In
Turin, Pope recalls charism of Don Bosco
(Vatican Radio) Describing his prepared remarks
as “a little formal,” Pope Francis laid aside his written text and spoke
off-the-cuff for approximately thirty minutes with male and female religious of
the Salesian Family.
The Salesians, with
their sister order the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, were founded by St
John Bosco – known as Don Bosco – Turin’s most famous and well-known saint.
In the Pope’s written
discourse to the Salesians and to the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians
(Figlie di Maria Ausiliatrice, FMA) – which he promised to consign to the
Rector to distribute to the Salesians –
Pope Francis spoke
about three specific aspects of the charism of Don Bosco: his trust in divine
Providence; his vocation to be a priest of the young, especially the poorest among
them; his loyal and active service to the Church, particularly to the Pope.
Don Bosco’s unwavering
confidence in God, the essence of
consecrated life
The founder of the
Salesian Family, he said, lived out to the end his priestly mission “sustained
by an unwavering
confidence in God.” This
confidence, the Pope said, is also “the essence of the consecrated life, so
that the service of the Gospel and of our brothers should not remain a prisoner
of our views, of the realities of this passing world, but might continue to
rise above ourselves.”
The service to the young,
beginning with the most vulnerable
Another important
aspect of the life of Don Bosco, Pope Francis continued, is “the service to the young, beginning with the
most vulnerable and abandoned: this concerns the “pedagogy of the faith” which
is taken up in the Salesian formula “educating to evangelize, and evangelizing
to educate.” The Holy Father encouraged the Salesian religious to carry on
“with generosity and confidence the multiple activities in favour of the new
generations: oratories, youth centres, professional institutes, schools, and
colleges. But without forgetting those whom Don Bosco called ‘the young people
of the streets’.” These young people, he said, “have great need of hope, of
being formed in the joy of the Christian life.”
A Saint always docile and
faithful to the Church and to the Pope
Finally, the Pope
recalled that Don Bosco was always “docile and faithful to the
Church and to the Pope, by following their suggestions and pastoral indications”; and
he invites his spiritual sons and daughters “to always go forward anew to find
the children and young people where they live: in the peripheries of the great
cities, in areas of physical and moral danger, in social contexts where they
lack so many material things, but above all lack love, understanding,
tenderness, hope.”
Making “an oratory” of every
place, aiming at ever greater apostolic horizons
Concluding his
remarks, the Holy Father called on the Salesians “to proclaim to all the mercy
of Jesus, making ‘an oratory’ of every place, especially the most inaccessible;
bearing in the heart the ‘oratorian’ style of Don Bosco and aiming at ever
greater apostolic horizons,” recalling the great many religious institutions
living that today are living the charism of Don Bosco “to share the mission of
taking the Gospel to the furthest reaches of the peripheries.”
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