Dear confreres,

Today is Ash Wednesday and our Lenten preparation for Easter begins. Love of Christ, the Friend and Savior of the young, and following in his footsteps, constitute the very soul of our vocation. In the sacrament of the Eucharist the Lord urges us daily to renew with joy our dedication and labors for the young and the working classes.

My travels through much of the Salesian world in the last few years have made one thing very clear to me: there is a colossal need everywhere of the Salesian vocation - in ever-increasing numbers and in greater efficiency, authenticity and generosity. In every continent there are so many young people hungering and thirsting for truth and love; they are restlessly in search of friends like Don Bosco.

I have just returned from my third visit to Africa: this time to the west of the continent. I was able to speak with our first missionaries in Senegal and the neighboring countries. There is an urgent need in the missions of a complete Salesian presence: not just us Salesians, but also Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, co-workers who are inspired with our Founder’s project for youth and the working classes. The urgent needs of the countless number of those for whom we work concern us deeply and make us realize that Don Bosco’s mission demands not only our own consecrated presence but all the Salesian Family with its various groups.

In January, before leaving for Dakar, I was able to be present at the Salesian Family’s Week of Spirituality held at the Generalate; the topic was Vocations in the Salesian Family. I was able to take part in a Symposium on the Salesian Family¹ in which our specialists examined in depth its history and charism.

At the conclusion of the General Chapter of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians I was particularly struck by an article in their new Constitutions that gave me much pleasure; article 3 belongs to the section that describes the Institute: it says, "Our Institute is part of the Salesian Family that puts into practice the spirit and mission of Don ways and expresses its perennial freshness. The Rector Major of the Society of St. Francis de Sales, as Don Bosco’s successor, is its animator of unity. In the Salesian Family we share a spiritual heritage of the Founder, and we offer, as happened at Mornese, the distinctive contribution of our vocation".²

Indeed after my letters to the Don Bosco Volunteers³ and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians,⁴ and the recognition by the Salesian Family that the Rector Major, successor of Don Bosco, is the center of unity and animation of their mutual communion, and after the careful study made by the Councilor for the Salesian Family during the four years of his appointment, it seems that this is the proper time to discuss the topic of the Salesian Family. Father John Raineri too has often asked me to make it the subject of a circular letter so as to alert all confreres to the urgent importance of their acceptance of their responsibilities in this matter with greater awareness and effectiveness. For all these reasons I invite you to reflect on this facet of our vocation that is so relevant and fruitful. I refer to the Salesian Family as described in article 5 of our Constitutions and the corresponding text of the Special General Chapter.⁵

I invite you, dear confreres, to meditate on this matter to discuss it in community and to put it in your good prayers.

Don Bosco’s Salesian Family is an ecclesial fact.

It means sharing in Don Bosco’s spirit and mission with the resultant links between the various groups — Salesian confreres, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Co-operators and other later groups.

All together constitute within the Church a kind of spiritual kinship. Such a communion "has its origin in a complex historical fact. In order to fulfill his vocation to save poor and abandoned youth, Don Bosco sought a wide-spread grouping of apostolic forces linked together in the unity and variety of a family.’⁶

The concept has been lived out and tested for more than a hundred years.

After Vatican II the People of God had the duty of clarifying their identities and re-establishing their various charisms, and this called for reflection and renewal. The result was that those who shared the same charism were moved to develop a more explicit awareness and a closer union and collaboration among themselves.

All this makes it clear that the Salesian Family is not something novel, imaginary or utopian. It is a concrete fact, a spiritual reality. It has its own proper history, its own deep truth; and it makes serious demands that must be met by our fidelity to Don Bosco and our mission today.

"The Salesian Family", we read in the SGC, 11 is an ecclesial reality which becomes a sign and witness of the vocation of its members through their special mission according to the spirit of Don Bosco.

"The Salesian Family, in line with the Church’s teaching about herself, is an expression of communion consisting of different ways of serving the People of God and integrating various vocations, so as to show forth the richness of the Founder’s charism.

‘The Salesian Family develops a unique spirituality, charismatic by nature, which enriches the whole Body of the Church and constitutes an utterly distinctive Christian pedagogy."⁷

Perhaps some of us have not yet made the effort to examine closely and objectively the providential steps that led to Don Bosco’s becoming a Founder, and the total impact on the Church of his Salesian Family. We must gain greater insight into the creativeness of Don Bosco and the apostolic perspective of his charism; he deserves our recognition and respect as one of the really great founders of the Church.

Our Father knew he was called by god to undertake a vast mission on behalf of the young ; to achieve this he saw clearly that he was called to be a Founder not simply of a Religious Institute but of a mighty spiritual and apostolic movement. The vast horizons he envisioned were inspired by God and the extensive and complex needs of those entrusted to his care.

He felt the clarion call to undertake a distinctive salvation project, and set about translating it into practice on a large and organized scale that was to involve available forces. To quote him: "Once it was enough to unite in prayer; but today evil is so prevalent, especially affecting young boys and girls that we need united action".⁸ On another occasion he wrote, "We have initiated a series of projects that in the eyes of worldly people would appear impractical and crazy; however, God has blessed their beginnings and they are going ahead successfully. All the more reason for prayer, thanksgiving, help and vigilance".⁹ Don Bosco was a man of generous horizons and daring courage; to carry out his unique vocation he marshaled all his talents of intellect, creativity and courage, and was on too by the inspiration and graces of the Holy Spirit.

"At times he seemed to feel a kind of universal responsibility for abandoned youth; but he was well aware that the problems of the young were too vast for his works to cope with civil and ecclesial responsibilities. In both cases it meant inviting people to interest themselves in the young when they were not officially members of his institutions and worked instead in parishes, in their families, in other cities districts".¹⁰

The problems of the multitudes of today’s young people in need vastly outnumber those of Don Bosco’s time; and there is obviously a far greater urgency to widen our horizons in our interpretation and promotion of the Salesian vocation.

The SGC had already seen the Salesian Family as one of the main avenues of our renewal: "‘Salesians’, says Document 1, no. 151, ‘cannot fully rethink their vocation in the Church without reference to those who together with them carry out the will of the Founder; hence they seek a greater union of all whilst preserving the genuine diversity of each’".¹¹

This is a truth that demands our serious attention: our Salesian vocation, in its factual completeness, makes us participate vitally in an experience of the Holy Spirit lived and shared with so many others and in which there is mutual exchange of its wealth¹² and a more aware commitment to its tasks.¹³ Every confrere must realize that his religious profession introduces him into both Congregation and the Salesian Family: in this extensive field he will find so much that will help him towards holiness and apostolic collaboration; it opens up horizons of work that would seem to border on temerity; it puts him in the vanguard of ecclesial and civil action.

My dear confreres, we must see the Salesian Family as a very real fact; we must have faith in its growth: we must come to know and love its own special nature; we must realize its many requirements that will spur us on in fidelity to Don Bosco.

To understand better the living heritage bequeathed us by Don Bosco and the responsibilities that flow from it, we would do well to reflect a little on the importance in the Church God gives to every Founder.

Perhaps we are accustomed to regard Don Bosco as the "private property" of our Congregation. This would be to unwittingly distort his personality and reduce his function and transcendence. Naturally we have a special affinity with him that helps us more easily to approach him , know him, understand him and have a truer and more objective appreciation of him; but by the same token we should be the more anxious to better grasp his importance to the whole Church; for to lessen his ecclesial stature would mean lessening his sphere of influence. A Founder has been granted a special charism for the good of the People of God. The Church recognizes this, rejoices in it, is enriched by its spiritual and apostolic contribution, blesses its particular values, promotes and sustains its distinctive character, demands that its peculiar identity be safeguarded and defends its integrity.¹⁴

Paul VI reminds us that Founders have been "raised up by God in the Church"; hence their disciples have the obligation to be faithful "to their evangelical intentions".¹⁵

A Founder is a true ecclesial point of reference and must not be reduced in size by any fussy though well-intentioned parochialism that would only warp his special qualities and his real mission among all people.

The Council speaks of Founders as expressions of the vital reality of the Church.¹⁶

Unfortunately theologians have not yet made an adequate study of the specific significance of this aspect insofar as it actually expresses the Church. The personal action of founder is infused into the very mystery of the Church in its historical development: he is raised up in the Church and for the Church as one of the Characteristic expressions of its "life and Holiness".¹⁷

Every Founder enjoys a kind of uniqueness in the Church insofar as he is an initiator and a model.

Last year in my letter to the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians I pointed out three aspects of this distinctiveness in our Father.

• He had a distinctive afflatus. Don Bosco saw no other way to fulfill this calling except by being a Founder. He was practically obliged to embark on a brand new kind of sanctification and apostolate, a personal interpretation of the Gospel and the mystery of Christ with a special adaptation to the signs of the times. This originality meant a new "fusion" of the common elements of Christian holiness that was well balanced, congenial and regulated; the virtues and the means to holiness had their own proper place, quantity, symmetry and beauty that were characteristic.
• He achieved an extraordinary form of holiness. It is difficult to establish the level of this holiness, but it cannot be identified with the holiness of a saint who was not a Founder (e.g., St. Joseph Cafasso). Don Bosco’s extraordinary holiness invested him with something of the novelty of a precursor. It drew people to him; it made him a referral point for agreements and differences; it made him a patriarch, a prophet. He was never a recluse, but rather a catalyst; he carried the future in his hands.
• He worked indefatigably to increase his spiritual family. If the "experience of the Holy Spirit" is not transmitted, received and then lived, cherished, perfected and developed by the Founder’s direct disciples and their adherents, there is no founding charism. This is of basic importance. Don Bosco possessed his own proper gifts and they remained with him until his death; through a divine disposition they made him a fruitful center of radiation and attraction, a "giant of the spirit", as Pius XI called him and he bequeathed to us a rich and well-defined spiritual heritage.¹⁸

These specific marks of Don Bosco as a Founder were translated into his operational overall project, which is "substantially one and possesses its own special characteristics to which it is possible to reduce the many aims and actions of his busy and vigorous life."¹⁹

In his well planned activities our Father has also given to the Church an educative method bearing the marks of genius, a system that has given rise to a set of pedagogical and pastoral principles accepted far and wide, a system that answers to the needs of the young and the working classes, a Preventive system that has made saints out of both educators and their charges.

Don Bosco’s overall project gathers together and organizes a complex association made up of co-workers of all kinds: a Family that brings the Gospel to the young through the Preventive System.

To be truly loyal to Don Bosco as our Founder it is plain that we must see him in an ecclesial context.

To journey back to our origins, we find Don Bosco with a heart overflowing with pastoral charity and gifted with a love of predilection for the young. The first spark of the Salesian vocation is love, an intense love, well-defined and apostolic, a love dedicated in a special way to young people who are poor and abandoned. in his priestly heart is to be found the primordial and crystalline spring waters of the whole Salesian Family.

We are dealing here with a supernatural passion that immerses the whole person within the mystery of the God-Savior; a charity that finds its realization in a radical following of Christ whose anxious arms stretch forth to save the young, the lowly, the needy. It is in Don Bosco our Founder that we find the origins of the distinctiveness of the Salesian charism that emphasizes through its twin fulcrums of God and neighbor, the giving of oneself utterly to God in a mission for the young. The context and thrust of this primordial force were graphically instanced in his Oratory apostolate. After all, for Don Bosco the Oratory meant what we call today the Youth Apostolate, that is, a factual commitment to the Gospel-education of confused and neglected young people in a critical period fraught with the explosive results of rapid structural and cultural changes.

Our origins are indeed centered in an Oratorian heart. In other words, we see a priest of the local Church of Turin possessed of an overwhelming apostolic passion for poor and abandoned youngsters. Such an apostolic zeal cannot be explained without the initiative of Christ the Savior and the loving care of Mary, who both knew new life from the tomb and are the guides of salvation-history; and the definitive implementation of this Oratorian predilection is linked to the guidance of Pope Pius IX who directed Don Bosco in his founding efforts. The Spirit of the Lord filled this zealous priest so well endowed with natural talents and special gifts. He perceived more and more how urgent and far-reaching his work was to be. He set about with realistic efficiency to gather together, inspire and organize the greatest possible number of co-workers he could get. Thus he instituted his Oratory apostolate in Turin. His collaborators were priests, mothers of families, layfolk in comfortable circumstances, young people and adults — all under his guiding hand. He sought far and wide for as many as possible; and above all, he wanted them united.

This variegated group of co-workers he organized and called The Congregation of Saint Francis de Sales, and then set about putting it on a stable basis. He received the official approval of Archbishop Fransoni in 1850; he obtained canonical recognition in 1852. One of the directives stated that it was the responsibility of the Superior "to preserve unity of spirit, discipline and direction".²⁰

First of all the word congregation: it was used in its general and etymological sense of congregating or bringing together; it meant a group of persons united to work together for the same spiritual and apostolic purpose. In those days there was the wide-spread Congregation of Christian Doctrine (of the Council of Trent), and indeed other various Congregations and Companies that comprised both layfolk and priests. It is interesting to note that Don Bosco referred to his "congregated members" as workers, co-operators, collaborators, benefactors — that is, people dedicated to good works and committed in a practical way to the apostolate. Indeed we can gage the mettle of his "congregated workers" by the fact that they belonged to the Oratory apostolate: in other words, their Christian and educative activities were in line with the Valdocco-type Oratory.

Why should his "Congregation" be under the patronage of Saint Francis de Sales? He wanted the spirit of Saint Francis to imbue the life and work of his collaborators among the young kindness, gentleness, trust; a joyful outlook of healthy humanism with apostolic dialog and friendliness that would all go to make up an integrated educational method.²¹

So far Don Bosco’s work was on a diocesan scale only. Little by little and along the road of hardship and suffering it was to assume an ecclesial universality.

From 1850 onwards the Holy Spirit was to form Don Bosco slowly and carefully into the Founder of his definitive Salesian Family.

The idea of the kind of foundation his vocation demanded was not immediately clear to him: its details and juridical structure were still somewhat nebulous. The knowledge of God’s special gift, even in a Founder, is generally not a sudden revelation but develops by stages and sometimes in a roundabout way. God sends prophets into his Church and expects them to find their way gradually and laboriously. Deep within himself Don Bosco was sure that Providence was leading him step by step to be a Founder. He was personally concerned to "let it be known that God himself guided all things at all times".²² He said to his rectors on February 2, 1976, "The Congregation has not taken a single step without the backing of some supernatural happening; there has never been any change, any improvement, any development, that was not preceded by a command of the Lord".²³

Fairly soon, at least by 1854, he saw the need for distinguishing two categories of workers: "Those who were unattached and felt that this life was their true vocation: these lived in community in what they always considered the mother-house and center of the pious association. The Supreme Pontiff advised that the association be called the Pious Society of St. Francis de Sales, and it is still so-called. The other collaborators, that is, the ‘externs’, lived with their families in the world and continued to promote the Oratory apostolate: they still kept the names of Union or Congregation of St. Francis of Sales, promoters and co-operators; they are dependent on the Society and united with its members in working for needy youth.²⁴

In December 1859 he gave a specific form to the special central part of the Association for the Oratories: it was to be the nucleus of promotion and the secure and stable bond of union. With this in mind he drew up Constitutions and Regulations for this "intern" group that would also serve as a rule of life for all "extern" co-workers. These latter would be incorporated with the Pious Society either as "extern" members or members living and working completely in the world. All would draw their inspiration from the same Rule.

Up to this point only boys were envisaged.

But Providence was inspiring him with thoughts of doing similar things for girls. On Pius IX’s advice he organized the women co-operators; and besides, in Mornese in the diocese of Acqui, Mary had in a wonderful way prepared for him a chosen group of apostolic young women inspired by Mary Domenica Mazzarello and under the guidance of Father Pestarino. With them he was able to found in 1872 the Institute of Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, also incorporated with the Pious Society. Their first Constitutions were entitled Rules for the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians incorporated with the Salesian Society. They lived in communion of spirit and mission under the guidance and direction of Don Bosco and his sons. Their work was to do for girls what Valdocco was doing for boys.

The work had now extended beyond the diocese, and consequently in 1864 the Holy See granted the Decretum Laudis for the Pious Society, and later (April 3, 1874), the approval of the Constitutions. This development gave rise to certain grave difficulties and the need to rethink the Statutes for the "extern members".

Thus it came about that they were given a juridical form in the Union of Salesian Co-operators on July 12, 1876. Don Bosco drew up a set of Regulations for them: they were to have the same spirit and mission as the Salesians and were also to be incorporated with the Salesian Society.

Thus we have an historical and documented fact: Don Bosco heard the call of the Spirit of the Lord to commit himself tirelessly to the salvation of the young; for this purpose he founded a large apostolic association, a spiritual Family of different groups and categories closely united and systematically structured. The three basic groups of the Salesian Family were thus instituted personally by Don Bosco and are the Salesians, the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and the Co-operators. When the Past Pupils began visiting Don Bosco for the celebration of his name-day he used exhort them to be dedicated apostles and join the Cooperators.²⁵

After the death of our Founder in 1888, a unfortunate problem arose regarding the juridical aspect of the incorporation of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians with the Pious Society. In 1901 a decree of the Holy See Normae secundum quas demanded the juridical separation of women’s Institutes with simple vows from the respective male Congregations. The separation was regretted, but it did not lessen the Family links and the collaboration between the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and the Salesian Congregation.

Eventually in 1917, through the good office of Cardinal Cagliero, a temporary new juridical link was granted. This link was stabilized by a decree of April 24, 1940 that appointed the Rector Major as Apostolic Delegate of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians.

The painful events concerning the separation of the "extern members" and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians from the Pious Society actually served to prevent confusion about certain ecclesiastical structures: these links were variables and need to be adapted to suit new situations — hence they were quite distinct from the permanent and unchangeable charism that all the groups shared for the young and the working classes. In fact their common aims and responsibilities never waned; and after Vatican II they took on greater clarity and a new lease of life.

Since the death of our Founder the Spirit of the Lord has enriched the Salesian Family with other groups that have burgeoned forth from its vitality to meet new needs and different situations. These of course have all been participants in the Salesian mission and not those benefited by Salesian action.

To mention just some of these new groups:

• the Association of Past Pupils "by virtue of their Salesian education";
• the Don Bosco Volunteers, founded by Father Philip Rinaldi at Turin in the context of Salesians, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Cooperators and Past Pupils. (Father Rinaldi thus intended to implement Don Bosco’s project regarding the "extern members" who would be an effective means for taking his spirit into the heart of the world.)
• the Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, founded by Father Luigi Variara in Colombia;
• the Sisters of Charity of Miyazaki, founded by Mgr. Vincenzo Cimatti and Father Antonio Cavoli in Japan;
• the Salesian Oblates of the Sacred Heart, founded by Bishop Giuseppe Cognata in Calabria; and various other groups.²⁶

These groups, especially the first three instituted by Don Bosco himself, cannot be considered as isolated entities; they were born and have always lived in mutual interchange of spiritual and apostolic values; and in this they have all been the beneficiaries. The invaluable heritage of Don Bosco was left to all of them together as one single Family.