(ANS – Rome) – The figure of Mary also returns in the second dream of Don Bosco that is presented to ANS readers in this bicentenary year of the Dream at Nine Years of Age and in preparation for the feast of the Saint of Youth. “Gifts for Mary” is the title with which it is remembered (Biographical Memoirs, Vol. VIII). The Mother of Jesus in this case is the explicit goal of the devotion that is manifested in the dream, but Don Bosco, to educate his boys, points out that one cannot deceive oneself and one's neighbour by venerating the Virgin while at the same time leading a life that is only apparently Christian. The dream then ends with Don Bosco who knew young  hearts so well, leads the boys to continue their journey of accompaniment with him.

(ANS - Rome) - The second edition of “Voices” in the East Asia-Oceania Region will take place next weekend, 27-28 January 2024. After the last edition held in Hua Hin, Thailand, last September, this new event of listening and discussions with the young people who are most important to the Salesians of Don Bosco - those at risk of marginalisation - will take place at the “Don Bosco” centre in Kep, Cambodia, and will be immensely useful to listen to the indigenous youth.

(ANS – Rome) – The Oratory of St Francis de Sales was the small seed for the great Salesian work. With the small group of children and young people who were the oratory, Don Bosco founded the new religious congregation which he placed under the protection and patronage of Saint Francis de Sales, so as to give its members the name  “Salesians”.

(ANS – Rome) – As has been a tradition for some years, on the day we celebrate St. Francis of Sales, the theme for Mission Day is launched, “Builders of Dialogue.” After having seen collaboration with Social Communication and Youth Ministry, this year it is Formation that has made a fundamental contribution to this journey.

(ANS – Rome) – On the feast of St Francis de Sales it is significant to present the Dossier of the Salesian General Postulation as a strong invitation to renew the universal call to holiness so dear to the Bishop of Geneva and taken up in solemn form by Vatican II: “Fortified by so many and such powerful means of salvation, all the faithful, whatever their condition or state, are called by the Lord, each in his or her own way, to that perfect holiness whereby the Father Himself is perfect” (Lumen Gentium, 11).

(ANS – Rome) – Many of the dreams that Don Bosco told his boys had obviously educational purposes, so much so that very often not even his biographers were able to clearly demarcate the boundary between dream, vision and pedagogical storytelling. Among these we can certainly include the one known as “the dream of the snake and the rosary” (Biographical Memoirs – VII 141-145). Occurring in the summer of 1862, it is a clear manifestation of how central Mary Help of Christians was not only in the saint's life, but in his pedagogical vision; and how Marian devotion was never in contrast to, but rather an encouragement for his boys to move towards a full experience of sacramental and ecclesial life.