Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Message of the Vicar of the Rector Major

THE MESSAGE OF THE VICAR

Fr. Stefano Martoglio, SDB

WHAT A GIFT TIME IS! 

The beginning of the new year is illuminated in our liturgy by the ancient formula with which the Israelite priests blessed the people: “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he let his face shine upon you and show you his mercy. May he turn his countenance toward you and give you his peace.” 

Dear friends and readers of Salesian media, we’re at the beginning of a new year. Let’s give each other our best wishes for the time that will be, for the time ahead of us, because time is the gift that contains all the others as our lives unfold.

   So let’s amplify this wish with what will illuminate it. Let’s give our attention to Don Bosco who, when he arrived at the seminary of Chieri, fixed his thoughts on the sundial that still appears on the courtyard wall, and said: “On a sundial I read the following verse: Afflictis lentae, celeres gaudentibus horae. [Time will fly, if you are cheerful; it will drag on, if you are not.] ‘That’s it!’ I said to my friend, ‘There is our program. Let’s always be of good cheer and time will pass quickly.’” (Biographical Memoirs, I, 279).

The first wish we exchange at the beginning of this new year is to live this advice in the way that Don Bosco would urge us: Live well, live serenely, transmit serenity to those around you, and time will have another meaning! Every moment of time is a treasure; but it’s a treasure that passes quickly. Don Bosco always loved to comment: “The three enemies of man are: Death, which overtakes him by surprise; Time, which keeps slipping by; the Devil, who seeks to ensnare him.” (Biographical Memoirs, V, 606).

“Remember that being happy isn’t having a sky without storms, a road without accidents, work without fatigue, relationships without disappointments,” recommends an ancient saying. “Being happy isn’t just celebrating successes, but learning lessons from failures. To be happy is to recognize that life is worth living, despite all the challenges, misunderstandings, and periods of crisis. It’s thanking God every morning for the miracle of life.”

A wise man kept in his study a huge pendulum clock that at every hour sounded solemnly and slowly, but also with a great rumble.

“But doesn’t that bother you?” asked a student.

“No,” replied the wise man. “Because at every hour I have to ask myself: what have I done with the hour that’s just passed?”

Time is the only non-renewable resource. It wears out at an incredible speed. We know that we won’t get a second chance. So all the good we can do, all the love, goodness, and kindness of which we are capable, we must give now because we won’t return to this earth ever again. With a perennial veil of remorse in our hearts, we know that Someone will ask us, “What have you done with all that time I gave you?”

Our Hope Has a Name: Jesus

In the new time that we’ve just begun, the dates and numbers on the calendar are signs agreed upon, symbols and numbers invented to measure time. Very little has changed in the transition from the old year to the new year, yet the perception of a year coming to an end always makes us take stock. How much have we loved? How much have we lost? How much better have we become, or how much worse have we become? Time that passes never leaves us the same.

The liturgy has its own way of making us take stock as the new year dawns. It does so through the opening words of John’s Gospel—words that may seem difficult but that actually reflect the depth of life: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” In the depths of each of our lives resounds a Word greater than we are. It’s the reason why we exist, why the world exists, why everything exists. This Word, this Verbum, is God himself; he is the Son, he is Jesus. The Name given to the reason why we were made is “Jesus.”

He’s the true reason why everything exists; in him that we can understand everything that exists. We shouldn’t judge our life by comparing it with history, with its events and its mentality. Our life can’t be judged by looking at ourselves and our experience alone. Our life is comprehensible only if we draw it close to Jesus. In him everything makes sense and takes on a meaning, even those things that happened to us that were contradictory and unjust. It’s by looking at Jesus that we understand things about ourselves. A psalm says this well when it states, “In your light we see light.”

This is the way of seeing Time according to God’s Heart. Our wish for each other and for ourselves is to live this new time in this way.

The new year will bring with it important events and news for each of us, for the Salesian Family, for our Congregation—everything within the gift of the Jubilee Year that we’re celebrating in the Church.

May we let ourselves be carried away in the spirit of the Jubilee by that Hope which is God’s presence in our lives.

January, the first month of this new year, is dotted with Salesian feasts that lead up to the feast of Don Bosco. We thank God for this delicate touch of the Lord as we begin the new year. Therefore, let’s give the final word to Don Bosco, and let’s set this maxim of his firmly in our lives so that it may shape 2025 for us: My children, treasure time, and time will preserve you for eternity.

No comments: