Fr. Robert J. Falk, SDB (1932-2022)

Fr. Robert Joseph Falk, SDB (1932-2022)

Fr. Robert J. Falk, SDB, a longtime Salesian missionary to Korea, went home to the Lord on the afternoon of April 13, 2022, at St. Mary’s Hospital in Seoul.  He was 90 years old and had been a professed Salesian of Don Bosco for more than 66 years and a priest for 59 years.

Fr. Falk was a native of Green Bay, Wisc., one of four sons of Manuel James Falk and Alice Burlow Falk.  He was born on January 2, 1932, and was baptized on January 24, 1932, at St. Joseph’s Church in Green Bay and confirmed in the same church at an unknown date.

Bob went to St. Joseph’s parish school, then to Central Catholic High School, run by the Norbertines.  He began college at St. Norbert College.  With a Chick Evans Caddie Scholarship, he was able to transfer to the University of Notre Dame.  This scholarship originates from the Oneida Golf and Country Club in Green Bay, where Bob had worked in the locker room.

At age 21, Bob came to the Salesians and entered the Sons of Mary Program for “late vocations” at Don Bosco College Seminary in Newton, N.J., on September 19, 1953.  He attributed his vocation to “a good Christian family and a good Catholic high school run by the Norbertine Fathers.  The environment—contact with some very pastoral priests and missionaries—instilled in my heart the desire to do some good, to help the less fortunate.”  Later, at Notre Dame one of the priests advised him to join the Salesians.

He was admitted to St. Joseph’s Novitiate in Newton on September 7, 1954, which was guided by Fr. Aloysius Bianchi as master.  He made his first profession of religious vows there on September 8, 1955.  Some of his classmates were Tony Ambrogio, John Blanco, Francis Bracchi, Gus Hagus, George Hanna, Jean-Paul Lebel, Joe Lockwood, Orlando Molina, Gerard Richard, Alfred Rinaldi, Romeo Trottier, Robert Uzzilio (who later joined the Bridgeport Diocese), and Charles Verville—obviously quite a class!

Becoming a Missionary

Bro. Falk graduated from Don Bosco College with a B.A. in philosophy in June 1956.  Having volunteered for the missions, he was sent to Korea in November 1956 after obtaining the necessary visas.  He did practical training at the Salesian high school in Kwangju, South Korea (1956-1959), teaching English, coaching basketball, and caring for “around 100 needy boys who were living with us.”  He completed tirocinium ottimamente, according to his provincial.

Bro. Bob Falk with students at Kwangju, 1956

Therefore the superiors decided to admit him to perpetual vows before he began his theological studies, and the provincial requested that he make the necessary retreat in the U.S.  He returned to the States and made his perpetual profession in Newton on September 8, 1959.

Bro. Falk went to Turin to study at the Pontifical Athenaeum Salesianum (the “Crocetta,” from its neighborhood).  He earned an STL there and was ordained on February 11, 1963.

After ordination, Fr. Falk returned to Korea and spent the rest of his life there.  His first priestly assignment was with the aspirants in Seoul (1963-1965).  In 1965 he was appointed director of the high school and Salesian community at Kwangju and served a six-year term.

Leadership of the Korean Salesians

For the following year he was posted to Seoul as director of the Don Bosco Youth Center for poor working young men (1971-1972).  His term was interrupted by his nomination as superior of the Korean Delegation, a fairly autonomous section of the Japanese Province at that time.  According to Fr. Falk it was a turbulent period.  Little love was lost between Koreans and Japanese after 35 years of Japanese occupation of the country (1910-1945).  As the first “local” superior of the delegation, Fr. Falk succeeded in uniting the confreres (young Koreans and older European and American missionaries) and properly structuring the Salesian works.  He served in that office until 1978

Fr. Falk was succeeded as delegation superior by Fr. Luc Van Looy, a Flemish missionary who spoke about seven languages fluently and later became a member of the Salesian general council, vicar of the Rector Major, and bishop of Ghent in his native Flanders.  He once told Jim Hurley “that when he spoke English he was often mistaken for an American, and Americans sometimes mistook him for someone from Wisconsin.  Remarkably, he got both his mastery of English and his Wisconsin accent from Bob Falk.”

Of Fr. Falk Bishop Van Looy writes:  “For me too he was a saintly confrere. When I followed him as superior of the Korean delegation, I nominated him master of novices; at that he came to tell me: ‘Luke, this is the first mistake you have made as a superior.’ This says everything about him.”

In 1984 the delegation was promoted to a vice province and in 1998 to a full province.  It currently has 117 Salesians.  The numbers of young and now-middle-aged Korean Salesians speak of the formation that Fr. Falk instilled in his novices and others.

Recalling the history of the Salesians in Korea, which began after the Korean War (1953), he told the newsletter of Evans Scholars Alumni Association that, apart from the Salesian schools and youth centers, “In the beginning, … almost every boy was poor, hungry and in need.  This meant food, study, trades and a place to sleep.  Now the boys come from the streets, juvenile courts, children of poor leper families, boys abandoned by their parents. . . .  Our boys ate only twice a day and then just a little rice and Kimchi.  Their homes were so poor, so cold.  However, despite all the difficulties there was definitely hope and joy.  Joy was present because they had one another, they share the little they had.  I was often touched by the generosity of the poor.”

Given a well-earned sabbatical year, he went to Rome for study at the Salesian Pontifical University (1978-1979).  On his return to Korea, he served two periods as master of novices in (1979-1990 and 1992-1997), at times doubling also as community director.  He was also the Korean Province’s delegate for the past pupils and the Salesian Cooperators, the ecclesiastical assistant for the Don Bosco Volunteers, and for many years a member of the provincial council.

From 1990 to 1992 he was director of one of the Seoul communities, and from 1993 to 1999 he directed the Salesian house at Dae Jeon. He became director again at Kwangju from 1999 to 2003.  He spent 2003-2008 as director of an out-of-country Korean mission, where he was, among other things, very supportive of American lay missioners there.

In 2008 Fr. Falk returned to Kwangju as spiritual director of the house of formation.  Eventually his health declined, and in 2019 he moved to the provincial house in Seoul.

The Grace of Vocation

At the time of his 50th anniversary of profession (2005), Fr. Falk wrote:  “These 50 years have been years of joy and grace. The greatest joy has been the grace to love God, the Salesian confreres, and the young in a family, in our Salesian community. The joy of praying together, working together, living together has made everything so joyful, so rewarding.”

He very much enjoyed doing retreat work, any sort of youth work, and assisting young workers.  In 2001 he wrote in the Evans Scholars newsletter:  “I’ve been in Korea since 1956 and … I’ve enjoyed every day here in this wonderful country, and the Korean people and our boys have been so good to me—too good.  I’ve truly found another family.  I’m lucky to have two families.  This is much better than a hole-in-one.  By the way, I never had a hole-in-one, but ‘almost.’”

He continued:  “[I] desire to share the joy of Christ with our boys and, in return, I have received and continue to receive much joy and wisdom from our boys and the Korean people.  I’ve learned that we Christians do not have a monopoly on love.  The spirit of love is present, especially in the poor.  My motivation and my joy is to share somehow in the lives of those I encounter in my daily routine—to be present at the right moment, to say a kind word, to feel the pain and suffering and to somehow participate in this person’s, this boy’s situation.  Why have I been called to this?  That is the mystery of life.  We are all called, and we all respond in different ways.  I truly don’t feel that what I have done is special.”

Assisting Salesian Lay Missioners

That his life and ministry was more than special is attested by SLM Matt Sullivan, who ministered under him at that out-of-Korea mission:  “Fr. Bob was a great man. In some ways it is fitting that we lost him during Holy Week, but I feel the world is a bit worse without him in it.  I’ll always remember having coffee with him after lunch and talking about the challenges of living our host country and learning its language. You could also see how the other Salesians, students, and even the government officials at the school respected and admired him.”

Matt’s father Neil visited the school and offers his own tribute:  “We are so sorry to hear this.  Fr. Bob was a Saint.  If someone asked to be shown a faithful follower of Jesus in this world, I would say Fr. Bob. What a wonderful person and Christian. He use to call us from Korea on almost a regular basis by computer. Every phone call he mentioned you [Matt] and thanked you for your service. It was always about others and never about himself.  He served in an unselfish manner for over 60 years in service of God through the Salesians.  I feel the world has reduced good with his passing.  I expect he is on the express line into Heaven. We had the honor to know him.”

Funeral Rites

Fr. Falk was waked at the Salesian provincial house from Thursday to Saturday. Funeral will be on Saturday, just with prayers for the dead.  Fr. Henry Bonetti explains: “We wake for three days all day and night. Every hour on the hour there are about 30 minutes of prayer in groups. The prayers are sung in the old-fashioned Confucian tone. Some Psalms like the Miserere and a litany of the saints (many, many saints!), and after each saint is added, 'Pray for Fr. Robert Falk.' Today [Thursday] till three the body lay exposed and people could come to view it. But at three we had a 'Placing in the Coffin' ceremony that has its own liturgy according to Korean custom. After that the coffin is closed and tied with white cloth ribbons, then goes back out to again lying under a black cloth covering till the funeral. You don’t get to see the body again.”

Fr. Bonetti’s eulogy during the days of the wake merits inclusion:

“You ask me how he lived.  He lived like a saint.  He lived like Don Bosco and St. Francis de Sales. He lived the ‘little virtues’ to such a degree that they became great virtues.  He lived what Don Bosco says about the conduct of Louis Comollo.  His conduct “was made up of many small virtues, but practiced in such a way as to make him universally admired as a model of extraordinary virtue.”

“In the novitiate [at Newton] on the side wall of the chapel was a gospel verse suggested by Fr. Angelo Franco, ‘I have come to set the world on fire.’  Well, Bob was not going to set the world on fire. He just let the world set him on fire.  I believe he practiced ‘the Presence of God’ at an eminent degree, finding God in whatever he was doing at the time.  Like Francis de Sales and Don Bosco, he took everything as the will of God:  ‘Ask for nothing, refuse nothing.’

“He asked for no position.  When it was thrust on him, he fulfilled his office with calm and humility, without any trepidation. He had no agenda; he made no projects, no plans. He just took life as it came to him, helped people out as they needed it, solved problems as they needed solving.  If someone came to visit (I would say they were more than 75% women, both lay and nuns), he would sit with them over tea and cake, for as long as was needed, one, two, three hours.  It didn’t matter.

“As for events, he never hurried; he waited, almost unperturbed, for problems to solve themselves.  This, of course, exasperated lesser mortals to no end, but when everything was said and done, he was usually right. This type of heart toward God, people, and events gave him a wisdom that was sometime uncanny in its accuracy.  Short, one-sentence advice given in candor and loving-kindness usually found its mark.  One would later think that the words came not from the earth, but from heaven.  He was this kind of man—unpretentious, unassuming, willing to be subject to others and events, letting them dictate to him what God wants and what he should do to fulfill His will.

“He liked sports and was happy when the young were happy. In the afternoon you could almost always find him on the court with the young.  Later, he remained on the side but still there cheering the young on.  He was, as in the title of a book by the Servant of God Baroness Catherine Doherty, one of the People of the Towel and Water.  It was fitting that he died during these days when our salvation is achieved in humility and love from the foot-washing to the foot of the cross.  For Bob was the incarnation of that humble service that leads to loving redemption.”

Apropos of Fr. Bonetti’s reference to “the court” comes this short note from another Salesian Lay Missioner, Greg Lim:  “Fr. Bob had already left the [out-of-country] school before we arrived in August 2008.  Eric, Claire, and I did have the fortune of meeting him in Korea in April 2009, though.  The Salesians had invited us to the provincial house in Seoul during a short school break.  Fr. Bob just happened to be visiting the provincial at the same time.  He invited us to stay with him if we ever found ourselves in Kwangju.  I wish I could have seen him in action on the basketball court.  We heard many stories about his proficient shooting.”

Ukrainian Refugees Receive Brotherly Welcome in Poland

The Spirit of Brotherhood Welcomes Refugees

(ANS – Warsaw – April 14, 2022) – According to the most up-to-date data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 4.6 million people have fled from Ukraine to neighboring countries since the war began on February 24. Another 6.5 million people are internally displaced within Ukraine, and an estimated 13 million people are stranded in conflict-affected areas or unable to move.

Refugees abroad are mostly women and minors because, under an emergency law of the Ukrainian government, men between the ages of 16 and 60 are prohibited from leaving the country, with a few exceptions. Moreover, as Ukrainian airspace has been closed for weeks, the only way to leave the country is by land, in the direction of neighboring countries.

According to estimates published by Openpolis, almost 60% of refugees – about 2.76 million people – are hosted in Poland. The effort made by institutions, citizens, and also by the Church and the Salesians in this country is truly significant.

The Polish Church “organizes aid shipments to Ukraine but also provides support to refugees in parishes, convents, retreat houses, and private homes,” said the secretary general of the Polish bishops, Msgr. Artur Mizinski, presenting today the data on aid provided to “Ukrainian brothers and sisters” who fled their country because of the Russian invasion.

The prelate noted that “from February 24 to March 31, 95% of Polish parishes are committed to supporting refugees.” For most of the parishes it was economic aid: 74% of the parishes provided refugees and Ukrainians who remained in their country with material aid while 45% offered shelter and beds.

The director of Caritas Poland, Fr. Marcin Izycki, reports that the value of economic aid collected for Ukraine by the organization directed by him by the end of March exceeded 100 million zlotys (about 20 million euros).

By March 31, 282,000 beds had been secured by various diocesan and parish Caritas groups, while more than 125,000 Ukrainian children and almost 100,000 elderly people were received. Refugees in Polish parishes can also find medical, psychological, and therapeutic support and legal and logistical help.

Many women’s and men’s religious congregations in Poland are also involved in initiatives to support refugees. From February 24 to March 31, members of the congregations provided refugees with over 2 million hot meals and help to find employment.

The Salesians are part of this vast effort – and, indeed, have been recognized as leaders. The latest initiative in this sense is one that sees mothers and children from Ukraine studying at school together. It happens in Oswiecim, the first and largest Salesian institution in Poland, which opened in 1898. With 1,100 students of its own, it now houses 40 people, with women attending classes, learning the Polish language, hoping soon to be able to find a job and thus become independent.

On the one hand, this great effort of an entire people toward the citizenship of a neighboring country is entailing great sacrifices: for example, the World Exhibition Center in Warsaw, which currently hosts 3,000 people and is preparing to add another 4,000 beds, now sees a shortage of volunteers. And in fact, the Warsaw Province is studying the possibility of ensuring at least a regular minimum number of volunteers or workers.

On the other, however, the brotherhood generated between the Polish citizens who welcome and the Ukrainian refugee population is leading to small but significant gestures: there are many refugees who, to repay the hospitality they have received, are trying to make themselves useful by organizing events throughout the country, such as cleaning public parks.

Homily for Monday of Holy Week

Homily for Monday of Holy Week

April 11, 2022
John 12: 1-11
Salesian HS, New Rochelle, N.Y.

There’s a great, dramatic cast of characters in today’s gospels in addition to our Lord Jesus.  There’s Lazarus, who becomes something of a center of attention because Jesus had just raised him from the dead.  Some people look for religion to be a kind of showtime rather than paying attention to what religion’s supposed to be about:  God.

There are the chief priests, who are out to eliminate Jesus.  They see him as a threat to their influence over the people, and because Lazarus has caused such a stir they decide they must eliminate him as well.  Destroy the evidence of Jesus’ goodness!  They remind us that all of us have a tendency to push aside or bury inconvenient evidence—which might be as simple as the grades we’re earning and what those grades imply about our study habits and our character; or as complicated as the biological fact that when a woman conceives a child, she’s carrying a new, independent human being in her womb, and “controlling her own body” is no longer the issue.

(by Rubens and Van Dyck)

Another character is Mary, one of the sisters of Lazarus.  She’s very devoted to Jesus, and she makes a radical decision to show her devotion by lavishing on him a jar of very expensive ointment.  The gospel says it’s worth 300 denarii.  A denarius was a day’s wage for a workingman; so Mary’s demonstrating intense devotion to Jesus—in our cash terms, about $3,600.  But, as Mastercard might say, it’s priceless.

Mary, of all the people in the story, is rightly focused.  She’s focused on Jesus.  We might not have lavish gifts to present to Jesus, but we can give him our full devotion day by day—to love him more dearly, as they sing in Godspell.*  And that’s worth more than 300 denarii.

Judas objects to Mary’s lavishness.  Piously, he pretends to care about the poor.  Sometimes we make lousy excuses for what we really think.  His real motive, St. John tells us, is greed, selfishness.  That greed a few days later leads him to betray Jesus.  So we must always evaluate our motives carefully and try to keep them properly directed—like Mary, directed toward Jesus.

* Salesian's dramatics club performed Godspell during the first weekend of April.

Homily for Palm Sunday

Homily for Palm Sunday

April 10, 2022
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

Sometimes people joke that on Palm Sunday we see the A & P Catholics—people who come to church when something’s being given away:  ashes or palms.  It’s certainly good that people come to church, whatever their reason.  We pray that the symbolism of ashes or palms will register in their hearts, that the grace of God may touch them—not only them but all of us because all of us need God’s grace.  We need to repent of our sins, which the ashes symbolize.  We need to claim Jesus as our Savior, which the palms symbolize.

But every Sunday the Church is giving away something else free of charge, something far more precious than ashes or palms.  Every Sunday—at every Mass, in fact, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is offered to us.

Ashes and palms are only symbols.  The Body and Blood of Jesus are real.  Hidden under the appearance of bread and wine, Jesus Christ comes to our altar and offers himself to us as the food of eternal life.  Isn’t that worth coming for every week?  What a blessing!  What a grace, that the Son of God comes to us to take away our sins and to make us part of God’s family, God’s beloved children, destined to live with him forever.

Come every Sunday, beloved sons and daughters of God, to be given this wonderful gift:  the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Salesian Brother Artemides Zatti to Be Canonized

Salesian Brother Artemides Zatti 

to Be Canonized

(ANS – Vatican – April 8, 2022) – On April 9, 2022, the Holy Father received in audience His Eminence Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints. During the audience, the Supreme Pontiff authorized him to promulgate the decree concerning the miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Artemides Zatti, professed layman of the Salesian Society of St. John Bosco, born on October 12, 1880, in Boretto, Italy, and died on March 15, 1951, in Viedma, Argentina.

The miracle recognized on Saturday for canonization dates back to 2016 with the healing of a Filipino man from Tanauan Batangas, who suffered near fatal severe ischemic stroke, worsened by heavy bleeding. His family did not have the means to pay for his operation and brought him home on August 21.

On August 24, however, he suddenly removed the nasogastric tube providing him with nourishment and oxygen, asked for something to eat, and in the following days, resumed his normal life. It was his brother, a Salesian coadjutor in Rome, who, on the same day he was admitted to hospital, had begun to pray for the intercession of Blessed Artemides Zatti.

This act of the Holy Father opens the way for the canonization of Blessed Artemides. The date of the canonization will be decided by the Supreme Pontiff during an ordinary consistory.

Artemides Zatti was born in Boretto (Reggio Emilia). It did not take long for him to experience the hardship of sacrifice, so much so, that at the age of nine he was already earning his living as a farmhand. Forced by poverty, the Zatti family emigrated to Argentina at the beginning of 1897 and settled in Bahia Blanca. Young Artemides immediately began to frequent the parish run by the Salesians, finding his spiritual director in Fr. Carlo Cavalli the pastor, a pious man of extraordinary goodness. It was he who directed Artemides toward Salesian life. He was 20 years old when he went to the aspirantate in Bernal.

While caring for a young priest suffering from tuberculosis, he contracted the disease. The paternal concern of Fr. Cavalli – who followed him from afar – facilitated Zatti to go to the Salesian house in Viedma, where there was a more suitable climate and above all a missionary hospital with a good Salesian nurse who was like a doctor: Fr. Evasio Garrone. Fr. Garrone invited Artemides to pray to Mary Help of Christians to be healed, suggesting that he make a promise: “If she heals you, you will dedicate your whole life for these sick people.”

Artemides made this promise willingly and was mysteriously cured. He would later say: "I believed, I promised, I got healed.” His path was now clearly marked out, and he embarked on it with great enthusiasm. With humility and docility, he accepted the renunciation of the priesthood, tho it cost him much. He made his first profession as a coadjutor brother on January 11, 1908, and his perpetual profession on February 8, 1911. In keeping with the promise he had made to our Lady, he immediately consecrated himself totally to the hospital, initially taking charge of the adjoining pharmacy, and when Fr. Garrone died in 1913, the entire responsibility of the hospital fell on his shoulders. He became deputy director, administrator, and an expert nurse, esteemed by all the patients and by the doctors themselves, who gave him greater and greater freedom of action.

His service was not limited to the hospital but extended to the whole city, and even to the town on the opposite bank of the Negro River, Patagones. In case of necessity, he travelled at all hours of the day and night, in any weather, to the hovels of the suburbs, and doing everything free of charge. His fame as a saintly infirmarian spread throughout southern Argentina, and he received sick people from all over Patagonia. It was not uncommon for the sick to prefer the visit of the holy infirmarian to that of the doctors.

Artemides Zatti loved his sick in a very touching way. He saw Jesus himself in them, so much that when he asked the sisters for clothing for a new boy who had just arrived, he would say: “Sister, do you have a shirt for a 12-year-old Jesus?” His care for the sick was done with great care that had its own delicate nuances. Some people remember seeing him carrying the body of a patient who had died during the night on his shoulders toward the mortuary, to remove it from the sight of the other patients: and he did this while reciting the De profundis. Faithful to the Salesian spirit and to the motto bequeathed by Don Bosco to his sons – “work and temperance” – he carried out a prodigious activity with habitual readiness of spirit, with a heroic spirit of sacrifice, with absolute detachment from any personal satisfaction, without ever taking holidays or rest. It’s said that the only five days of the rest he had were spent in prison! Yes, he had also known the prison, because of the escape of a prisoner from the hospital, for which the blame was on him. He was absolved, and his return home was a triumph.

He was a man very easy to deal with, with a great energy of sympathy that he manifested and gladly spent time to talk with the simple people. Above all, he was a man of God, and he radiated Him. One doctor at the hospital, who was an unbeliever, said, “When I saw Bro. Zatti my disbelief faltered.” And another exclaimed: “I started believing in God ever since I met Bro. Zatti.”

In 1950, the tireless infirmarian fell from a ladder, and it was then that the symptoms of a cancer appeared, which he himself clearly diagnosed. He continued to carry out his mission for another year, however, until after heroically accepting his suffering, he passed away on March 15, 1951, in full consciousness, surrounded by the affection and gratitude of an entire population.

He was declared Venerable on July 7, 1997, and beatified by St. John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square on April 14, 2002.

Salesian Houses Are Oases to Help Young People

Salesian Houses Are Oases 

to Help Young People

(ANS – Lviv, Ukraine – April 6, 2022) – According to their own spirit of hospitality, Salesians all over the world never make distinctions when it comes to caring for people in need; but for children, teens, and young people there is, by charism, a heightened focus. About 2,000 Ukrainian minors have been helped and accompanied; here we limit the count to those who continue to be cared for in Ukraine and those taken in by Poland and Slovakia. Many others could be added if an immediate census were to be carried out in the other front-line organizations. The Salesians host, console, help, and do their best to bring a smile back to their faces, even if only for a moment, in the conviction that, as Jesus said, "Whenever you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me” (Matt 25:40).

Even in this emergency, Salesian houses do not lose their connotation: most of their activities are directed toward education, socialization, and assistance in every dimension of the young person.

“First, our schools serve children during their normal hours of work,” explains Fr. George Menamparampil, head of the Salesian General Coordination for Emergency Response. “Furthermore, our youth centers are open for children every day for daytime activities. And in any case, the minors who currently reside in Salesian homes receive lodging, food, and all the help they need 24 hours a day, including education, recreation, and the care that every child or young person needs.”

Salesian centers in Ukraine have all remained open. “We asked ourselves what we could do and decided to make ourselves available to the people, those who were living there and the refugees who’d arrive,” Fr. Daniel Antunez, president of Missioni Don Bosco of Turin, told Avvenire, an Italian Catholic daily newspaper, after visiting Salesian works in Ukraine and Poland as part of this emergency.

Today, in Ukraine devastated by the bombings, about 680 minors – equal to 80% of the total – continue to attend classes remotely at Salesian educational centers; youth centers are still a corner of refuge and hope for 208 of them; and 70 children, teens, and young people are properly housed in the works of Don Bosco’s sons – for a total of 958 minors.

In Poland, there are 398 minors placed in Salesian schools, 309 in youth centers, and 210 welcomed into houses – for a total of 917.

In Slovakia, instead, there are 60 children in youth centers and 50 welcomed into Salesian houses – another 110. Thus, the overall total in the three countries considered rises to 1,985 minors being supported.

From Moldova, there is no precise count of minors, but it can be said that the Salesian house in Chisinau is currently hosting around 40 refugees, and that since the beginning of the war the Salesian center has offered a space of refreshment and peace to over 1,000 people.

In the face of a tragedy as immense and senseless as war, Don Bosco’s sons can do only their best to help physically and spiritually their neighbors, and among them in particular, minors. “We work to meet people’s needs for food and housing,” concludes Fr. Antunez, not before renewing the typically Salesian invitation to pray to Mary Help of Christians: “She is the mother of our Congregation; Don Bosco said that if we pray to Mary Help of Christians, the miracle is certain.”

In Chisinau, Salesians Distribute Aid, Affection, Attention

In Chisinau, Salesians Distribute Aid, Affection, Attention

(ANS – Chisinau, Moldova – March 30, 2022) – The drama of the war in Ukraine is causing enormous difficulties not only in the country that has been bombed but also in the surrounding ones. Although Poland is the country that is taking on the greatest burden of welcoming refugees – a laudable burden that has been praised several times by the Pope, but which undoubtedly also has significant economic and social costs – other countries are also strongly challenged: among these is Moldova, where the Salesians present in Chisinau, in the capital, are also involved in welcoming refugees.

With a population of about 2.6 million, Moldova has welcomed about 350,000 people, of whom 100,000 have remained in the country. As specified by Nicolae Popescu, foreign minister of the small republic, this has meant a 4% increase in nation’s entire population.

The Salesian house in Chisinau has turned into a reception center for refugees.  Every day it hosts and helps those who are in transit to other nations, offering them a place to sleep, food, medical help, psychological and spiritual support, etc.

The work, started in 2005 and erected canonically in 2007, belongs to the province of Northeastern Italy, which supports it by sending a group of volunteers every week from Italy to help in the reception activities. To date, four groups of young volunteers have already left.

“We’ve managed to help a little bit here as it’s not easy to house people escaping from Ukraine, and we have seen not only Ukrainians but people of many nationalities,” shares Fr. Corneliu Gabor, a Romanian Salesian, normally stationed in Verona. “Thanks to this youth center, to many Moldovan citizens, also, many people who arrived with frightened faces have found here some serenity or at least a smile. And I was also struck by the fact that many of the refugees themselves began to collaborate, to serve others as well.”

In addition to offering emergency aid, the Salesian house makes its charism and its own resources available to the refugees. And the effect can be seen when, for example, the children and young people who have just arrived, even before going to the refreshment points dedicated to them, run to play in the courtyards with their peers, to recover a little normality, a little of their right to be children and not to be catapulted into a war that adults wanted.

The solidarity commitment of the Salesians of Chisinau did not leave the local media indifferent, and in fact, several videos were aired on national television news programs as a testimony to the hospitality of Don Bosco’s sons. On Monday, March 28, the Italian ambassador to Moldova, Lorenzo Tomassoni, and the Italian vice minister for Sustainable Infrastructure and Mobility, Teresa Bellanova, also visited the Salesian home.

“I want to thank the friends and the great organization that I found here at the Don Bosco Center: a human, sincere, open, selfless welcome with lots of love for others. In these moments of anguish, they made me hope again!” is the testimony of a refugee who escaped from Odessa and is headed for Italy.

Street Children at Heart of Salesian Apostolate in Kuajok

Street Children at the Heart 

of Salesian Apostolate in Kuajok

(ANS – Kuajok, South Sudan – March 30, 2022) – Only three years ago the large compound of Don Bosco Kuajok was bare land without even much agricultural use. Now Don Bosco Kuajok, the youngest Salesian community in South Sudan (2020 canonical erection) with 3 Salesians (director Fr. Leo Aorckianathan) becomes a soul of this part of Kuajok, the capital of Warrap State in South Sudan.

This new Salesian center has a primary school with 300 children and 9 teachers, a program for street children (CCC – Children Care Center) that includes a daily half-day program for de-addiction and rehabilitation of street children who are roaming the market in the center of Kuajok. A daily youth center open to the neighborhood has become a point of reference of this distant part of Kuajok, inhabited mostly by internally displaced persons.

Thanks to Bro. Lothar Wagner (who is now at Monrovia, Liberia), an adequate program of assistance and rehabilitation of the street children was started by this young community in 2019. So far, some 150 children (between 8-17 years of age) have returned to their families and some of them have even started their schooling with the help of the Salesians. Thanks to Don Bosco Mission in Bonn, Germany, which sponsors this program, the Salesians are able to focus on this educational-pastoral side of this outreach mission.

The large compound of 200x400 meters is now home to the primary school, a humble Salesian house (without rooms for Salesian guests, having only 2 possible volunteer rooms) and is being slowly developed. The Salesian lay mission partners (9 teachers and house staff) come from the local community. Don Bosco in a short time has become part of the local territory – thanks to the simple health services offered (clinic and medical dispensary) and the community car that in an emergency can take local citizens to the town hospital in case of strong malaria attack or other need.

Street children and the 3-member Salesian community have many dreams: young people without any school experience dream to become teachers, and the Salesians dream to provide more qualification to their teachers and social workers. At present Kuajok together with Wau (seat of the nearby diocese) are the 2 venues where Don Bosco’s dear children are closely accompanied by the Salesians in South Sudan.

During the 3 days of an extraordinary visitation, Fr. Vaclav Klement (in photo) had a good chance of deep insight in the hearts of these youths and their Salesians working with many lay people.

The Sudan and South Sudan Delegation of the East Africa Province has at present 3 communities in Sudan and 5 in South Sudan, with 50+ confreres. 15 of them are in initial formation; and majority are missionaries from Kenya, Tanzania, India, Vietnam, Burma, Italy, Poland, Malawi, and South Sudan.

Homily for Thursday, 5th Week of Lent

Homily for Thursday
5th Week of Lent

April 7, 2022
Gen 17: 3-9
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, New Rochelle

(by Guercino)

“Your name shall be Abraham” (Gen 17: 5).

You and many other religious have the practice to taking a new name when you make your profession.  The Popes do the same when they assume office.  The change signifies that you’ve become a new person, a new creation, thru your religious profession.      

God does that with Abram, “the father is exalted,” extending his name to Abraham, “father of a host of nations,” according to the etymology of Gen 17:4.  His covenantal relationship with God makes him a new character before God.

Baptismal font

St. Ursula's Church, Mt. Vernon, N.Y.

All of us, Christian Brothers or others, received a new name and entered a covenantal relationship with God when we were baptized into Jesus Christ.  We assumed the name “Christian.”  That lofty name was bestowed on us as a gift from God, as noble as the call God gave to Abraham, even nobler than our call as religious.

God said to Abraham, “I will render you exceedingly fertile” (17:6).  He doesn’t make us fertile in physical offspring as he did Abraham.  He makes us fertile in the workings of grace, in propagating the divine life to humanity, because we bear the name and the power of Christ our Lord.

Salesian Solidarity Generates Happiness and Gratitude

Salesian Solidarity Generates Happiness and Gratitude

(ANS – Odessa, Ukraine – April 1, 2022) – “We are truly happy and grateful for the affection that Salesians around the world are showing us, bringing all these wonderful gifts to meet the needs of our parishioners,” says Fr. Edward Mackiewicz, rector of the basilica of St. Peter the Apostle in Odessa, unable to hide his happiness as he moves around the premises of the youth center of his parish, now used as a warehouse to store the boxes full of foodstuffs that have arrived thanks to international Salesian solidarity.

There are sacks of flour, cans of oil, baby food, crates and boxes of pasta, and more. “People come here, and we share with them what we have, what we ourselves have received,” he continues. “There really are many people who are in need, but despite everything, we are indeed managing and happy about doing so.”

To work for the needs of the Ukrainian population in the best possible way, Salesians Fr. Jacek Zdzieborski, director of the Salesian Mission Office in Warsaw, and Fr. Piotr Gozdalski, director of the Salesian Missionary Foundation Don Bosco, are continuing their visit to the works of the Salesian Family in Lviv, Ukraine. After meeting with the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, they went to the homes of their Salesian confreres to encourage them and to take note of their needs.

Meanwhile, Germany continues to make its great effort of cooperation that serves to ensure precisely the needs of the Salesians in Ukraine and neighboring countries. Fr. Josef Grünner, in charge of the Salesian Mission Office in Bonn, reported on the donations collected by his institute together with Don Bosco Mondo, the German Province, the Don Bosco Foundation, and other Salesian partners: a truly significant amount, all committed to this emergency and to successive projects.

The various German Salesian realities have already made it possible to purchase 300 beds with blankets and pillows, which, thanks to the assistance of the Salesian Mission Office of Warsaw, have already arrived in Lviv; with about a third of the funds raised, four other projects have been launched: to equip a bakery and a laundry in the center hosting the refugees in Lviv; to increase the capacity of the same center by another 40 units; to supply it with a further important supply of medicines, and to give economic support to the Salesian communities of Romania and Moldavia also engaged in welcoming the population fleeing from Ukraine.

And while the Salesian Don Bosco Jugendhilfe Weltweit, active in Beromünster, Switzerland, and also part of the German Province, has participated in this huge solidarity effort with a large donation for the Salesians from Slovakia, the German Province has also made a direct commitment to welcoming refugees: 46 are welcomed in Munich, more than half of them minors and 8 orphans; another 30 in Aschau/Waldwinkel, 20 in Beromünster, 1 woman in Bonn, 3 Ensdorf families, 9 people in Pfaffendorf.

In the near future, there are also plans to welcome 12 young people from Lviv to the house in Benediktbeuern and to place an entire class of 15 Ukrainian students at the Salesian school in Essen in the summer.

“I bow before all our supporters, our friends. God bless you!” concludes Fr. Mackiewicz, as he proudly displays the cross given to him by the bishop early last month, which, he says, represents in this time of war “the strength of God’s love.”

Homily for 5th Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
5th Sunday of Lent

April 3, 2022
John 8: 1-11
St. Joseph, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more” (John 8: 11).      

(by Lucas Cranach the Elder)

In last week’s gospel (Luke 15:1-3), Jesus’ opponents complained, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (3:2).  Today’s gospel gives us further interaction between Jesus and his opponents and between Jesus and sinners.  This 1st episode in the 8th chapter of St. John is one of the most intriguing stories in the gospels.  All of us wonder at the elements that are omitted.  Where’s the man with whom this adultress was consorting?  What was Jesus writing on the ground?

Those are interesting questions, to be sure.  More important, however, is what is included in the story.

s for the missing parts:  We may suspect that this unfortunate woman was entrapped; that she was set up because the scribes and Pharisees really wanted to trap Jesus, and they were using her as bait.  That would be why they didn’t need to produce her partner in crime, who may have been in collusion with them.  This is only speculation; it’s not in the gospel.  What is evident, tho, is that the scribes and Pharisees have no intention of carrying out the Law of Moses in full, for that dictates in Deuteronomy ch. 22:  “If a man is discovered having relations with a woman who is married to another, both the man and the woman … shall die.  Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst” (22:22).  History and our common human experience repeatedly show us the depths to which we can sink when we don’t focus our lives on God, or when we sometimes lose our focus.  I mean here the scribes and Pharisees, not the woman they’ve dragged before Jesus.

As for Jesus’ scribbling in the dirt, barrels of ink have been consumed in writing about that.  I’ll spill a little more—HP toner, actually.  Perhaps Jesus was listing some sins of the accusers standing before him; if so, it didn’t serve to silence them, for they persisted in asking his judgment (8:7).  Perhaps he was writing the name of just one individual, the missing partner in sin.  Perhaps he was just doodling—stalling for time while he weighed his response, or making a pregnant pause to give the lynch mob—because that’s what stands before him—time to think about what they’re about.

It’s not only the woman who’s on trial here.  So is Jesus:  “they said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him” (8:6).  He seems to be in a position of having to violate the Law of Moses by overlooking this woman’s sin, or to approve the Law’s harshness by permitting its sentence to be carried out.  Since such an execution which would, technically, also violate the Roman government’s control over death sentences, that too would give them something to charge against Jesus.

Jesus will have no part in the role of judge here.  He’s been seated in the position of a teacher (8:2), and takes on a teaching role by turning the Law of Moses against the woman’s accusers.  The Law required that the witnesses to a capital crime be the 1st ones to carry it out, i.e., to cast the 1st stone (Deut 17:7).  So Jesus tells the mob, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the 1st to throw a stone at her” (8:7).

Don’t you and I love to find fault with our neighbors, co-workers, employers, maybe our parish priests or our children’s teachers or school administrators?  How often has Pope Francis condemned gossip, which too often amounts to character assassination.  We condemn everyone’s sins except our own.  So in this episode with the adultress, Jesus is telling us to examine our own consciences and be less concerned with the sins of others.

Jesus wrote on the ground.  No one can say with certainty what he wrote.  If it concerned anyone’s sins, what is certain is that his writing had no permanence.  It was in the dirt, easily scuffed out and forgotten—like our sins when we bring them before the compassion of Jesus.  So we’re not afraid to do that, to bring our sins big or small to Jesus in prayer and in the sacrament of Reconciliation—knowing that his mercy is more than enuf to reconcile us with God.

Finally, we note the dialog between Jesus and the unhappy woman left standing before him.  All thru this episode, Jesus has been seated, the position he’d taken while teaching the people (8:2) before the mob showed up.  Having bent down twice to write on the ground, now he straightens up to speak to the woman (8:10), still seated in the position of teacher but also of a judge.  He doesn’t condemn her, as he the sinless one might have, but pardons her—pardons her also with a command to turn away from sin.

We celebrate Jesus’ boundless mercy.  We have always to remember that he also orders us to keep from sin (as best we can in our imperfection)—not only from adultery but all the other violations of the commandments and all manner of sins against our neighbors as well as against God.  Jesus will always forgive what we do in our weakness.  He won’t forgive a heart hardened in sin, one that sees no need to repent or refuses to turn to God in sorrow.

So, brothers and sisters, we may make our own St. Paul’s words in our 2d reading:  “I have accepted the loss of all things”—whatever we take pride in, and our sins—“and I consider them so much rubbish”—Paul’s Greek word is stronger and could be rendered as “garbage” or, as the KJV and the Douay-Rheims Bible translate it, as “dung,” or as we might say, “poop” or “manure.”  Paul continues with his reason for putting “all things” aside as “so much rubbish”:  “that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own … but that which comes thru faith in Christ” (Phil 3:8-9).

Message of the Rector Major

THE MESSAGE OF THE RECTOR MAJOR

Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime, SDB

BETWEEN PAIN AND HOPE

We are witnesses to a living Gethsemane and Calvary. Let us hope also to see the Resurrection of this country and its people.

My dear friends, readers of Salesian media around the world,

As I write these lines to you, the media worldwide are giving, minute by minute, almost instantaneous news of the terrible war that is taking place in Ukraine. I am convinced that the vast majority of the Russian people do not want to harm anyone. Indeed, I think that most of us agree in describing what is happening in that land blessed by God as being terrible, unimaginable, and unbelievable in the 21st century, calling it total madness and true genocide. The thought of how we would feel if we were living that reality must, I suppose, shake us and fill us with sadness.

The sad reality is that, yet again, evil makes noise, destroys things and people, brings death, skews human lives, fractures families, etc. The good—so much good and solidarity—that we are witnessing even while rockets and long-range projectiles fall, is all done silently. This good tries to mitigate the pain, dry the tears, and provide human warmth. The human heart is capable of this, too. In situations such as these, we see the worst of human nature and the greatest beauty of the human heart simultaneously. We are witnesses to a living Gethsemane and Calvary. Let us hope also to see the Resurrection of this country and its people.

This very thing happened during that first Holy Week—with those who betrayed Jesus and in his pain, death sentence, silence, and radical loneliness. “Were it not for his Mother and the Beloved Disciple, he would have been totally abandoned.” God had the last word, however: the Resurrection, the “Other-Life.”

I do not know what this Easter season will bring with the war in Ukraine. I am writing in advance, and things change from day to day. I trust that peace will come with reasonableness, pressure from almost all nations, and the strength of human solidarity, and faith and prayer.

As I write this greeting, we are on day 10 of this terrible war that has displaced a million and a half people. While this is true, I want to underline that the solidarity, fraternity, and humanity of simple hearts and families, in addition to the response of many governments, are the things that help me feel better about being a human being. If it were not for these realities, I don’t think we could forgive ourselves.

Our little grain of sand

I am in daily contact with our confreres and sisters in Ukraine and Poland. It gives me great peace to know that, as a Salesian Family, we are also offering our little grain of sand. I am happy to hear that the young people who had been received into our group home in Lviv have also been welcomed in Salesian houses in Slovakia. It gives me peace to know that the Salesian houses on the border between Poland and Ukraine have all opened their doors to take in those displaced by the war. Dozens of mothers and their children have been offered food, rooms, and places to live in dignity.

Acts of solidarity such as these are also coming from other nations and many other Salesian presences. Indeed, help is arriving from all over the Salesian world and all the provinces, regardless of size, according to each one’s possibilities. We are acting as the channel for sending monetary donations and shipments of medical supplies to the most remote places, thus bringing help to people who need it most. Albeit a grain of sand, we are tens of thousands of people and institutions who are helping the cause.

Prayer for Peace

All is done in silence—not “making noise” like the bad news—without advertisement, just in solidarity and in simplicity. It is time to move from Gethsemane and Calvary to the hope and strength of the Resurrection.

It is very painful that, in this preparation for Holy Week and the holy solemnity of Easter, bombs, bullets, rifles, and death are present. Even amid this pain, I do not stop proclaiming that life is stronger, human fraternity is stronger, solidarity is stronger, the dignity of the person is stronger even when it’s trampled, and the help from brother to brother, sister to sister, is stronger—even if we do not know each other or speak the same language. Hope is more contagious.

I ask the Lord of Life in prayer to help us come to our senses—especially for those who have created this tragedy. I ask that peace win. I ask that hearts filled with true humanity not be silent.

May we do whatever each of us can, dear friends. Let’s join efforts with our voices, our helping hands, and our prayers.

May the Risen Lord fill us with his strength and his peace.

In Him,

Fr. Angel