{"id":1745,"date":"2019-08-06T11:44:12","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T18:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/?p=1745"},"modified":"2019-08-14T19:53:04","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T02:53:04","slug":"strenna-2020-presentation-of-the-theme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/2019\/08\/06\/strenna-2020-presentation-of-the-theme\/","title":{"rendered":"Strenna 2020: Presentation of the Theme"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYour will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven\u201d
\n<\/em><\/strong>(Matt 6:10)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGOOD CHRISTIANS AND UPRIGHT CITIZENS\u201d<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Note: While I was presenting the commentary on the 2019 Strenna to the Salesian Family in Valdocco (Turin), some were already asking for the draft of the 2020 Strenna, so that they could have it for the beginning of the educational-pastoral year in some parts of the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

I do this with joy, while insisting that this is only an outline, a draft with the essential points that I will develop when I prepare a meditated, interiorized, and calm reflection, one that is, as far as possible, profound and understandable at the same time.<\/em><\/p>\n

I would like the strenna to continue to help us have a central thread in the pastoral guidance of the New Year in every part of the world.\u00a0 I bless you all.<\/em><\/p>\n

After the meeting of the World Council of the Salesian Family in Turin in May, I decided to propose for the 2020 Strenna a theme that, in a paired form, embodies the essence of our Salesian education. \u00a0We received it from Don Bosco himself:\u00a0 to help our boys, girls, and young people be \u201cgood Christians and upright citizens.\u201d\u00a0 We need to deepen more and more our identity as evangelizers and educators of the Faith.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a growing fragility, and sometimes inability, in being apostles and missionaries to the young. \u00a0At the same time, there\u2019s the risk of not educating our young people to a strong sense of citizenship, social justice, and Gospel values that lead them to make their own a life program based on service to others, commitment to public life, personal honesty, an \u201callergy\u201d to all types of corruption, sensitivity to the world of immigrants, to creation, and to the \u201ccommon home\u201d that has been given to us, the commitment to protect the defenseless\u2014those who have no say and who are discarded.<\/p>\n

I wonder:\u00a0 if we can\u2019t educate to these values, what are we doing?\u00a0 What kind of evangelization are we carrying out in Jesus\u2019 name?<\/p>\n

Therefore, this educational commitment is today an expression of Jesus\u2019 words: \u00a0\u201cThy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven\u201d<\/em> (Matt 6:10).\u00a0 This is and will continue to be Don Bosco\u2019s true \u201cpolitics of the Our Father.\u201d<\/p>\n

INTRO. What do we mean by Don Bosco\u2019s \u201cpolitics of the Our Father\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since the reference to Don Bosco is so direct and touches on one of the most sensitive themes in his history \u201cwithin\u201d the social-political-ecclesial context in which he lived, I think it\u2019s important to pay attention to what our sources say on this subject.\u00a0 It\u2019s necessary to have a clear idea of what involvement in the polis<\/em> of his time was like for Don Bosco:\u00a0 his great \u201cyeses\u201d and his most firm \u201cnoes,\u201d which certainly can\u2019t be transferred unchanged into our context.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s strenna allows us to reconstruct what Don Bosco thought and how he acted among the young, with the intention of preparing them for the society in which they found themselves.\u00a0 Theirs was a society subject to dizzying changes in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, where poverty for many reached extreme levels:\u00a0 immense social and economic inequality, the growth of the phenomenon of begging, the abandonment of \u201cmigrant\u201d children, and so on\u2014all in 19th-century Italy.<\/p>\n

From the Biographical Memoirs<\/em>, the expression \u201cthe politics of the Our Father\u201d which Don Bosco used when he met with Pope Pius IX in 1867 has become well known.\u00a0 As soon as Don Bosco was in the presence of Pius IX, the Pope asked him with a smile,<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat politics would you adopt to overcome so many difficulties [concerning episcopal appointments for Piedmont]?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy politics,\u201d Don Bosco answered, \u201care the same as yours, Your Holiness\u2014the politics embodied in the Pater Noster. <\/em>When we say it, we daily pray that God\u2019s kingdom may come upon this earth and spread over it, that it may become ever more effective, powerful and glorious.\u00a0 Thy kingdom come!\u00a0 This is what really matters.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

In any case, this conviction, which we must understand in its depth and fullness (as we will do in the development of the text of strenna), is also illumined by other thoughts of Don Bosco\u2019s like the following:<\/p>\n

Truly we do not engage in politics with our work. \u00a0We respect constituted authority, we observe the laws that have to be observed, we pay taxes and we keep on going, asking only that they let us do good for poor youth and save souls. \u00a0If you want, we also play politics but in an entirely innocent way, indeed to the advantage of any Government. \u00a0Politics can be defined as the art and science of governing the State well. \u00a0Now the work of the Oratory in Italy, France, Spain, America, in every country where it has been established, working especially to offer relief to those most needy young people, tends to lesson [sic] the number of vagabonds and unruly types.\u00a0 It tends to decrease the number of young wrongdoers and thieves.\u00a0 It tends to empty out prisons. \u00a0In a word it tends to form upright citizens who, far from causing grief to public authorities, help them to keep order, calm and peace in society. \u00a0This is our politics. \u00a0This is the only thing we have been concerned about up till now and which will be our concern in the future. \u00a0It\u2019s precisely this approach that has allowed Don Bosco to do good firstly to you and then to so many other young people of every age and <\/a>place.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. These are the same \u201cpolitics\u201d that pushed Don Bosco to give effective answers to new and persistent emergencies for the good of his children.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. GOOD CHRISTIANS<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \uf0b7\u00a0 Living in the Faith of the Lord with the guidance of the Spirit<\/strong><\/p>\n

      There\u2019s a passage from the letter to the Ephesians that expresses the beauty and greatness of the love to which we are called; a horizon that must never fail, whatever the context to which we are sent. Nothing can take away the dignity and divine greatness that lies within and before every human life as its destiny.<\/em> The fact that it\u2019s Paul who says this, who had before him a world still all pagan, makes these words even more encouraging:<\/p>\n

      For this reason, I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.\u00a0 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.\u00a0 And I pray that you, rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord\u2019s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge\u2014that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God<\/a>. (Eph 3:14-19)<\/p>\n

      \uf0b7\u00a0 Living by listening to God, who speaks to us; living what is announced, with the need to evangelize and offer the first proclamation and catechesis<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

      \u201cThis Society\u2019s origins are found in the simple ca<\/a>techetical instructions conducted by Father John Bosco\u2026.\u201d[3]<\/a> \u00a0This brings us back to our origins and roots. \u00a0From Don Bosco we learned the evangelizing passion to bring every child, every young person to the encounter with Jesus.\u00a0 That is why we can never stop being evangelizers of the young, knowing that \u201cevangelization aims at a process of growth which entails taking seriously each person and God\u2019s plan for his or her life<\/a>\u201d (EG 160).<\/p>\n

      Our being educators and evangelizers of young people requires, on our part, above all, from personal experience, that we can say to young people with words, gestures, and actions that God loves them, that \u201cfor him, you have worth; you aren\u2019t insignificant.\u00a0 You are important to him<\/a>\u201d (CV 115).<\/p>\n

      \uf0b7\u00a0 True Christians and educators today with Salesian spirituality<\/strong><\/p>\n