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.
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