of St. John Bosco
Jan.
31, 2020
Matt
22: 34-40Don Bosco Prep, Ramsey, N.J.
I
was invited to preside and preach at the annual evening Mass for alumni of Don
Bosco Tech in Paterson, N.J., and Don Bosco Prep.
“Jesus said, ‘You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind . . . [and]
you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22: 37, 39).
Early
last month Bp. Robert Barron published a column entitled “The Crown and
the Primacy of Grace.”[1] The Crown refers to the very popular
Netflix series of that name, now in its 3d season, depicting the reign of Queen
Elizabeth II. (After reading the
bishop’s column, I resorted to the New Rochelle Public Library to borrow the
DVDs of the 1st season, and the series is indeed captivating. As I told English students at Salesian High
quite a few years ago as part of an introduction to Shakespeare, the
longest-running soap opera in history is the British monarchy.)
 |
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, 16 June 2012
(Wikimedia Commons)
|
In
his column Bp. Barron recounts an episode from the current season in which
Prince Philip has a conversation with his mother Princess Alice, who’d become a
Greek Orthodox nun. Philip seems to have
been in some kind of mid-life crisis, and she advises him: “You must find your faith; it will help
you. No, it doesn’t just help. It’s everything.”
A
couple of episodes later, in 1969 the prince meets with a group of Anglican
clergy who are going thru burnout and depression. He urges them to find purpose in their lives
“thru achievement and self-determination”—like the Apollo 11 astronauts at that
moment exploring the moon—“and to stop wasting their time with morbid introspection.” Not long after, the prince meets his
astronaut heroes and asks them about the meaning (in an existential sense) of
their experience but is disconcerted when they tell him they hadn’t had time
for that sort of thinking, and at the moment are more interested in hearing
about the privileges of royal life (rather like Americans going agog recently
over Harry and Meghan—my comparison, not Bp. Barron’s). Philip goes thru a sort of conversion and
realizes the emptiness of what he had, quite coldly, told the clergymen. He goes back to them and humbly asks for
their help to deal with his own crisis of soul.
Bp. Barron concludes by contrasting the views of salvation implicit in
Philip’s struggle: salvation by one’s
own strenuous efforts (which is a Christian heresy) or by surrender to the
grace of God. “Faith will help you. It’s everything.”
Don
Bosco fully understood that. “You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all
your mind.” Over and over again, our
father defined the scope of all his apostolic efforts as “the greater glory of
God and the salvation of souls.” He
taught the young that their eternal salvation was everything, and the schooling
that he offered them, the trades that he offered, their success and their
happiness in this life were in view of their eternal happiness—the only success
that really matters.
Don
Bosco turned down the valuable assistance of a prominent Turin noble rather
than eliminate the Rosary from his boys’ practices of piety. He reminded Italy’s prime minister that he
was always and everywhere a priest, whether he was among his boys or in the
royal palace. When threatened by
violence and even assassination, he continued to publish books in defense of
the faith and to go out at nite to assist the sick. Over all the objections of his doctors, he
pushed and pushed his deteriorating body to travel and raise funds for his
works—schools, missions, care of needy youths—and a great project entrusted to
him by Pope Leo XIII, building the church of the Sacred Heart in central Rome,
which is now the seat of government of our Congregation.
When
the Salesian schools near Genoa were being harassed by the local anticlerical authorities,
Garibaldi, no friend of the Church or its clergy, advised them, “Leave Don
Bosco in peace! He is a priest in Italy
who does a lot of good.” On another
occasion, the hero of Italy’s unification said, “Don Bosco is my idea of a good
priest, a true priest of God, a friend of the people.”[2] I suppose that Pope Francis would agree that
Don Bosco had the smell of the sheep.
His entire life—from his childhood repetition of sermons and giving of
catechism lessons until his last days, greeting many of his boys on his
deathbed—was a demonstration that he loved his neighbor as himself; more than
himself, I think we can say. How many
times he stressed to Salesians and all who assisted him that they must let the
young know that they loved them; that they must love what the young love; that
games, music, and theater appeal to the young and are means to capture their
hearts. Even when a youngster had to be
sent away from the Oratory, he made every effort to part as friends and make
the lad understand that he could return in the future if he were in need.
“The
whole law and the prophets depend on” the 2 commandments to love God and
neighbor (22:40). Don Bosco brought those
loves together in a way that few could doubt.
Even his enemies had to concede that he genuinely cared for poor and abandoned
youngsters in God’s name.
Some
of those foes tried to demonstrate that Don Bosco was an enemy of the new
Italian government; hence the investigations and searches of the Oratory,
seeking evidence that Don Bosco was conspiring with the exiled archbishop of
Turin or with the Pope. The only secret
papers they could find were the Oratory’s unpaid bills, and when they
questioned the pupils about their lessons they heard only respectful answers
concerning king and country. On one
occasion, some inquisitors were a little put out to discover that their own superiors
were recommending needy youngsters to Don Bosco’s care.
That
concern for the needy, the poor, and the abandoned was Don Bosco’s constant
reminder to the public of the social benefit that he provided. Love for his neighbor provided a public
benefit. In his own mind, of course, the
social benefit, the love showered upon the young, didn’t come from a
sentimental heart but from a heart, mind, and soul on fire for God. For him there was no separation between love
of God and love of neighbor. “The glory
of God and the salvation of souls” were coterminous or equivalent. As St. Irenaeus said in the 2d century, “The
glory of God is man fully alive”—alive with grace, heading for eternal life, a
happy eternity of glorifying God.
The
Salesian theme for this year—the strenna, in Salesian parlance that goes
back to Don Bosco himself—is Don Bosco’s politics of the Our Father, especially
“thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”; specifically, the formation of
good Christians and upright citizens.
It’s another way of proclaiming and living the total love of God and a
generous love of one’s neighbor.
The
upright citizen is a contributing member of society; he or she cares about the
common good at local, national, and universal levels—about such matters as
relief for the victims of tragedy, like refugees from war or the victims of
natural disasters; about issues of war and peace; about our environment; about
everyone’s needs for and right to food, clothing, shelter, health care, and
education; about the human dignity of all of God’s children, born and unborn,
male and female, of any race or creed.
One
needn’t be a Christian to take such concerns to heart and act on them. Certainly a good Christian does. Like Don Bosco we’ll cooperate with anyone concerned
for young people, especially poor or at-risk young people. Our motivation, of course, is to love God’s
children as Christ does, because he does.
Our Rectors Major remind us often that Salesians aren’t just an NGO, not
social workers; we are evangelizers, preachers of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. We teach in our schools and parishes, and you
teach in your families, by our practical actions. As Don Bosco’s past pupils, you are called to teach
as Christian parents or grandparents, as active members of your parishes. As responsible, upright citizens of your
community, state, and nation, you are charged to demonstrate the Gospel, to
show love of neighbor in your actions, like Don Bosco. You will, at the same time, be loving God
with all your heart, soul, and mind, pursuing God’s glory and the salvation of
your soul. In the end, that’s all that
matters. It’s everything.
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