(ANS – Rome) – The article in the October 1886 Salesian Bulletin dedicated to deepening the Salesian devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus focuses on the love which flowed from the Heart of Jesus towards the smallest and most defenceless in human society: children. A true turning point in the understanding and consideration of children in society, the coming of Jesus opened up a new way of seeing, loving and valuing them; a way and style of which Don Bosco was a standard bearer and of which his Salesians and the members of the Salesian Family are heirs.
The text opens with a harsh analysis of the ancient and pre-Christian world in relation to the condition reserved for children. The author evokes inhuman practices: ritual infanticides and human sacrifices, sex-selective killings, Greek and Roman laws that granted parents the right to suppress imperfect or unwanted children… Even philosophers such as Plato advocated the suppression of many children in the ideal state. In this barbaric scenario, the appearance of Christ marks a radical turning point.
The author of the article, Fr John Bonetti, examines point by point the Gospel passage in which Jesus welcomes, blesses and sets children as models for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. And from there he notes how the Heart of Jesus is revealed as the source of a new conception of childhood, founded on tenderness, respect and sacredness.
‘Let the little ones come to me’ says Jesus. And the gesture of holding them to his heart and blessing them takes on a profound symbolic meaning: children thus become a representation of chastity, simplicity and evangelical humility – central values of the Christian message.
Jesus, through his actions and words, founds a true pedagogy of respect for childhood. His example is reflected in the Church’s educational mission. ‘We do not allow any opportunity to escape him, to inculcate in his disciples and, through them, in their successors and in all men of the world, the greatest love, the most affectionate solicitude for children and at the same time the highest reverence for them.’
That is why even today the Church, and especially the Salesian Family, recognises in children not only the future of society, but already the living seed of humanity and faith. The education of youth thus becomes one of the noblest offices of those who wish to follow Christ, both as parents and as educators.
If, therefore, forming righteous and strong souls from an early age is a sublime and honourable vocation for those who perform it, on the other hand, severe condemnation is imposed on those who scandalise or corrupt the little ones. Jesus pronounces words of fire: ‘Woe to him who scandalises one of these little ones…’. Fr Bonetti exemplifies several instances where this threat is directed: against negligent parents, unfaithful teachers, and – with particular verve – immoral writers who, by their example or their writings, poison the minds and hearts of the young.
In an impassioned crescendo, the author warns against that culture that neglects the souls of children and recalls the words of Giuseppe Baretti of Turin, according to whom the ungodly poet or writer is a social criminal.
The conclusion is a fervent appeal to young people: to be grateful to the Heart of Jesus for the love it has bestowed on them, and to respond to such generosity with ‘sincere affection and industrious devotion’, following the Gospel’s indications and shunning evil inclinations. In this way they themselves, the privileged recipients of the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, will be able to build a more Christian and therefore more human society.
The full text of the article written for the 1886 Salesian Bulletin is available in the original Italian version of the time, below.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
The Heart of Jesus and Childhood
There is no one who does not feel a painful pang in his heart when he contemplates the miserable condition in which children lay before the appearance of Christianity. What horrors, oh my God, does history ever present to us in this regard! Behold, in fact, there in Egypt, in that very Egypt called the cradle of the most glorious civilization, children exposed to death on the banks of the Nile, as happened to Moses. Behold, not far away, those others thrown into the fire before the eyes of their mothers as a sacrifice to the cruel Moloch. Behold, the Arabs who very often slaughter newborn girls.
Nor is it to be believed that Athens and Rome behaved better on this point. We see the legislator Solon in most cases allowing parents to kill their children freely. We see the Roman laws of the Twelve Tables condemning to death children with falsified person. We see, in the very first century of the common era, according to an accredited historian, recently born children slaughtered to testify to the grief for the death of Germanicus by that Roman people, who claimed to impose themselves on the whole world for culture and wisdom. What more? Do we not perhaps see Plato, that is to say, the greatest genius of pagan antiquity, order in his ideal of a perfect State, that many children should be killed and the others should be raised in such a way that the mothers would no longer have to recognize them as their children?
But behold, the face of things changes. Those children, a short while ago the object of cruel contempt or barbaric ferocity, rise to a new life; a new halo surrounds their foreheads, their eyes sparkle with lights of love, their faces are colored with a ray of paradise. What has happened? It is the Heart of Jesus that has brought about this miraculous transformation. Oh my God, how holy and beautiful are children in your eyes! Jesus has just finished speaking to the crowded crowd about virginal chastity, that chastity, that is, which only the perfect understand and which constitutes the most luminous prerogative of the Catholic priesthood, as it is for the Church the most powerful cause of those miracles of charity which we witness every day. Then behold, a group of children break through the crowd that was blocking the way and approach Jesus. They are the mothers themselves who take their children in their arms and want to present them to him so that he can bless them. In vain the disciples rebuke them, they reproach them; the contradiction, which original sin had placed, beyond the natural difference, between the child and the man, had to fall forever. And it is the Heart of Jesus that accomplishes this work of holy destruction, thanks to the harmony of those things that seem the most disparate. “Oh! leave – he says to the disciples – leave those little children and do not forbid them to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Truly I say to you that whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, will in no way enter it.” And then, clasping those children to his heart like a tender father, he places his hands on their heads and blesses them. Consoling words, sublime manifestations of his most affectionate heart, which reveal both his ineffable tenderness and the very reason for this tenderness, since in children, personifying the celestial fragrance of virginal chastity and the spirit of humble simplicity, he recognizes the most wise Jesus and places before us as a model that very high perfection, which he had come to announce. It is therefore not surprising if we see him for this very reason not letting slip any opportunity that presents itself to him to inculcate in his disciples and through them in their successors and in all men of the world the greatest loving kindness, the most affectionate solicitude towards children and at the same time the highest reverence towards them. And indeed Jesus, who elsewhere after having tenderly taken a child in his arms and placed him in the midst of his listeners, said to them those memorable words: “Whoever receives such a child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, not only receives me, but him who sent me”. Perhaps, a profound writer observes here, by caressing and embracing that child, he wanted to give himself as an example to his ministers in the Church, that they should make all the children and all the little ones of the world their family, and that they should be their children. A tradition of the Greek church has it that that child caressed by Christ was later a hero and bishop of Antioch and was called Ignatius the martyr. And it is for this reason that the Catholic Church has always considered one of its greatest and most important duties to be that of the education of youth. Is not the child himself the man limited to his early years? Is he not the hope and support of the family, the human race that is reborn, the fatherland that perpetuates itself, humanity that is renewed in its flower? “What is greater,” exclaims St. John Chrysostom, “than to direct the minds and inform the hearts of children in good manners?” Quid majus quam animis moderari atque adolescentulorum fingere mores?
But alas! The heart of Jesus is suddenly troubled, his face becomes severe and threatening; his voice takes on a fierce and fearful tone. “Woe,” he cries to those present and to those to come, “woe to anyone who gives scandal to one of these little ones who believe in me! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he himself were drowned in the depths of the sea. Be careful not to despise one of these little children, for I tell you that their angels continually behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” And oh! would that this terrible threat, these woes, which true love for childhood tore from the mouth of the most gentle Jesus, were everywhere deeply engraved and meditated. Yes, woe to those parents who with words or deeds give a bad example to their children, through culpable negligence or more culpable interest entrust them to perverse educators; Woe to those traitorous teachers who with sarcasm and lies against religion, with sordid tales and sordid actions become rapacious wolves of the souls of their pupils; woe to those sold-out writers who with irreligious and immoral books and newspapers poison and corrupt the minds and hearts of present and future youth. Yes, future, because you will be dust, oh impious and irreverent writers, but your infamous work of destruction will unfortunately live on. Similar to those victims who once sacrificed themselves on the tombs to appease their shadows, all those who in reading will have lost their honesty and their faith, will be just as many victims, who will come to sacrifice themselves on your tomb, not to give you peace, but to take it away from you forever if it were ever possible for you to have it; you will no longer live, but you will continue to corrupt; every filthy or impious page of yours will be the ruin of a principle, the loss of a virtue, and so, although extinct, your work of iniquity will be perpetuated, of moral destruction in comparison with which the highwayman who robs and the henchman who kills are less guilty. “The poet – wrote the Turinese Baretti already a century ago, highly angry with his own – the poet (and the same can be said of any writer in general), who sacrifices to the altar of lust or to the idol of impiety is a scoundrel that society has an interest in exterminating as it exterminates poisoners and murderers. The poet must never forget that the years will come one day to sit heavily on his shoulders accompanied by remorse; woe to him if he has in his verses led astray from good manners, from rigid morality and from religion”.
Ah! Therefore, dear young people, be grateful to the Heart of Jesus for the great affection He bears you, for the immense good He has done for you and continues to do for you, for the more than paternal concern He has for your corporal and spiritual salvation. Imprint this gratitude deeply in your mind and in your heart, manifest this gratitude frankly with words and actions. Let affection, devotion to the Heart of Jesus, be the work of your whole life. But let it be a sincere affection, let it be an active devotion, consecrating your heart to Him from now on and resolving to flee with holy horror everything that could tarnish its candor or diminish its noblest impetus.
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