Final Feast of the Rector Major for Cardinal Fernandez Artime

Rector Major’s 2024 Celebration of Thanksgiving

10 Years of Gratitude to Don Bosco’s 10th Successor

(ANS – Rome – June 24, 2024) – On Monday, June 24, the traditional feast of Thanksgiving for Don Bosco and his successors at the head of the Salesian Congregation was renewed for the 154th time.

The celebration of Rector Major came about spontaneously on June 24, 1870, the feast of the birth of St John the Baptist, whom the young men of Valdocco (mistakenly) supposed to be the namesake of Fr. John Bosco. So the first past pupils of the Oratory wanted to show their affection to their father, teacher, and friend with homage and symbolic gestures.

The Salesian feast of Thanksgiving has taken on its own characteristics over the years and has become the annual opportunity to pay solemn tribute to those who spend all their time and resources to guide and animate the Congregation and the Salesian Family, and thus embodies in his own person the mission of Don Bosco to love, educate, and evangelize young people.

Thanksgiving 2024 has its obvious special features that make it more special than usual: 1st of all, it is being celebrated in Rome again after two years in Turin because of the renovation work at Salesian headquarters, which isn’t quite complete yet.

2d, and more important, it represents the last feast of Thanksgiving for Cardinal Angel Fernandez Artime, Don Bosco’s 10th Successor, Rector Major since March 2014 and created cardinal in September 2023. In August he’ll leave this office and receive a new assignment from the Holy Father.

Card. Fernandez Artime also wanted to highlight some reasons that make this Thanksgiving celebration special. “First, after these intense 10 years in my term of office, I have always considered that this celebration is not just to say thank you to me. I also wanted to say THANK YOU to you: to the Congregation and to the Salesian Family for all the collaboration, commitment, trust, and dedication you have shown to me and to the mission of Don Bosco, and for the many miracles that have been achieved in the daily life of so many young people,” he said.

He added: “Another thought that arises spontaneously when I think of this feast, is how it’s an example of Salesian joy, a typical tradition of ours, which does not exist for all congregations, but which breathes the climate of genuine collaboration typical of the movement that Don Bosco originated. This feast speaks to us of the closeness and shared responsibility of so many people toward the Congregation and even more toward the Salesian charism.”

Finally, Card. Fernandez Artime addressed a special and specific thought to the Past Pupils of Don Bosco, who celebrate the anniversary of their foundation on this same date. “With their gift of coffee cups to Don Bosco, Charles Gastini and the other Valdocco past pupils not only paid homage to him, but gave life to a tradition that has become a legacy. For this reason, as heir of Don Bosco, I express my great affection for all the past pupils and friends of Don Bosco around the world: in many circumstances and countries they are the right hand of us Salesians, and they constantly cooperate in the mission. It’s certainly thanks to many of them that so many plans and projects of Don Bosco and his successors have been achieved!”

With this climate of mutual affection, the celebration of the feast of Thanksgiving 2024 began in the afternoon of June 24, with the Salesian headquarters community gathering at the Catacombs of San Tarcisio to celebrate the Eucharist together – presided over by the Rector Major – and to share the next moment of celebration. In addition to Card. Fernandez, also several sons of Don Bosco in the community were honored as they celebrated their jubilee anniversaries of 50, 70, and 80 years of religious profession, and/or 25, 50, and 75 years of their priestly ordination.