THE MESSAGE OF THE
RECTOR MAJOR
Fr. Angel Fernandez
Artime
“HERE WITH YOU I FEEL AT HOME”
“Here with you I feel
at home: to stay with you is my very life.” (BM IV, 455) This phrase that
gushed from Don Bosco’s heart is still the secret of the Salesian Family.
Dear friends and
readers of Salesian media, which Don Bosco treasured for its ability to make
known all the good that was being done in Valdocco among his boys and in other
places where they tried to replicate the life of the Oratory in its early years.
Among these latter were the first steps that the Salesians and the Daughters of
Mary Help of Christians took in the missions of Patagonia.
Today I send you
again, as I do every month, an affectionate and cordial greeting. At the same
time, I share you that I have conflicting feelings as I write this message for
November. This is because I would like to speak to you of the present state of
this pandemic that is not the same one we faced months ago. These days, the
pandemic has immersed us in a strange and ugly feeling of distance, distrust,
and fear of contagion (even if you are in the middle of the forest and no one
is within hundreds of feet of you).
Then, too, I
would like to speak to you today of those elderly “who are so much a part of us
and who are yet so alone” because they live right next to us, because their
number increases more and more, and because this COVID pandemic has created the
perfect context to cause them to be even more alone, for us to stay farther
away now, and to distance us from seeing that they are true bearers of life’s
wisdom.
Don Bosco City
https://ciudaddonbosco.org/
In the end, my
heart was won over by another experience that refers to young people who were
at first in difficult situations and then later were living their true dignity.
I don’t know why,
but these memories cause me to breathe fresh, clean air deeply.
What I share with
you now I experienced just a few days ago. While I was speaking personally here
in Rome with the provincial of our Salesian province of Medellin, Colombia, my
curiosity led me to pose a question: I wanted to know how their house called Don
Bosco City was doing. I had visited that work, and there had met many young
people of all kinds, including kids rescued from life on the street. On that
particular occasion, I was greatly impressed by my encounter with some
adolescents, girls and boys who had been rescued from the guerrillas.
My heart was
filled with joy to know that young ex-guerrillas are still present in two of
our houses. Once they are rescued from where they were living (either by force
or by their own choice), these young people are sent, if they accept it, to a
Salesian house to start a new life.
The provincial
told me that one young woman is just about to enter university. She is full of
joy and certainly is reason to feel the beautiful pride of a Salesian educator.
What I did not expect to hear was the testimony of this young woman who, after
a few years in that Salesian house and feeling really at home, gave this witness
to a group of officials who were visiting our educational institution.
She told them:
“Look, I had promised the guerrillas for years that I would give them my body,
my heart, and my soul. And so I did. But then I came to know Don Bosco and all
that he continues to do for us young people here in this house. And I invite other
young people to take up this cause and commit ourselves to it with all our
strength.”
I was speechless
because I thought that I had understood very well how this young woman was
committed at one time to a cause in which she found herself or in which she had
chosen to be involved. But then she discovered that, in this Salesian house,
that life could be different and she could “fight” another way—for just causes. I imagine that she dreams of becoming
a great professional, a wife, and a mother.
So I share this with
you as I say to myself, dear readers: these simple causes, these concrete and everyday
“utopias” that not only change persons’ lives but also change their entire life universe inside of them
continue to be worthwhile.
The drop in the ocean
When I was in
Calcutta visiting the sisters of the Congregation of Mother Teresa (Saint
Teresa of Calcutta), and had the opportunity to pray in the same chapel where
she had prayed, to celebrate the Eucharist next to her grave, and to see the
poor who live right outside the door waiting for those sisters who went out very
early to meet them, to care for them, and to save each one’s universe, one by
one, I discovered the confirmation of my conviction about the value of the little
things that you who read and that I who write can do.
A dish of rice
saved a life in Calcutta. The Salesian house in Don Bosco City allowed a young
woman to be who she was, with the dignity she has, and helped her develop her full
potential. And so it is in millions and millions of cases in the world that are
not well-known but that are like seeds that germinate and bear fruit each day.
(Salesian Calcutta Province)
I confess that
bad news tires me because it seems that only bad things make the news. I
propose that we join those people who want to make only good news into a TV news
broadcast. Let us feed our spirit with what makes us breathe deeply of fresh,
clean air as has happened to me with the story of this young woman who
discovered that her life could be different.
Thank you for
your attentive reading and, most certainly, thank you for sharing my love for
things that are good.
Friends of Don
Bosco, I wish you all the best.
Fr. Angel
