Our lives are filled with many things and this Jubilee Year proposes to us many important events; however, I want to focus on a different, particular one because, even if it would seem outside one’s realm, still, it concerns all of us.
Don Bosco, our Founder, was aware that things would not end with him but that it was only the beginning of a long journey to be traveled. One day in 1875, when he was sixty years old, Don Bosco said to Don Giulio Barberis, one of his closest collaborators: "You will finish the work I am beginning; I am making the sketch, you will add the colors" [...] I will make a rough copy of the Congregation and I will leave to those who come after me the task of making it beautiful."
With this happy and prophetic expression, Don Bosco outlined the path that we are all called to take. Its highest form is what we are carrying out at this time in Valdocco: the General Chapter of the Salesians of Don Bosco.
The prophecy of the caramels
Today's world is like that of Don Bosco, but there is a common characteristic: it is a time of profound change. Total, balanced, and responsible humanization [of his boys] in both their material and spiritual components was Don Bosco's true goal. He was concerned with filling the "inner space" of the boys, making "well-formed minds", "virtuous citizens". In today’s world, this is more relevant than ever. Our world needs Don Bosco today.
Before all else, everyone must pose to him or herself one simple question: "Do I want an ordinary life or do I want to change the world?" But can we even still speak of goals and ideals today? Whenever a river stops flowing, it turns into a swamp – even so with man.
Don Bosco never stopped moving forward. Today he does so with our feet.
His conviction about young people was this: "This most precious segment of human society, upon whom all hopes of a... happy future are founded, is not of itself of a bad disposition… If at times these youngsters are already infected with evil, it is more often through thoughtlessness than through deliberate malice. These youngsters truly need a helping hand to take care of them and to lead them away from evil to the practice of virtue..."
In 1882, in a conference to the Cooperators in Genoa: "By removing, instructing, and educating young people in danger, it is good for the whole of civil society. If young people are well educated, we will have a better generation over time." It is as if to say: only education can change the world.
Don Bosco had an almost frightening capacity for vision. He never says "until now" but always "from now on."
Guy Avanzini, an eminent university professor, always repeated: "The pedagogy of the twenty-first century will be Salesian, or it will not be."
One evening in 1851, from a window on the second floor, Don Bosco flung a handful of caramels. Naturally, this resulted in great joy. One of the boys seeing him there, smiling at the window, yelled up to him: "Don Bosco, how wonderful it would be if you could see the whole world studded with oratories!" Don Bosco fixed his serene gaze toward the horizon and responded, "Who knows? The day may come when Oratory boys will really be scattered all over the earth!"
Don Bosco fixed his serene gaze heavenward and replied: "Who knows, the day may come when the sons of the oratory are truly scattered throughout the world."
Looking Far Beyond
But what is a General Chapter? Why fill these pages with a theme that is specific to the Salesian Congregation?
The Constitutions of the Salesians of Don Bosco, their way of life, in article 146, define it as follows: "The general chapter is the principal sign of the Congregation's unity in diversity. It is the fraternal meeting in which Salesians carry out a communal reflection to keep themselves faithful to the Gospel and to their Founder's charism, and sensitive to the needs of time and place.
Through the general chapter the entire Society, opening itself to the guidance of the Spirit of the Lord, seeks to discern God's will at a specific moment in history for the purpose of rendering the Church better service."
The General Chapter is therefore not a private matter of consecrated Salesians, but a very important assembly that concerns us all, touching the whole Salesian Family and those who have Don Bosco within them, because the people, the mission, the Charism of Don Bosco, the Church and each one of us, of you, are at the center.
Fidelity to God and to Don Bosco along with the ability to see the signs of the times and of different places are also at the center. This fidelity is a continuous movement, renewal, and the ability to look far ahead while keeping one's feet firmly planted on the ground.
For this reason, about 250 Salesian confreres from all over the world have gathered to pray, think, dialogue with each other, and look far beyond... in fidelity to Don Bosco.
Then after having constructed their vision, they will elect the new Rector Major, the successor of Don Bosco and his General Council.
This Chapter is not something extraneous to your life, dear friend who is reading this, but is part of your life and your "affection" for Don Bosco. Why tell you this? So that you will accompany it with your prayer - prayer to the Holy Spirit that He may help all the capitulars know what is God's Will so we may give better service to the Church.
I think that GC29 – no, I am sure – will be all this: an experience of God that will help us “clean up” some parts of the sketch that Don Bosco left us, as all the General Chapters in the history of the Congregation have done before, always in fidelity to his plan.
I am certain that even today we can continue to be enlightened so as to be faithful to the Lord Jesus and our original charism with the faces, music, and colors of today.
We are not alone in this mission and we know and feel that Mary, our Mother and Help of Christians, the Help of the Church and model of fidelity, will sustain all our steps.
