richness of our life and makes all others with their allurements appear secondary by comparison.

This is the blessedness of a life of prayer! Anyone who knows how to spend his time with the Lord, learns to give his life for his fellowmen with self-sacrificing generosity, forgetful of himself. Prayer, like love, has no need of justification.

Since it is the Spirit who prays in us and from whom we learn to turn to the Father, it is more important to be in harmony and union with him than to know exact definitions of prayer. These latter, nevertheless, help us to a greater knowledge and process of purification. We may take some fundamental elements in this connection, drawing on the experience of Christ, of the Church and of those who have contemplated him more closely and followed him.

Letting God speak.

“I take delight in your statutes”.³⁵ We must allow God to tell us what he knows will be of benefit to us.

He pronounces the Word. Jesus reveals himself as the Word, the eternal Word of the Father. The Word is something new and still remains so. That is how charisms come into existence: prophetic movements which develop only in listening to God in a world of monotony and routine. And so listening to God is always for consecrated persons a new and sustaining grace. In point of fact we usually seek in our prayer words that we want to hear, with the risk that we shall not hear what God really wants to tell us, his Truth. Jesus himself advises us: “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases”.³⁶

The time we dedicate in a planned period of silence or in a retreat to overhaul our life is not a waste of time; rather does it become the recovery of a space open to a visit of God. To cultivate a method for creating an area of silence and make good use of it, is a way of expressing the commitment without which no one can bring to maturity the consummate fruits of the reflection of faith, of prayer and of contemplation.

When we are able to maintain an interior silence in the midst of the inevitable hubbub of modern life, and in our heart the need to speak and communicate, the commitment we have taken on by prayer will have produced in us one of its most excellent results: we shall be individuals who are mature and level-headed without getting sidetracked, masters of our own internal ego. It is not a matter of a silence merely ascetical in nature, but of the expectation of and attention to a word of love. The Salesian expresses all this without any pretence: temperance comes naturally to him, with reason linked with religion, an optimistic but not naïve kindness, and with his gaze and hope fixed on the redemptive power of Christ.

Receiving God’s glance in the depth of our own being.

God’s glance has a rich significance in the Bible and in the Gospel. It implies his benevolent will, fatherly attention, predilection and vocation. The gaze of the Lord is often linked with a dialogue, which is already a calling to a program of life.

Prayer does not remain external to the one who prays. There is no separation between prayer, the relationship with God and the one praying. Although it is a gift, it becomes such a blend and foundation with the mode of being of each one who prays as to become the purest expression of his individuality. What I am before the Creator, that is my prayer.

The light-giving gaze of God penetrates to where no other glance can reach. He sees me and teaches me to see myself as I am. To pray, therefore, is to feel and welcome this paternal gaze of God, without obstructing it in a vain effort to do everything by myself.

My life is at one and the same time a gift and a task: a gift which develops only in dialogue with the giver. To assert one’s own participation in God’s love for men, in a concrete destiny and a particular slot of human history: that is prayer.

I think we may sum up like this what is perhaps the most valid aspect of the personal experience of prayer: it is the ongoing practice which leads to the embracing of the Father’s will with filial joy in the events of daily life. The practice of prayer enables me to read my personal history – insignificant as it may in fact be, and absurd or contradictory as it may seem to me – as a revelation of the love of God within the coordinates of my existence and of the world. Nothing that happens in my life and in my world is extraneous to God’s love.

God is love: by letting him love me I become a mysterious instrument of his love in the world. By opening myself to his initiative, I discover a God who is solid with and committed to the progress of humanity, and in particular with the sorrow of those who are suffering.

The third millennium: a time for mystics! It will be the depth of men and women moved by the Spirit that will save the meaning of life and challenge the limitations of our human vision.

Prayer is “expressive” of life in the best sense of the word. And so what is told us by those who lived intensely in both love and sorrow is of great use to us. Let us listen to some of the significant things they say.

 “Prayer is like a conversation between one friend talking to another, or a servant and his Master: now asking for some favour, now confessing to some shortcoming, now talking about his own affairs and asking for advice about them” (Ignatius of Loyola).

 “Here there is nothing to fear, but everything to hope for, (...) for me mental prayer is nothing else but a relationship of friendship, a frequent finding of myself alone with one whom we know loves us” (Teresa of Avila).

 “Prayer is nothing else but union with God (…). In this intimate union God and the soul are fused together like two bits of wax that no one can ever pull apart (…). We had become unworthy to pray, but God in his goodness allowed us to speak with him (…). My little children, your hearts are small, but prayer stretches them and makes them capable of loving God” (Curé of Ars).

 Saint Augustine wrote to Proba: “Let us always desire the happy life from the Lord our God and always pray for it. But for this very reason we turn our mind to the task of prayer at appointed hours, since the desire grows lukewarm, may grow chill altogether and may be totally extinguished unless it is repeatedly stirred into flame.

It is certainly not wrong or useless to pray even for a long time when there is the opportunity. I mean when it does not keep us from performing the other good and necessary actions we are obliged to do. To pray for a longer time is not the same as to pray by multiplying words, as some people suppose. Lengthy talk is one thing, a prayerful disposition which lasts a long time is another. Excessive talking should be kept out of prayer, but that does not mean that one should not spend much time in prayer as long as a fervent attitude continues to accompany it. To talk at length in prayer is to perform a necessary action with excess of words.

Praying consists in knocking with a persistent and holy fervour on God’s door. It is a task generally accomplished more through sighs than words, more through weeping than speech”.³⁷

According to these experiences, prayer is a friendly relationship which can be expressed by thought, action and gazing, silence, participation in the liturgy, rapid invocation or calm conversation after the example of Jesus: “I thank you, Father”.³⁸ It is a relationship of friendship and love. And it introduces us appropriately into the topic of salesian prayer.

2. THE PRAYER OF THE SALESIAN

The prayer of the Salesian has a special reference to Jesus the Good Shepherd, and to Don Bosco, who is his living image among the young.

To understand its style and the way it has developed, it is enlightening to reflect in the Gospel first of all on the prayer of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, which culminates in the giving of his life.

Motives of space dictate that this reading, absorbing though it is, I must leave to you.³⁹ I want to dwell particularly on the typically salesian experience.

The first references to the process of salesian prayer we find in the Memoirs of the Oratory.⁴⁰ The account reveals a constant principle that accompanied Don Bosco all his life: the decisive role of the religious aspect in the environment in which he grew up and in its mentality. It led to the seeing of everything in many and various ways in relationship to God: from the contemplation of nature to the recital of prayers which had already become the heirloom of the Christian people.

It is especially to the figure of his mother and her educative activity that Don Bosco attributes the merit for having given deep root in him to the sense of God and a vision of faith about reality and history. Margaret formed him to the practice of the presence of God, showed him how to pray mentally and in words, and instilled in him the principles of Christian life, thus sowing abundantly the seeds of solid virtue. All this was a decisive contribution for his future mission as an educator and pastor.

From the faith of his mother the young John acquired the certainty of a God great in his love. He perceived the reality of an unbreakable link between our frail humanity and his merciful Love. He learned, existentially, that trust in God is never in vain, even in the most desperate moments. This was the root of his unshakeable faith that “could move mountains”, and of the robust hope that prompted him to look beyond all human perspectives, and plan with a courageous daring what others would never have dreamed of doing. All this he discloses in the Memoirs and relates to us his readers.

Don Bosco’s account is concise but very effective: “Her greatest care was given to instructing her sons in their religion, making them value obedience, and keeping them busy with tasks suited to their age. When I was still very small, she herself taught me to pray. As soon as I was old enough to join my brothers she made me kneel with them morning and evening. We would all recite our prayers together, including five mysteries of the rosary”.⁴¹

In the educational action of Margaret there is something more than ordinary religious formation. “God was always in the forefront of his thoughts”, says Fr Lemoyne, and consequently was always on his lips (…). God sees you was the permanent slogan with which she reminded her children that they were under the eyes of the great God, who would one day be their judge. If she let them go and play in the neighbouring meadow, she used to say to them as they left: Remember that God sees you. If she sometimes found them looking worried and was afraid they might have on their mind some feeling of resentment, she would suddenly whisper in their ear: Remember that God sees you, and he sees also your secret thoughts (...).

She used the spectacular scenes of nature to remind them continually of their Creator. On a fine starry night she point to the heavens and say: It is God who created the world and put all those stars up there. If the firmament is so beautiful, what will paradise be like? At the beginning of summer, looking at a lovely countryside, or a meadow studded with flowers, or at sight of a beautiful dawn or sunset, she would exclaim: “What beautiful things the Lord has made for us!”.⁴²

It would be historically inexact, however, to think that Don Bosco’s prayer remained at this level. His educative and pastoral “oratorian” experience with poor boys and his young followers, brought about in him a leap towards an “apostolic prayer”, towards contemplation in action and ecstasy before the action of God in the souls of the youngsters. And so began and developed that union between an attitude of prayer and an enterprising life, full of hope and daring, which at first raised doubts about his mental health, from the time when some thought him to be no more than God’s building contractor, but he became the paradigm of prayer and life in God of the Salesian.

A method analogous to that of Mamma Margaret, matured through his pastoral experience and self-sacrificing educational service, would be subsequently used by Don Bosco with his own youngsters. In fact at the beginning of his prayer-book, the Companion of Youth, in a list of the Things needed for a young person to become virtuous, he begins with the Knowledge of God: “Lift up your eyes to the sky, my children, and observe what there is in the heavens and on earth. The sun, moon, stars, air, water and fire are all things which at one time did not exist (...). It is God who is all powerful who brought them into existence from nothing by creating them”.⁴⁴ Both experiences were of use to him in introducing young people to communion with God.

Educated as he was to see the finger of God in nature and human events, especially with regard to the youngsters entrusted to him, Don Bosco formed them to take a “simple view” of things which revealed God’s love. And so he became a keen observer of human and church history, which he was able to narrate very effectively to the boys. And the boys learned from what he said.

The Saint tells a story of Michael Magone that took place during a holiday at the Becchi: “One evening when the boys were all in bed, I heard someone weeping and sighing. I crept quietly to the window and there at one side I saw Magone looking at the moon and weeping softly. “What is the matter, Michael?”, I asked; “do you not feel well?” He was rather upset and did not know what to say, because he thought he had been alone and unseen by anyone. But when I repeated my question he said in these precise words: ‘I am crying when I look at the moon which has been appearing regularly for centuries to give light to the darkness of the night without ever once disobeying the Creator’s orders, while I who am so young, I who have the use of reason and should have been most faithful to the laws of my God, have disobeyed him so often and offended him in so many ways’. And with that he broke into tears again. I consoled him with a few words, whereupon he calmed down and went back to bed”.⁴⁵

Don Bosco comments with admiration on this ability of Michael “to see in everything the finger of God, and the duty of all creatures to obey him”.⁴⁶

Following St Francis de Sales.

All this is in line with the spirituality of St Francis de Sales who, in the second part of the Introduction to the Devout Life (where he lists “some advice for raising the soul to God”) after presenting mental prayer, suggests five other brief forms of prayer “which serve as a prolongation of the longer prayer”: morning and night prayers, the examination of conscience, spiritual recollection and aspirations made to God. To this last kind of prayer, made up of frequent but ardent ejaculations, Francis invites the devout client: “praise His excellence, invoke his aid, cast yourself in spirit at the foot of His Cross, adore his goodness, offer your whole soul a thousand times a day to him, fix your inward gaze upon him, stretch out your hands to be led by him, as a little child to its father, clasp him to your breast as a fragrant nosegay, raise him up in your soul as a standard”.⁴⁷

This type of aspiration is likened by the Saint to the thought of those who love each other: “their hearts overflowing with tenderness, and their lips ever ready to praise that beloved object (…), so those who love God cannot cease thinking of Him, living for Him, longing after Him, speaking of Him, and fain would they grave the Holy Name of Jesus in the hearts of every living creature they behold”.⁴⁸

“And to such an outpouring of love all creation bids us”, writes again St Francis de Sales, “there is nothing that he has made but is filled with the praise of God, and everything in the world speaks silently but clearly to the lovers of God of their love, inciting them to holy desires, whence gush forth aspirations and loving cries to God. Here are some examples” (…).⁴⁹. The examples quoted are taken from the lives of the Saints and daily life, or from spectacles of nature. “A devout soul, gazing upon a brook wherein the starlit sky of a calm summer's night was reflected, exclaims, O my God, when Thou callest me to dwell in Thy heavenly tabernacles, these stars will be beneath my feet (…). Another saintly soul, looking upon the blooming orchards, cried out, "Why am I alone barren in the Church's garden!" Another, beholding a hen gathering her chickens beneath her wings, exclaimed, "Keep me, O Lord, under the shadow of thy wings”.⁵⁰

This was the teaching of Saint Francis de Sales, and it was in the same way that young John was guided by his mother and instructed in the ways of faith and contemplation. In this way he acquired the deep sense of the presence of God that was to be with him all his life. We know – as Saint Francis de Sales puts it once again – that in this simple exercise of contemplation and spiritual recollection expressed in short aspirations, good thoughts and spontaneous ejaculations, “lies the great work of devotion: it can supply all other deficiencies, but there is hardly any means of making up where this is lacking. Without it no one can lead a true contemplative life, and the active life will be but imperfect where it is omitted”.⁵¹

Don Bosco too was sensitive to the wonders of nature, but much more so to those of the soul of the young person who overcomes his evil inclinations, responds to the promptings of grace and opens himself generously to God.

A contemplative in matters of salvation, ecstatic at God’s work in life, full of admiration at the effects of grace in Dominic Savio, he could be deeply moved at the sight of youngsters in prison, at the sight of the natives of Patagonia he invoked the help of Mary Help of Christians, and longed for the evangelization of Asia.

The oratory hallmark.

In this kind of climate at Valdocco the spirit and practice of prayer was closely linked with educative charity. You could see it in the very countenances of those who lived there, many of whom were to form the first salesian generation. “We knew them”, Fr Ceria was to write later, “as men very different in talents and culture, so unlike each other in their habits, but in all of them shone certain common characteristics, which made them what they were. Calm and serene in what they said and did; kind and fatherly in manner and expression, but particularly with a piety that made it clear that they knew what made them tick, the central principle of the salesian life. They prayed a great deal, and they prayed intensely; they laid great insistence on praying and praying well. It seemed that they could not say more than a few words in public or private without mentioning prayer in some way. (…) And yet those men did not seem to enjoy any extraordinary graces in prayer; in fact we saw them fulfilling with candid simplicity nothing more than the practices prescribed by our rules or customs”. They loved God, and in him they loved the young. That was the comment on the way they linked times of prayer with life, explicit prayer with the mission.

The kind of prayer that Don Bosco practised and tried to teach his followers is simple and straightforward in form, authentically complete and popular in substance and content, joyful and festive in expression. It is truly a prayer within the capabilities of all, particularly of children and the lowly, and has a rightful place in what he called the “practices of piety”.

Fr Caviglia wrote that Don Bosco did not create any new or special form or practice of prayer or devotion, like the Rosary, Retreats, Stations of the Cross and so on. He was open to formulas and also, in a certain sense, to forms of piety of which as an educator he perceived the usefulness; he was a realist, with his eye on the substance, on the rapport with God and its reflection on life: to pray was to be friends with him which led quite easily to being alone with him and at his service in one’s neighbour.

Fr Ceria is correct when he says that Don Bosco did not dedicate long periods to meditation, as did some other saints (the Curé of Ars, St. Anthony Mary Claret). But to have one’s own way of praying is not the same thing as not praying at all or praying too little.

Don Bosco’s prayer differed from that of other saints in both quantity and kind, but the facts make it clear that it was no less true and deep. Witnesses in the process of beatification and canonization revealed in Don Bosco an unexpected and exalted activity of prayer. Despite the lack of external signs and striking gestures, prayer came in on all sides. “It can be said”, declared Fr Barberis, “that he prayed always; I have seen him hundreds of times going up or down stairs and always praying. He used to pray as he went along the street. On his journeys, if he was not correcting proofs, he was always seen in prayer. On a train journey – he used to say to his followers – never be idle, but recite the breviary, say the rosary of our Lady, or read some good book”.

Although in the last years of his life he had been dispensed from reciting the breviary, in reality he almost always said it and with great devotion; when it became physically too much for him he made up for it, as is clear from his formal and heroic promise, “not to do or say anything which did not have as its aim the glory of God”.

For Don Bosco prayer was the “most outstanding of all works”,⁵² because prayer “obtains everything and triumphs over everything”. It is “what water is to the fish, air to the bird, the spring of water to the deer, warmth to the body”.⁵³ His institution was founded on prayer.

Don Bosco, who was able to contemplate God in the countenance and situation of the young, did not feel the need to impose on his followers practices of piety other than those of the good Christian, or of the good priest in the case of priests. It is a prayer which never forgets or leaves aside the youth situation which must be transformed according to God’s plan, or that of men to be directed towards Christ: “da mihi animas cetera tolle”. We have already recalled the text of the first draft of the Constitutions: “The active life towards which our society more especially tends, means that its members are unable to make many practices in common”.⁵⁴ This expression contains the implicit statement that many other forms of prayer are both possible and recommended. Among these Don Bosco attached great importance to ejaculations.

“Each one – we read in the same draft of the Constitutions – in addition to the vocal prayers, will make at least half an hour of mental prayer each day, unless he is prevented by the sacred ministry. In this case he will make up for it by more frequent ejaculations, directing to God with greater fervour those works which prevent him from performing the ordinary acts of piety”.⁵⁵ Ejaculations are easy and essential prayers which serve to keep alive the thought of God.

We may say that in Don Bosco there was a perfect rapport of identity between prayer and work. In this sense, but only in this sense, one can say that work is prayer. And this, according to Fr Ceria, was Don Bosco’s secret, his most characteristic trait: “The specific difference of salesian piety lies in being able to convert work into prayer”.

Pius XI has given solemn confirmation to this: “This, in fact, was one of his finest characteristics, i.e. that in the middle of everything, continually beset by a crowd, worried by all sorts of problems, with people on all sides seeking advice, his spirit was always somewhere else, above it all, where there was undisturbed tranquility, where calm remained always supreme, so that in him work was always effective prayer, and there was verified the great principle of the Christian life: qui laborat orat”⁵⁶.

And so, just as Don Bosco became identified as the man of “union with God”, so the Salesian is characterized as being a man who is a “contemplative in action”.⁵⁷ The difficulty lies in the precise meaning to be given to this expression.

In the tension between prayer and activity, in fact, it is difficult to maintain a balance, not so much theoretically but in the practice of daily life.⁵⁸ The problem has been there since the beginnings of Christianity, and has been much discussed. It is in this connection that Augustine, commenting on Luke 10, 38-42, writes: “The words of Our Lord Jesus Christ are meant to remind us that there is a single goal at which we aim while we labour in the various occupations of this world. We travel as pilgrims who have not yet reached the destination; wayfarers not yet in the fatherland; desirous but without the final enjoyment. Martha and Mary were two sisters, not only on a natural level but also on that of religion; both of them honoured God, both served the Lord present in the flesh in perfect harmony of feeling. Martha welcomed him in the usual manner for receiving pilgrims, and nevertheless received the Lord as a servant…

For the rest, Martha, let it be said in all sincerity, you who were already blessed for your praiseworthy service sought rest as your reward. You are now immersed in many concerns, you want to refresh mortal bodies, albeit of holy persons… Up there above there will be no room for all this. And so what will you do? What Mary has chosen: there we shall not feed others but be nourished ourselves. And so will be completed and perfected what Mary has chosen here: from that rich table to collect the crumbs of the word of the Lord (who) will seat his servants at table and wait on them”.⁵⁹

Martha and Mary are an example of a radical unity in which active life and contemplative life are not opposed; together they represent an existence totally bound up with contemplative listening, especially when called to be involved in worldly matters. The radical unity between contemplation and action is found in the rapport and communion with God.

Let us see now how this tension between contemplation and action in the life of the Salesian can be unraveled, by dwelling first of all on the expression “contemplatives in action”, before passing on to list some characteristics which define the life of the Salesian as a contemplative person in the service of the young.