Oratories were not invented by Don Bosco: they existed before him, but were mostly conceived as catechism classes, places where people spoke. It was he who broadened the functions of the oratory, creating the festive oratory, bringing to orphaned and needy children and young people the pedagogy of a broader catechesis which also involved sport, music, play, theatre... and giving its attendants professions and dignity through his Preventive System, whose model still persists today.
The Salesian Cooperators also came from an idea of Don Bosco, who wanted not just a religious congregation made up of priests and consecrated men at the service of his young people, but a mission shared with anyone able to roll up their sleeves to work for the salvation of the young. It was for this reason that he founded the Association of Salesian Cooperators, to bring together those who had this vocation.
Both these intuitions of his - the oratory reinterpreted in the light of the Preventive System and the Association of Salesian Cooperators - are what stands out when one visits the Santa Teresinha oratory today, from where, in the course of its 100 years, several religious vocations have come, such Fr Thales Epov Simões and Fr Jeferson Luiz Pereira Silva, both Salesians, who today exercise their ministry in Guarujá and Campinas respectively. Fernando Legal, SDB, late Bishop of São Miguel Paulista, who died last year.
But the oratory has also promoted lay vocations, such as permanent deacon Nilo Carvalho Neto, who served in the parish of the same work until 2023, and countless other vocations of spouses that were born and grew up among the halls and courtyards of Santa Teresinha.
Currently, the work carried out at the oratory reaches almost a hundred young people and children, as well as their mothers, who receive special attention from the Salesian Cooperators. This joint work of the Educative and Pastoral Community, which also involves the young people of the Mission Animation Group under the spiritual guidance of Fr Rafael Galvão, SDB, aims to develop the full potential of the young beneficiaries of the Salesian activity, and to include them as active proponents, as Don Bosco himself said, in a society of ‘good Christians and upright citizens’.
To learn more about Santa Teresinha Oratory in São Paulo, visit: https://ssccbsp.org/centro-local/santa-teresinha
Source: Boletim Salesiano
