Wedding at Cana, a Key to Understanding Preventive System

The Wedding at Cana, a Key to Understanding the Preventive System
The Rector Major Addresses Salesian Cooperators

(ANS – Rome – August 3, 2026) – The 5th Meeting of the Association of Salesian Cooperators of the Italy–Middle East Region took place from July 31 to August 2, at the Fraterna Domus in Sacrofano, on the outskirts of Rome, to mark the 150th anniversary of the Association’s foundation by St. John Bosco. The meeting’s theme was “Drawn by Your Merciful Love.” The highlight of Saturday, August 1, dedicated to the motto “We want to love you again by doing good,” was the 2-part address by Fr. Fabio Attard: the morning talk “Do whatever he tells you” and the homily during the Eucharistic celebration.

Cana, the key to the Preventive System

In his morning talk, the rector major presented the wedding at Cana (John 2:1–11) as “an interpretative key that brings together the 2026 Strenna and the charism, the Gospel and Salesian pedagogy,” emphasizing that this isn’t “an artificial juxtaposition.” Fr. Fabio invited the assembly to “look closely at the scene” at Cana, identifying within it 4 elements that summarize Don Bosco’s educational style:

1) Mary’s gaze, capable of noticing that “they have no wine” before anyone else;

2) her words, which “evoke in the servants a response of trust and faith in Jesus”;

3) the atmosphere of engagement that arises from this, where the servants “fill the jars to the brim” out of free will and not thru blind obedience;

4) and finally, the active role of the servants themselves, whom “the Lord doesn’t bypass” but “involves in his work.”

On this Gospel foundation, Fr. Fabio developed the 3 pillars of the Preventive System:

• Reason: an invitation to look at the world of young people “not thru the lens of fear, judgment, or nostalgia” but with a gaze that can also recognize “the signs of God, the deep desires, the thirst for authenticity” in young people in urban peripheries, in countries at war, among migrants, and in digital contexts.
• Religion: the need to “listen to God” in daily prayer as the foundation of all pastoral action, bearing in mind that “without daily listening to the Word, we risk creating many generous initiatives that are not very evangelical.”
• Loving kindness: a style which, modeled on the servants at Cana, “doesn’t create dependence, but shared responsibility,” making young people and laypeople “agents of good, capable in turn of drawing from and bringing the new wine to others.”

The Rector Major concluded his address by referring to the words of the master of the banquet at Cana – “You have kept the good wine until now” (John 2:10) – as an image of hope for the Association: “Celebrating 150 years of history doesn’t mean nostalgically preserving a vintage wine: it means believing that the Lord still has new wine to serve thru us, and that the best of our vocation isn’t behind us, but ahead of us.” He then entrusted the meeting to Mary Help of Christians, “the watchful Mother of Cana,” and to Don Bosco, asking for the grace to be “that humble and fruitful leaven which makes the dough rise.”

The homily: consistency as daily martyrdom

The Feast of Herod & the Beheading of the Baptist
(Giovanni Baronzio)

At Mass, Fr. Fabio commented on the gospel account of the martyrdom of John the Baptist (Matt 14:1–12), drawing a parallel between the theme of the meeting and the story of Herod, “a tragic figure who encounters the message of grace yet refuses to be drawn to it.” The rector major observed that Herod “doesn’t encounter Jesus; he merely catches an echo of him,” filtered “thru his restless conscience,” and pointed out how the tetrarch “never truly makes a decision: his decisions are made by others,” held captive first by fear of the crowd, then by the human respect of his fellow diners.

Fr. Attard contrasted this barren figure with John the Baptist, who, tho “chained and destined for death,” remains free and fruitful because “he doesn’t compromise the truth, nor does he bend it to the convenience of the palace.” Hence the central assertion of the homily: “We shall not be witnesses as long as our faith remains an opinion, exposed to the winds of public opinion …; we shall be witnesses to the extent that faith becomes conviction, conviction becomes witness, and that witness is prepared, if the Lord asks it, to pay a price.”

Addressing the Salesian Cooperators directly, the Rector Major clarified that the martyrdom required today isn’t necessarily one of blood, but one “of consistency: to say ‘this isn’t permissible’ when everyone else is silent, to remain faithful when it would be more convenient to turn away, to keep the Gospel intact in a world that would have us be more pliable, more conformist, more tamed.” He recalled that this consistency “doesn’t come from our own strength, but from having allowed ourselves to be loved first,” echoing the very motto of the meeting. He concluded by entrusting the assembly to Mary Help of Christians, “the first to be drawn to him,” and to the witness of John the Baptist, “the friend of the Bridegroom.”

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