Why Don Bosco Chose St. Francis de Sales

Why Don Bosco chose St. Francis de Sales as his patron saint

The Rector Major explains

(ANS – Rome – February 1, 2022) – On account of the 400th anniversary of the death of St. Francis de Sales, Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime explained why St. Francis de Sales is the patron saint of the Congregation founded by Don Bosco. “Don Bosco, born in 1815 and becoming a priest in 1841, drank intensely from the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, to the point that the motto of St. Francis de Sales ‘Da mihi animas, cetera tolle’ - give me souls and take all the rest - became his rule of life; he had even written it at the entrance to his small office, as a life plan; and his whole life was guided by the spirituality and style, the gentleness and optimism of St. Francis de Sales,” said Fr. Angel.

The Rector Major went on to describe to ACI PRENSA that at the beginning of the Congregation in 1859, Don Bosco manifested to his first boys, “‘We will call ourselves Salesians’.... He did not say, ‘We will call ourselves ‘Bosconians,’ like his surname, no! ‘We will call ourselves Salesians because Francis de Sales will be the inspirer of our way of being among young people.’”

“That is, there is a total connection for us Salesians, with Don Bosco, and St. Francis de Sales as our patron, because ‘the saint of kindness’ spoke of young people,” he added.

Fr. Angel also recalled that “the charism of Don Bosco and the Salesians is youth, that is, the education and evangelization of young people in the world.”

“It’s not the school,” he continued. “We have 1,900 schools, 2,800 parishes, more than 3,000 oratories, youth centers, homes for street kids, universities, institutes of higher education.... But the charism is not what we do, rather that we go out to meet young people – boys, girls – and many times even children who are abandoned on the street, in many cities, with a single purpose: to prepare them for life and help them to live a life full of meaning. This would be Don Bosco’s definition of the Salesian today, as we received it from Don Bosco,” he pointed out.

“The Salesian Preventive System is not even a pedagogical method; it is a lifestyle, that is, to put boys and girls in a way of being, of relating, of being with [Christ], which prevents them from following paths that could damage them…,” he warned. Clarifying, at the same time, that education and prevention always consist in being “educators in the faith with great freedom” so that “young people can discover the meaning of their lives, including in God.”

Thinking about the SDBs’ last general chapter (2020), the Rector Major recalled what kind of Salesians today’s young people need: “We need Salesians who are, above all, men of interiority, men of God, men for others, but starting from God, and with deep roots in God. We need Salesians capable of reaching out to young people – boys, girls – and in particular to the poorest, the neediest, the most discarded; this is a very strong commitment for us.”

Finally, the Rector Major highlighted a trait of Don Bosco’s personality that can help today’s world: “He was, above all, a man of great hope, a man who believed that in the heart of every person there is always a little piece of good that it’s important to find.”

“He was a man who believed that anything was possible, but at the same time he rolled up his sleeves to do what had to be done, to knock on doors, to ask for help, not to be alone. I believe this is the message for today: the world needs hope, it does not need empty words, it does not need ‘conmen’, but it needs hope with solid reasons to live, and to continue to trust in those by your side, and in the case of many of us, to continue to believe that God never leaves us,” he said to conclude.

Mercedes De La Torre

Source: ACI Prensa