We conclude this collection quoting a part of the letter which D. E.Viganò wrote to the Salesians on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his first religious profession. After having of these fifty years, seen in such a decisive moment for the Church and the Congregation, he invites the Salesians to make of 1988 an occasion of a "special renewal of profession". His reflection with a program of the ideal of Salesian sanctity is certainly valid for all the members of the Salesian Family, even more so since the members of all the groups are already firmly moving in other ways.

Don Bosco, who lived at a time in the last century when Saints were flourishing in Piedmont, had the merit of starting an authentic "School of sanctity". If the various apostolic works he began were of value in his time, the fact that he successfully promoted a particular kind of holiness would be sufficient by itself to make evident a remarkable spirituality which places him among the great ones of the Church with a fertile sanctity capable of reincarnation among other people in the course of future centuries.

To render holiness an attractive and valid message for all those he was working for, Don Bosco presented its essence in a simple and realistic fashion which he adapted to the age, life situation and cultural circumstances of those concerned.

Blessed Michael Rua, St. Mary Domenica Mazzarello, St. Dominic Savio, to whom we may also add in a certain sense Blessed Luigi Orione and Luigi Guanella, all felt directly the influence of his kind of holiness. The program of youth spirituality lived by St. Dominic Savio is especially characteristic; Don Bosco himself has provided a description and deeper study of it in a biography of his young pupil, which has been fully commented with great insight by Fr. Albert Caviglia. The scheme of Salesian sanctity appears with equal clarity from a study (from the standpoint of the kind of spirituality) of the various other biographies written by Don Bosco, and from the lives of our other saints and servants of God.

Fr. Philip Rinaldi too is a direct witness to the personal influence of Don Bosco. I mention him in particular because in this coming October the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints will begin the examination to establish the heroicity of his virtues; we trust that this may prove to be the first step towards early recognition at a higher level.

The plan of Don Bosco’s evangelical school is not exhausted in the saints and servants of God we have mentioned. There is another aspect, to which we have perhaps not given proper attention but which has an important and special significance as regards his typical "experience of the Spirit" (cf. MR 11). I refer to the first formation communities of the Congregation in which during Don Bosco’s last years and immediately after his death, his first disciples caused Salesian sanctity to flourish: the novitiate at Foglizzo and the post-novitiate at Valsalice. In these houses worked Don Rua, Don Barberis, Don Bianchi and Don Piscetta (to name only a few), and it is significant that in these communities soon after the death of our dear Father were formed and worked (over a period of not many years, even if they were not actual contemporaries) a good number of our confreres who are now servants of God whose causes for beatification and canonization have been introduced: the Venerable Andrew Beltrami, the Venerable Prince Augusto Czartoryski, the servant of God Don Luigi Variara, Blessed Luigi Versiglia, the servant of God Vincent Cimatti. Those two Salesian formation communities are indeed a fruitful extension of the authentic evangelical School begun by Don Bosco.

Another outstanding proof of this is the fact that some of the above mentioned confreres felt their first impulse towards sanctity in a meeting, sometimes a mere chance encounter but a decisive one, with the person of the holy Founder: Don Beltrami, then a student at Lanzo, read an essay to Don Bosco and received in reply a word which shaped his whole life; Bishop Versiglia had the same experience; Prince Czartoryski was conquered by Don Bosco at a meeting in Paris; Don Variara experienced a single glance of Don Bosco and remained struck by it for his whole life; Don Cimatti in his mother’s arms saw Don Bosco from afar and subsequently gave life to his whole apostolate through the intuition of that meeting when he was a small child.

There-can be no doubt that it was not mere chance that set these future beatified confreres or servants of God on the path followed by Don Bosco.

All this is a clear sign of how much the confreres felt the greatness and attractiveness of Don Bosco’s sanctity, and of how there came to be created in our Congregation and Family a spiritual slant and impulse which is characteristic of its physiognomy. Here lies the secret of those original bold missionary endeavors; from here came the energy for the marvelous expansion of the Salesian Family in every continent; here is the explanation for its adaptability to different cultures, the fruit of an inborn instinct of universality.

That this force of sanctity was natural to the lives of our great SDB and FMA missionaries of the early days is demonstrated too by the surprising fact that in Patagonia (the first objective of Salesian missionary endeavor) the heights of youthful sanctity were achieved by the Venerable Zeffirino Namuncura and Laura Vicuña.

Among candidates for the honors of the altars we may also recall as later witnesses to Don Bosco’s School of sanctity: Blessed Callixtus Caravario, martyred in China; the many Spanish martyrs who bore witness to their faith during the dramatic events of the civil war; Bishop Luigi Olivares, a zealous pastor of the common people; Fr. Rudolph Komorek, outstanding for his spirit of prayer and mortification; Fr. Joseph Quadrio, a teacher of theology and an expert on the mystery of the Assumption; Bro. Simon Srugi, a fellow countryman of Jesus and a humble and prophetic expression of ecumenism—he had been a Melchite before becoming a Salesian and promoted a loving dialogue with Moslems; and Bro. Artemide Zatti, the well-deserving Samaritan of Patagonia, a land which at that time was just opening up to civilization and which lacked any of the modern health services: at Viedma he founded the first hospital in that city.

Among the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians we may recall the Ven. Sister Teresa Valse-Pantellini; the servants of God Sisters Maddalena Morano, Carmen Moreno, Amparo Carbonell, Eusebia Palomino, Maria Troncatti, Laura Meozzi and Maria Romero.

Of the Cooperators we can mention the Ven. Dorotea Chopitea, a great benefactress; Cardinal Joseph Guarino, friend of Don Bosco and founder of a religious institute of women; Alexandrina da Costa, wonderful in her suffering; Joseph Toniolo, a great layman much committed in the social field.

And among the Past Pupils there are the venerable engineer Albert Marvelli, a zealous animator of oratory work and of Catholic Action; the heroic Brigadier Salvo D’Acquisto who offered his own life for the love of a fellow man; and Baron Antonio Petix, a tireless apostle among the past pupils themselves.

These and our other candidates for the altars, who together number more than a hundred,1 are only the tip of an iceberg manifesting the living presence of the spirit of Don Bosco in the various groups of his Family and among those to whom his apostolic presence is directed: a spirit brimming over with vitality, which is versatile and fruitful, and which bears witness to the existence of a special design of God in the gift of apostolic sanctity he granted to Don Bosco as the Founder.

If the school of Salesian sanctity is the principal legacy of Don Bosco the Founder, the centenary celebrations for the one hundredth anniversary of his death must be marked especially by a commitment to a great concern and fidelity as regards the re-launching of its evangelical content.

We are dealing with something which is a gift of the Holy Spirit before becoming a program of our own. But we know that the Spirit does not take back what he has given; rather has he shown, through the event of the Council, that the gift has been renewed and is up to date as a precious and valid prophecy for the emerging culture of the present era. If we pray with this purpose in view and really put our backs into our work, we shall see great results.

This is why we intend to make of 1988 a year of reflection and resolutions on Salesian sanctity in the light of the great conciliar guidelines of Vatican II.

We can truly say that the initiatives thought up so far by way of preparation do show that we are directing our efforts mainly in this sense.

• At Congregational level we have put ourselves, especially after the approval of the new text of the Constitutions and Regulations, in a kind of "state of novitiate" for an intense and lengthy work of ongoing formation. We want in 1988 to make a solemn renewal of our religious profession as a living expression of that apostolic consecration which the text of the Constitutions has taught us, in the spirit of the Council, to know better, to appreciate and to witness to with more authentic depth and prophetic application to the present day. Only by intensifying our pastoral charity in this way shall we be able to show the world the vitality of Don Bosco’s charism.

• At the level of the Salesian Family we feel in stronger communion with the other Groups which, like us, have renewed the basic texts of their identity in fidelity to their origins and to the Council. We want to work together to relaunch the overall project of the Founder, especially by involving a large number of courageous lay people in the Association of Cooperators and that of the Past Pupils. We intend to give animation to a vast spiritual and apostolic Movement of persons which will be concerned with the problems of the young and of the field of education.

• At the level of young people, those to whom our work is primarily directed, we have already been committed for some time to a redefinition and promotion of a youth spirituality which must be the soul and objective (to be attained gradually in appropriate ways) of our various activities.

It is symptomatic that through the interest and concern of the Archbishop of Turin, Cardinal Anastasio Ballastrero, the Holy Father has proclaimed the year extending from 31 January 1988 to 31 January 1989 as a special "Holy Year of the Young" in the Archdiocese of Turin. The main arguments for study and reflection which will characterize this "Year of grace for the young" will be the prophetic contents of Vatican II. Let us consider as our special task that of consigning the Council to young people as they move towards the year 2000!

The conditions for gaining this extraordinary jubilee will be laid down very soon by the Apostolic See and will be made known to all in good time. In the meantime we can start thinking already about the atmosphere to be prepared, programs to be drawn up, pilgrimages to be organized, and the sanctity to be made known and loved.

The proclamation of a special Holy Year gives to the celebrations of ‘ 88 a wider ecclesial dimension. This is something we must keep in mind, extending our horizons beyond the Salesian Family; we must interest the Bishops and faithful of the local Churches in which we live and give our collaboration, and present the figure of Don Bosco as that of a modern saint raised up by God as a providential "Friend of youth", and especially of those who are poor and needy. The prospect is a thrilling one!