These events had a decisive impact on some young people whose Causes are today followed by the Postulation: that of the Servant of God Fr Andrej Majcen (Slovenian, missionary to the East) and that of Blessed Fr Titus Zeman (Slovak, martyr for vocations). Joining them is the humble and discreet figure of the Venerable Fr Ignác Stuchlý, linked to both and a man of connection between different territories – Poland, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Italy – and who was in Rakovnik on the day of the opening of the Shrine to which he had contributed with great efforts.
In particular, the Salesian journey of the young Andrej Majcen began on 8 September 100 years ago and in Rakovnik, in recent days, the Salesians have remembered him through different initiatives – especially the Solemn Mass for the consecration of the new altar, presided over by the Bishop of Murska Sobota, Bishop Peter Štumpf.
On the night of 7 September 1924, a few hours after the opening of the shrine, Andrej Majcen, until recently a teacher at the Salesians of Radna, took his first steps in Salesian life. He would begin shortly after the novitiate and the Rakovnik shrine would remain a strong reference point in his life: both at the time of his detachment from his homeland to leave for the missions, when his last gaze was once again all for the Shrine and Mary; and as an old man when he became a sought-after confessor, a man of God also esteemed by the bishop, who sent him priests in crisis. When a Superior wanted to know if he could admit Andrej to the novitiate, he simply asked him if he loved Our Lady: "Do you love Mary?" “Yes." “Then you can enter the novitiate.”
A very special bond with the Virgin was also true for Titus Zeman and, almost simultaneously with the event in Rakovnik, Slovenia, last Sunday, 8 September 2024, at 11 a.m., the Salesians in Slovakia remembered the centenary of their arrival in Slovakia with a Solemn Mass in the Shrine at Šaštín, presided over by the Apostolic Nuncio in the country, Archbishop Nicola Girasoli, in the presence also of the Vicar of the Rector Major.
In the spring of 1925, then a few months after the arrival of the Salesians in Slovakia, little Titus, who was 10 years old at the time, was ill. That year he wanted so much to join the pilgrims who were going to Šaštín but, unable, he wanted to experience the pilgrimage as an "inner journey", entrusting himself to Mary: when the pilgrims returned, he asked his father to take him in his arms and take him to the house to participate in the blessing and grace of the pilgrimage. It just took a few moments, so he asked to be brought home. At that moment, with so much faith, Titus obtained the grace of healing.
In fact, he "miraculously returned to good health and after this healing he became completely immune to all diseases". In that Marian miracle she also found his Salesian vocation: "Our Lady has healed me!" Titus knew.
"The Salesians live in Mary's house [in Šaštín], so I too will become a Salesian," he said. And when the Rector of the Salesians of Šaštín told him: “You are still small, we don't have any children like you here. It is cold, the convent is located in a swamp and we wash every day with cold water. When you cry and want to go to Mum, what are we going to do?”, Titus simply replied,“What is he saying? I know well that my earthly mother will not be there, but the mother of all mothers – the Holy Virgin Mary Help of Christians – will be my mother!".
These vocations have therefore flourished in the shadow of Mary and her mantle, and it is significant that in both cases the Virgin has given the Salesians, as soon as they have dedicated a church to her or lived near her, a holy vocation directly connected to other vocations: Fr Titus Zeman would save numerous Salesian clerics under Communism, going so far as to say that if even one of them had become a priest in his place it would not have been in vain; Fr Andrej Majcen was novice director in Vietnam, laying the foundations of the Congregation there, to the point where he was called the Don Bosco of Vietnam.
Lodovica Maria Zanet,
General Postulation of the Causes of Saints of the Salesian Family
