MESSAGES OF THE RECTOR MAJOR
I ask that the Salesians of Don Bosco and the entire Salesian Family throughout the world please make known how much good is being done everywhere – not just by us but also by many persons, groups, and institutions. We have to make the good known, to make it visible. For if we do not, only what is evil and egotistical is seen for this is made visible and known – but only for the selfish interests of a few.
So many amazing stories that console and encourage us
The great, striking message of Christmas, destined to change the face of the earth and to fill it with joy, is by all appearances insignificant: a newborn Baby lying in a manger. We, too, through so many small and gentle signs, in so many small and forgotten places, announce God every day.
I am writing to you, my dear friends, just a few hours after having bestowed the missionary cross on a group of ten Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and twenty-five Salesians of Don Bosco who will leave in this 149th missionary expedition. We count the number of expeditions from the very first one prepared by Don Bosco himself for November 11, 1875. On that occasion, the first ten Salesian missionaries were sent to Argentina: six young priests and four Salesian brothers. Those first ones have been followed by about 11,000 Salesians and 2,500 Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, 2,000 of them Italian FMAs who left Europe for the world.