It is a day of memory and a day of future, as it was the 5th of August 1872 in Mornese. A day of gratitude and fidelity. Sure of being guided by the fidelity of God, we open our eyes to hope and “revive” the gift of Salesian vocation.
The 5th of August is an opportunity to return to the evangelical and charismatic sources, to the motivations that give a meaning to life and which come from the heart; it is an event of grace in which we can find once more with greater depth the roots of our own call. The solemn feast of August 5th is lived recalling to our mind the history God interwove with each one of us, being aware that we are called to recount it and to realize it day by day, in the certainty that each one is indispensable in order for history to be more original and more rich of novelty. It is a history to live as protagonists, with and for the young, whom to attract with the testimony of a joyful fidelity that awakens questions on the sense of life.
“Joy in the gift of our vocation as a call of predilection will have its climax in the celebration of August 5th, Jubilee feast of the Institute. The renewal of the Covenant of love with God is an ulterior sign that our life is uninterrupted praise for the mercy of the Father, seen in the effort to live the Beatitudes, as we say in the formula of the vows: “in response to Your love, I commit myself to live the Beatitudes radically in communion with my sisters, proclaiming Christ to the young” (Constitutions art. 10). We know that God has first loved us, but we will be truly blest and happy only if we enter into the Divine logic of gift, in the beatitude of those who accept and witness the Father’s mercy, the pulsating heart of the Gospel.” (Cir. 962).
The celebration of August 5th is an occasion to let love for Our Lady grow. Don Bosco chose Mother Mazzarello and her companions that they might live an intense love for Mary. Where there is Mary, there is future, and Don Bosco bets on the future. In Mornese, as in Nizza, the Virgin is not a guest: she is the landlady; and so she is today in all our educative communities.
The 5th of August is an event of communion with the Institute all over the world. Celebrations and occasions do not come only on August 5th, but also in the months of January and May. However, the communion that unites us goes beyond the calendar and reaches every place, independently from the hemisphere where we are located. Whatever the nation we belong to, whatever our age, whatever the service we render, the gift of the vocation we freely received unites us particularly on August 5th in the response of love to the One Lord and God.
