Saint of the day: John Baptist de La Salle

The following comes from the Christian Brothers site:

John Baptist de La Salle was born into a world very different from our own. He was the first son of wealthy parents living in France over 300 years ago. Born at Reims, John Baptist de La Salle received the tonsure at age eleven and was named Canon of the Reims Cathedral at sixteen. Though he had to assume the administration of family affairs after his parents died, he completed his theological studies and was ordained a priest on April 9, 1678.Two years later he received a doctorate in theology. Meanwhile he became tentatively involved with a group of rough and barely literate young men in order to establish schools for poor boys.

At that time a few people lived in luxury, but most of the people were extremely poor: peasants in the country, and slum dwellers in the towns. Only, a few could send their children to school; most children had little hope for the future. Moved by the plight of the poor who seemed so "far from salvation" either in this world or the next, he determined to put his own talents and advanced education at the service of the children "often left to themselves and badly brought up." To be more effective, he abandoned his family home, moved in with the teachers, renounced his position as Canon and his wealth, and so formed the community that became known as the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

His enterprise met opposition from the ecclesiastical authorities who resisted the creation of a new form of religious life, a community of consecrated laymen to conduct gratuitous schools "together and by association." The educational establishment resented his innovative methods and his insistence on gratuity for all, regardless of whether they could afford to pay. Nevertheless De La Salle and his Brothers succeeded in creating a network of quality schools throughout France that featured instruction in the vernacular, students grouped according to ability and achievement, integration of religious instruction with secular subjects, well-prepared teachers with a sense of vocation and mission, and the involvement of parents. In addition, De La Salle pioneered in programs for training lay teachers, Sunday courses for working young men, and one of the first institutions in France for the care of delinquents. Worn out by austerities and exhausting labours, he died at Saint Yon near Rouen early in 1719 on Good Friday, only weeks before his sixty-eighth birthday.

John Baptist de La Salle was a pioneer in founding training colleges for teachers, reform schools for delinquents, technical schools, and secondary schools for modern languages, arts, and sciences. His work quickly spread through France and, after his death, continued to spread across the globe. In 1900 John Baptist de La Salle was declared a Saint. In 1950, because of his life and inspirational writings, he was made Patron Saint of all those who work in the field of education. John Baptist de La Salle inspired others how to teach and care for young people, how to meet failure and frailty with compassion, how to affirm, strengthen and heal. At the present time there are De La Salle schools in 80 different countries around the globe.

Saint of the day: Angela Merici

The following comes from Catholic.org site:

When she was 56, Angela Merici said "No" to the Pope. She was aware that Clement VII was offering her a great honor and a great opportunity to serve when he asked her to take charge of a religious order of nursing sisters. But Angela knew that nursing was not what God had called her to do with her life.

She had just returned from a trip to the Holy Land. On the way there she had fallen ill and become blind. Nevertheless, she insisted on continuing her pilgrimage and toured the holy sites with the devotion of her heart rather than her eyes. On the way back she had recovered her sight. But this must have been a reminder to her not to shut her eyes to the needs she saw around her, not to shut her heart to God's call.

All around her hometown she saw poor girls with no education and no hope. In the fifteenth and sixteenth century that Angela lived in, education for women was for the rich or for nuns. Angela herself had learned everything on her own. Her parents had died when she was ten and she had gone to live with an uncle. She was deeply disturbed when her sister died without receiving the sacraments. A vision reassured her that her sister was safe in God's care -- and also prompted her to dedicate her life to God.

When her uncle died, she returned to her hometown and began to notice how littleeducation the girls had. But who would teach them? Times were much different then. Women weren't allowed to be teachers and unmarried women were not supposed to go out by themselves -- even to serve others. Nuns were the best educated women but they weren't allowed to leave their cloisters. There were no teaching orders of sisters like we have today.

But in the meantime, these girls grew up without education in religion or anything at all.

These girls weren't being helped by the old ways, so Angela invented a new way. She brought together a group of unmarried women, fellow Franciscan tertiaries and other friends, who went out into the streets to gather up the girls they saw and teach them. These women had little money and no power, but were bound together by their dedicationto education and commitment to Christ. Living in their own homes, they met for prayerand classes where Angela reminded them, " Reflect that in reality you have a greater need to serve [the poor] than they have of your service." They were so successful in their service that Angela was asked to bring her innovative approach to education to other cities, and impressed many people, including the pope.

Though she turned him down, perhaps the pope's request gave her the inspiration or the push to make her little group more formal. Although it was never a religious order in her lifetime, Angela's Company of Saint Ursula, or the Ursulines, was the first group of women religious to work outside the cloister and the first teaching order of women.

It took many years of frustration before Angela's radical ideas of education for all and unmarried women in service were accepted. They are commonplace to us now because people like Angela wanted to help others no matter what the cost. Angela reminds us of her approach to change: "Beware of trying to accomplish anything by force, for God has given every single person free will and desires to constrain none; he merely shows them the way, invites them and counsels them."

Saint Angela Merici reassured her Sisters who were afraid to lose her in death: "I shall continue to be more alive than I was in this life, and I shall see you better and shall love more the good deeds which I shall see you doing continually, and I shall be able to help you more." She died in 1540, at about seventy years old.

Why St. John Bosco Matters!

The following comes from the examiner site:

As another school year begins it is a worthy endeavor to contemplate the teaching and ‘parenting’ skills of John Bosco, a priest who understood that faith and learning go hand in hand 24/7. His example is one that serves for all families, but even more for those that have chosen to homeschool. He was innovative, as anxious to learn as he was to teach, and fully aware that hard work needed to be mixed with quality play.

Francis Bosco was a widower with a son and a dependent mother, who he cared for on his small, poor farm. He married a woman by the name of Margaret Occhiena, who embraced the family and made their humble surroundings into a real home with love and warmth. They became parents to two sons, Joseph, and two years later, John. Then, when the younger boy himself was two, Francis died of pneumonia. Margaret, with little education herself, was dedicated to teaching her children about God. Despite the fact they had very little, she was always able to see the good in what they did have, and Christ in all things.

John watched from his position in the field where he tended the sheep as each year children headed off to school, and he tried to learn what he could. By the time he was nine, his mother recognized that the boy needed something more, but his half-brother, Anthony, was head of the household, and he refused, using the fact that he himself worked hard and never had any schooling, and that would be good enough for John, too. The boy wanted to study to become a priest, and his mother eventually worked out a deal with a schoolmaster/priest to teach him from November through spring, and then John would return to work on the farm. Some biographies say the school was three miles and others, four, but in either case the youngster made the commitment and walked to and from there everyday. He always had problems keeping peace in the family and endured the ridicule of other children who chided him for trying to become a priest.

Starting around the same time as his school years and continuing through his life, John Bosco was blessed with visions of Jesus and his Blessed Mother. The Lord is said to have instructed him that a peaceful nature was the way he would reach many young people. He called the young boy to patience, obedience, and understanding. After he became a priest that was his role as he nurtured and cared for orphan and homeless boys whom he housed in a separate building at St. Philomena’s Hospice where he was the chaplain to girls. When given a choice between the hospice girls and the wild boys, he resigned his post and opened a refuge for boys known as the Oratory. His mother, who had all along been nearby to encourage and teach her son, remained very active in his life and ministry, and joined him in that endeavor.

On the journey John Bosco realized that young boys have no attention span and he began to devise ways to capture their focus. He learned magic tricks, jokes, and acrobatic stunts. Once the group was good and mesmerized, he began to teach. As the news spread, he became an important figure in the life of wayward boys. He built a church, facilitated workshops, taught and preached, and soon had such a large following it took at least ten priests to care for the pastoral needs of the boys. John Bosco was a popular paid speaker and homilist. He wrote best selling books and was graced with many charitable donations to continue his ministry. His work became so big that he needed more help dedicated to serving the Lord through the boys and eventually girls, that he formed a religious order to accept the challenge, the Society of St. Francis de Sales. By the time of his death in 1888, there were more than sixty Salesian foundations in Europe and America, and nearly eight hundred priests, and the order remains quite active today.

The idea given to John by the Lord was a vision of youth ministry that he saw as an inner window comprised of four panes. Each pane was uniquely different, but it took all four to view the entire picture. He expressed the panes as places where youth could thrive in a well balanced structure, and no one would be forced to pursue one pane at the expense of another.

The first window pane, he called ‘home,’ a place of belonging, where a youth could sit down at a meal with others and share his/her story, and hear those of other children. John called the second pane ‘school,’ where youth studied in a way that permitted them to grow rather than be stifled. He saw education as a way for student and teacher to question and learn together. The third window pane was ‘church.’ There, youth would be empowered to become active participants in the sacramental and worship lives of the whole faith community. The fourth was named ‘playground,’ where children were encouraged to be children, to run and play and enjoy the company of others.

Why does this matter today? Largely because it doesn’t happen enough. As early in the Bible as Deuteronomy 6:4-9, parents are called to tend to the education and right thinking of their children. This ancient lesson is the first time the great commandment was encouraged as part of life’s structure. The Book of Proverbs begins by telling the reader it’s purpose is that humankind may appreciate wisdom and discipline and may understand words of intelligence, and that they may receive training in wise conduct, what is honest, just and right (Proverbs 1:2-3). From that point, Proverbs continues to emphasize wisdom taught by parents and elders.

Too often today parents are not involved in their children’s education. One principal complained about a Parent-Teacher Meeting that no parents attended. Is it any wonder that particular school is below the acceptable standard in the Albuquerque Public School system? Looking at it from four window panes, parents need to ask themselves, do they have a home where children are actually able to talk and live, to share their lives around a dinner table, and that doesn’t mean conversing by text with friends. Are the parents active in their children’s education? Not that everyone has the skills or the time and resources, but Catholic homeschooling is quite acceptable, encouraged, and was endorsed by Pope John Paul II among others. Do parents worship with their children or is it preferable to drop them off at church, if at all? Do they celebrate the sacraments together as family and community? And one last point, do they play and have fun together, enjoying all of the gifts from God, especially each other.

Churches of all denominations abound with programs for youth, and some are quite similar to the plan set up by John Bosco one hundred and fifty years ago. The elements of key importance are the same elements of Christian life: that we love God and trust him completely, that we care about one another, including the kids, and that we be involved in each others lives, including what we/they learn. Yes, the ethic of John Bosco matters, perhaps now more than ever. Have you hugged your gift today?

Pope Francis: St. Joseph, model for those who have educational roles in Church and in society

Vatican City ( AsiaNews) St. Joseph, whose "feast" we celebrate today, is the "model" for all those who have an educational role in society and in the Church. Pope Francis dedicated his catechesis during the general audience today to the figure of the patron of the universal Church, one year to the day after the mass with which he began his pontificate. And as he said on that occasion, he reiterated today, that "Joseph greatest characteristic was his being a guardian, his great mission is to be a guardian". "Saint Joseph - he added greeting the faithful in Arabic - is the model of every educator and every believer, because he was able to cross the darkness of doubt, the experience of exile and of having to flee from his home, without ever losing his trust in God and in His love. Learn from him that only faith in God can turn doubt into certainty, evil into good, the total darkness of the night into a radiant dawn".

The Pope spoke of St. Joseph to 80 thousand people present in St Peter's Square, whose "great mission" is "to be the guardian". He Pope this was the mission of all fathers, to whom he addressed his best wishes on Father's Day, inviting us to pray "for those fathers who are alive and those who are dead, for our dads".

"We look at Joseph - had said in catechesis - as the model of the educator, who safeguards and accompanies Jesus in his journey of growth "in wisdom, years and grace", as the Gospel of Luke tells us. "He was not the father of Jesus, the Father was God, but he was a father to help him grow in years, wisdom and grace".

"Let's start with his age, which is the most natural dimension, physical and psychological growth. Joseph, together with Mary, took care of Jesus, first of all from this point of view, he  'raised him' , worrying that he had all he needed for a healthy development . Let us not forget that the faithful care of the life of the Child also led to the flight into Egypt, the harsh experience of living as refugees to escape the threat of Herod. Then, once they returned home and settled in Nazareth, there is the long period of the hidden life of Jesus within the Holy Family. During those years, Joseph also taught Jesus his work, Jesus learned to be a carpenter".

"Let's move on to the second dimension of Christ's education, that of "wisdom". Scripture says that the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord. Joseph was an example and teacher of this wisdom for Jesus, which he nourished by the Word of God.  We can imagine how Joseph taught the child Jesus to listen to the Holy Scriptures, especially accompanying him on the Sabbath to the synagogue in Nazareth. Joseph accompanied Jesus so he would listen to the word of God in the synagogue".

"And finally, the dimension of "grace". Again St. Luke tells us referring to Jesus: "The grace of God was upon him". Here certainly the part reserved to St Joseph is more limited than in the areas of age and wisdom. But it would be a grave mistake to think that a father and a mother do nothing to educate their children to grow in the grace of God".

"The mission of St. Joseph is certainly unique and unrepeatable, because Jesus is unique.  However, in his guarding Jesus, educating him to grow in years, wisdom and grace, he is a model for all educators, especially for parents. St. Joseph is the model educator and father, the model for dads. Therefore I entrust all parents, priests - who are fathers - and those who have an educational role in the Church and in society to his protection".

"In a special way, I wish to greet all parents, all dads today on Father's Day, I greet you from my heart! Let's see: are there any dads here in the square? Raise your hand, dads! Look, how many dads! Greetings, greetings on your feast Day! I ask for you the grace to always be very close to your children, letting them grow, but close. Close to them, eh? They need you, your presence, your closeness, your love. Be like St. Joseph for them, guardians of their growth in age, wisdom and grace. Guardians of their journey. Educators! And walk with them. And in your closeness, be true educators . Thank you for all that you do for your children: Thank you. A you best wishes and happy Father's Day to all the fathers who are here, to all the fathers. May St. Joseph bless you and be with you. And also, some of us have lost our father, he may have passed away, the Lord has called him: many in the square no longer have their father.  We pray for all fathers of the world, for living fathers and even for those who are dead, and we can do this together, each recalling his or her father, alive or dead. And pray to the great Father of us all, the Father, Our Father, for our dads".

Pope Francis Recalled Fondly His Childhood School, Praised ‘Catholic Culture’

The following comes from the Cardinal Newman Society:

In a 1990 letter written by the future Pope Francis and republished on ZENIT, then-Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio recalls fondly the “Catholic culture” that he experienced at age 13 in a Catholic school run by the Salesians.

Pope Francis writes that the Wilfrid Baron School of the Holy Angels in Ramos Mejia, Buenos Aires, prepared him “for life.”  He remembers the night that one of the Fathers discussed the importance of praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary to know his vocation.  After that, he never went to bed without praying.

The letter also recalls the night when one of the Fathers spoke to students about the death of his mother.  Afterward, Pope Francis thought of death as something “natural” and not to fear. 

The Holy Father writes that he grew in a love of purity and willingness to sacrifice, and he learned various hobbies and crafts. He was even instilled with a respect and love for the Pope!

Reflecting on what it was like to attend the school, Pope Francis describes its “Catholic culture”:

School life was a “whole.”  I was immersed in a way of life prepared so that there wouldn’t be time to be lazy.  The day passed as an arrow without time for one to be bored.  I felt myself submerged in a world that, although prepared “artificially” (with pedagogic resources), had nothing artificial about it.  The most natural thing was to go to Mass in the morning, as well as having breakfast, studying, going to lessons, playing during recreation, hearing the “Good night” of the Father Director.  Each one was made to live different assembled aspects of life, and this created a conscience in me: not only a moral conscience but a sort of human conscience (social, ludic, artistic,etc.).  Said differently: the School created, through the awakening of the conscience in the truth of things, a Catholic culture that was not a tall “bigoted” or “disoriented.”

Pope Francis attributes the “Catholic culture” of the school to the “faith” of the Salesians who ran the institution.  He said that they “believed in Jesus Christ” and had the “courage to ‘preach’: with the word, with their life, with their work.”

“Everything was done with a meaning,” the Holy Father writes.  “I learned there, almost unwittingly, to seek the meaning of things I learned to study in the School.  The hours of study, in silence, created a habit of concentration, of a quite strong control of dispersion.”

“Never (in so far as I remember) was a truth negotiated,” he continued.  “One could then play the rebel, the atheist… but imprinted deep down was the sense of sin: a truth that could not be thrown out, to make everything easier.”

Later on in life, Pope Francis heard that the Salesian Fathers were leaving some schools in the hands of the laity, partly because of a lack of vocations but also because the young Salesians were not attracted to teaching.  Pope Francis asked himself in response: “[W]hen a work languishes and loses its flavor and its capacity to leaven the dough, is it not rather because Jesus Christ has been substituted by other options: psychological, sociological, pastoral?”

Catholic schools today can create a “Catholic culture” similar to what Pope Francis experienced at age 13, he believes.  He writes: “[T]he Salesian cultural patrimony of 1949, this pedagogic patrimony, is capable of creating in its pupils a Catholic culture also in 1990, as it was able to create it in 1930.”

A Quote from St. John Bosco

My sons, in my long experience very often I had to be convinced of this great truth. It is easier to become angry than to restrain oneself, and to threaten a boy than to persuade him. Yes, indeed, it is more fitting to be persistent in punishing our own impatience and pride than to correct the boys. We must be firm but kind, and be patient with them. 

See that no one finds you motivated by impetuosity or willfulness. It is difficult to keep calm when administering punishment, but this must be done if we are to keep ourselves from showing off our authority or spilling out our anger. 

Let us regard those boys over whom we have some authority as our own sons. Let us place ourselves in their service. Let us be ashamed to assume an attitude of superiority. Let us not rule over them except for the purpose of serving them better. 

This was the method that Jesus used with the apostles. He put up with their ignorance and roughness and even their infidelity. He treated sinners with a kindness and affection that caused some to be shocked, others to be scandalized and still others to hope for God's mercy. And so he bade us to be gentle and humble of heart.  

St. John Bosco

Fr. Robert Barron: "Don’t dumb down the faith!"

(CNS)  The “dumbing down of the Catholic faith” that impacted catechesis in the mid-1960s “was a pastoral disaster of the first order,” Father Robert Barron told a crowd of about 500 people at the Catholic Media Conference in Denver June 19.

“That’s why many people in my generation left the faith,” Father Barron — creator of the “Catholicism” television series — told conference attendees and members of the public who came especially to hear his evening keynote address. “Don’t dumb down the message.”

That was the second of six suggestions Father Barron gave for spreading thenew evangelization. His other suggestions included “leading with beauty” and “preaching with ardor.”

Father Barron, who currently is rector of Mundelein Seminary in the Chicago Archdiocese, started out by noting that the convention marked the 20th anniversary of World Youth Day in Denver in 1993, where it is widely though that Blessed John Paul II kicked off the new evangelization, which urges Catholics to renew their faith and aims to re-ignite the Catholic faith in traditionally Christian countries where the people’s practice of the faith has grown lax.

In leading with beauty, the Catholic Church will draw people to itself the way the main character in Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited” was drawn to the church — from beauty to goodness to truth, Father Barron said.

Another way the church can spread the new evangelization is to “tell the great story of salvation history” that includes the Old Testament story that set the stage for Christ’s incarnation.

“Don’t turn Jesus into a bland cypher,” he said. “He’s not just another mystic or guru.”

Noting the large number of people in modern society who suffer from addictions, Father Barron said the church must also help people reject “false gods of wealth, honor, pleasure and power,” and teach the anthropology of St. Augustine, who wrote that “our heart is restless until it rests in thee.”

“We need to mock (false gods) publicly,” Father Barron said.

And to combat modern atheism, the church must spread the message of St. Irenaeus, who wrote that “the glory of God is a human being fully alive,” Father Barron said. The saint, who died in the early third century, taught that the creed contains the essential truths of Christian faith.

In Christianity, God and man do not compete with each other, he added. It is only in pagan and atheistic belief systems that gods stand in the way of human progress.

Benedict XVI and Education

The following comes from the NCR:

In May comes graduation days. Commencement time offers a moment for reflection on the purpose of higher education — especially in our Catholic universities.

And every year we watch the Catholic universities to see who the commencement speakers are, and we dissect the ways they honor or detract from a university’s mission.

What a Catholic university’s mission should be is an oft-debated topic, but we needn’t look far to find a guide to measure our critique.

All three of our most recent popes, from Blessed John Paul II to Pope Francis, have had extensive experience in higher Catholic education as professors. Indeed, John Paul may well be considered the finest philosopher in the history of the papacy, and Pope Benedict XVI certainly ranks high as a theologian, particularly in his work of the ongoing rediscovery of the Fathers of the Church. In one way or another, we could refer to them as “university men.”

The Catholic University of America Press has done us a great service by publishing A Reason Open to God, with Pope Benedict’s teachings during his pontificate. The book has a foreword by the president of Catholic University, John Garvey, who has continued the fine work of his predecessor (now-Bishop David O’Connell of Trenton, N.J.) in reconstructing CUA into a truly Catholic university.

This collection is of particular value to Catholic Americans, as one of our finest boasts was that we had by far the largest collection of Catholic universities in the world, at least through the decade of the tumultuous ’60s. The majority of these universities were staffed by thriving religious congregations, both male and female.

Then, out of the blue, a revolution took place in 1967 that changed Catholic higher education radically, but we hope not forever. It was known as the Land O’ Lakes Conference, for that is where a group of Catholic college presidents and academics undertook a revolution in Catholic education that hopefully will someday (soon) be rolled back.

The Land O’ Lakes document began this way:

“The Catholic university today must be a university in the full modern sense of the word, with a strong commitment to and concern for academic excellence. To perform its teaching and research functions effectively, the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself. To say this is simply to assert that institutional autonomy and academic freedom are essential conditions of life and growth and indeed of survival for Catholic universities, as for all universities.”

Now compare this with Pope Benedict’s address to Catholic educators at Catholic University in Washington on April 17, 2008:

“It is the case that any appeal to the principle of academic freedom to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university’s freedom and identity and mission: a mission at the heart of the Church’s munus docendi and not somehow autonomous or independent of it.”

The contrast is clear. We can only hope that our bishops in each diocese with at least a nominally Catholic college or university will address the matter under the leadership of our new Pope Francis.

This book contains all of Pope Benedict’s talks on the subjects mentioned in the title, with the great majority being given in the context of pastoral visits throughout the world. I found most interesting those talks in England, on the occasion of his trip to beatify Blessed John Henry Newman, with whom Pope Benedict had a special relation as a fellow theologian. In his homily, Pope Benedict, used Blessed John Henry’s own words to describe the goal of Catholic university professors:

“I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious — but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it.”

Would that all of our universities yielded such young men and women, the earth would be ablaze with the truths of our faith!

All in all, this book deserves a place on the bookshelves of every Catholic teacher, student and parent — and its words a place in their hearts.  

Father C.J. McCloskey is a Church historian and research fellow

at the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington.

Wyoming Catholic College: "Wisdom in God's Country"

Homily of Fr Pascual Chavez: Preparing for the bicentennial of the birth of Don Bosco

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”

Homily for the beginning of the second year

of the three-year preparation for the bicentennial

Ez 34: 11-12, 15-16, 23-24, 30-31; Phil 4: 4-9; Matt 18: 1-6, 10

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus --

We are gathered here at Becchi in Don Bosco's shrine, to set in motion the second year of the three-year preparation for the bicentennial of Don Bosco's birth. Having spent the last year getting to know him more deeply, loving him more intensely, and imitating him more faithfully in his absolute giving of himself to God and his total dedication to the young, we are invited this year to contemplate him as the educator and then to improve our understanding of his Preventive System and update it and inculturate it. After having discovered how Don Bosco felt that he was sent by God to the young who were his raison d'etre, his mission, his most precious legacy, we should now discover what he offered them: the Gospel of joy, through a pedagogy of kindness. This was his plan of education and his pedagogical method!
But in order to present it, I will speak in his name, indeed, directly on his behalf, as the true successor of Don Bosco.

“I am known throughout the world as a saint who sowed joy aplenty. Indeed, as someone who knew me personally wrote, I made an “eleventh commandment” out of Christian joy. This experience convinced me that a work of education is not possible without this wonderful incentive, this stupendous further step called joy. I am speaking of real joy, the joy that springs from the heart of someone who allows himself to be led by the Lord. Riotous laughter and noise are but momentary; the joy I am talking about comes from within and remains, because it comes from Jesus when he is accepted unreservedly. I was in the habit of saying: “Be cheerful, but let your cheerfulness be that of a conscience free of sin.” And because my boys were deeply persuaded of this I added, “If you want your life to be happy and peaceful, you should try to stay in God's grace, since the heart of a youngster in a state of sin is like the whipped-up waters of the sea.” This is why I always reminded people that “joy comes from peace of heart.” I used insist, “I only want my boys to be good and always to be happy.” I know someone has said: “If St. Francis of Assisi sanctified nature and poverty, Don Bosco sanctified work and joy. He is the saint of a hard-working and happy Christian existence.” I like this description for two reasons: Because it places me beside a saint who was so good and relevant – that wonderful young man from Assisi – andbecause whoever wrote or said that about me understood the secret of my holiness: work and joy.

You know: I lived in difficult times full of lots of upsets. I used to say: “Are ours difficult times? They have always been difficult, but God was never lacking in his help.” The certainty of God's Providence explained my indestructible optimism. It was one of the many lessons of life I learned from my mother.

“Don Bosco had kindness as his weapon”: this is what an enthusiastic and wise Salesian wrote of me, one I had known when he was still a boy and whose confession I heard occasionally. Joy is my nicest and most practical visiting card, my flag. One of many.

On Sunday morning at Valdocco, I waited for my boys; that was a feastday for me! When the chimney sweeps, apprentice bricklayers, the young hands from a thousand jobs swarmed in, they came, we have to say, for games, a slice of bread and salami, to spend a different kind of day with us; but I know that they came because there was a priest who loved them and would spend hours and hours with them to make them happy.

I would like to reveal a secret to you: I never considered myself to be a teacher who was also a priest; I was a priest (a goal I had achieved after years of suffering, privation, and passion!) who practiced, lived, and witnessed to his priesthood through teaching. Or better still, I became a teacher of the young because I was a priest for them.

I know: Sometimes people present me as the eternal acrobat from Becchi and think they are doing me a great favor. But it is a very reductionist picture of my ideal. The games, outings, the band, theater, and feasts were a means, not an end. I had in mind what I wrote openly to my boys: “I have but one desire: to see you happy now and in eternity.”

At this point you will understand why I pointed out to that wonderful young lad Dominic Savio that cheerfulness was the road to authentic holiness. And he understood it, when he explained to a friend who had come to Valdocco and who still felt completely confused:“Know that here we make holiness consist in being very cheerful. We just try to avoid sin as the great enemy that robs us of God's grace and peace of heart, and we carry out all our duties as exactly as we can.” This wonderful teenager, full of grace and kindness, did nothing else but offer his new friend, Camillo Gavio, the very same road to holiness I had offered him a few months earlier.

Since I was a boy, games and cheerfulness were a kind of serious apostolate for me, one I was fully convinced of. Joy for me was inseparable from study, work, and piety. I suggested to Francis Besucco, another fine young lad whose life I also narrated: “If you want to be good, do three things, and everything will go well: Here they are: cheerfulness, study,piety.” When I started out at Valdocco, I had a dream in my heart: to create a family atmosphere for the many youngsters who were far from home because of work or who perhaps had never even experienced gestures of affection. Joy helped create this atmosphere. It helped overcome the many restrictions of poverty and gave serenity back to many hearts.

I know that a boy in those early years (he subsequently became an excellent priest in the Turin Archdiocese, one of the thousands of priests who came from this first Salesian house!), recalling these “heroic” years, wrote: “Thinking about how we ate and slept, we now wonder how it was we enjoyed ourselves without feeling too much hunger and without complaint. But we were happy; we experienced affection.” Experiencing and passing on joy was a way of life a conscious, practical pedagogical choice. For me, a boy was always a boy, his deep need being happiness, freedom, and play. I found it natural that as a priest for the young I should pass on to them the good and happy news of the Gospel. Whoever possesses Jesus lives in joy.

And I could not have done this with forbidding looks and brusque and standoffish tactics. The young needed to understand that for me cheerfulness was a very serious thing indeed!They needed to understand that the playground was my library, my teacher's chair where I was both teacher and pupil. They needed to understand that joy is the basic law of youthfulness. You now understand the importance I gave to celebrating feasts, be they sacred or profane: they had enormous pedagogical import and spoke to the heart. I saw the benefits of theater, music, song. I used to organize the autumn walks down to the very last detail. I still recall today how it was: We set out into the countryside with the band up front, were welcomed by pastors and the important citizens of the place, who gave us lodging and fed us daily. These were busy days: visits to important persons, morning and evening celebrations, musical shows, theatrical improvisations on hastily erected stages in the main square. And endless laughter – laughter that also left a memory of serene joy. I showed the boys, and through them the good townsfolk, that “serving God goes well together with honest cheerfulness.”

In 1847 I printed a book on Christian upbringing, The Companion of Youth. I lost many hours of sleep putting it together. The first words my boys read were these: “The first and principle trick which the devil usually uses to separate the young from virtue is to have them think that serving the Lord consists in a melancholy life far from every pleasure and enjoyment. It is not so, my dear boys. I would like to teach you a way of Christian living that can make you happy and content at the same time, pointing out to you what are the real enjoyments and pleasures.... This is the purpose of this little book, serving the Lord and keeping cheerful.”

As you see, joy took on a deep religious significance for me. In my educational approach there was a balanced mixture of the sacred and the profane, nature and grace. It did not take long for the results to show, so much so that in certain autobiographical notes that I felt almost obliged to write, I could say: “Drawn in by this mixture of devotions, games, andoutings, they all became so affectionate that not only were they absolutely obedient to my commands, but were even anxious for me to give them something they had to do.”

The experience convinced me that “a sad saint is an unattractive, unconvincing saint.” I spoke about joy, not about being reckless or superficial. For me joy headed directly for optimism, loving, childlike trust in a provident God. It was a concrete response to the love with which God surrounds and embraces us. It was also the result of courageous acceptance of life's tough demands. And I used say this with an image: “To pick roses, you know, you have to deal with thorns; but there is always a rose with the thorns.”

I wasn't content with the boys just being cheerful. I wanted them to spread this atmosphere of festivity, enthusiasm, love of life; I wanted them to be builders of hope and joy,missionaries to other young people through an apostolate of cheerfulness, a contagious apostolate.

I would insist, “A bit of paradise fixes up everything.” And with this simple expression, something I often heard from my mother's lips, I pointed out an attitude that went beyond the fragility of human contingencies; I opened up a path to the future, to eternity, teaching them that “life's thorns will become flowers in eternity.”

So, my dear brothers and sisters, how much I have wanted to share today with you, to encourage your commitment and dedication to contemplating Don Bosco as the educator and offering the young the Gospel of joy through a pedagogy of kindness.

Fr. Pascual Chavez, SDB
Colle Don Bosco – August 16, 2012

Pope Benedict: educating US Catholic youth an urgent challenge

The following comes from the CNA:

Pope Benedict XVI told a group of U.S. bishops that educating young Catholics in the faith is “the most urgent internal challenge” facing the Catholic Church in America.

He emphasized that responding to the challenge requires schools to have a strong Catholic identity and for theology professors to teach in unity with the Church.

“(T)he question of Catholic identity, not least at the university level, entails much more than the teaching of religion or the mere presence of a chaplaincy on campus,” Pope Benedict said May 5 in an address to U.S. bishops from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. The bishops were at the Vatican for their ad limina visit.

“All too often, it seems, Catholic schools and colleges have failed to challenge students to reappropriate their faith as part of the exciting intellectual discoveries which mark the experience of higher education.”

Pope Benedict said many new college students find themselves disassociated from their family, school and community support systems that previously helped transmit the Catholic faith to them. This fact should “continually spur Catholic institutions of learning to create new and effective networks of support,” he said.

The Pope said in his English-language address that many U.S. bishops have noted the need for Catholic colleges and universities to “reaffirm their distinctive identity in fidelity to their founding ideals and the Church’s mission in service of the Gospel.”

He specifically called on Catholic universities to comply with canon law and the 1990 apostolic constitution “Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” which both require theology teachers to receive a mandate from the “competent ecclesiastical authority.” The mandates, which usually are given by the local bishop, ensure that the teachers are in agreement with the Church’s teachings.

This requirement, the Pope said, shows ecclesial communion and is especially important in light of “the confusion created by instances of apparent dissidence between some representatives of Catholic institutions and the Church’s pastoral leadership.”

This “discord” harms the Church’s witness and “can easily be exploited to compromise her authority and her freedom,” Pope Benedict warned the bishops.

His remarks also stressed the positive aspects of Catholic education.

It is inspired by “an intellectual charity” which recognizes that leading others to truth is “ultimately an act of love.” Faith recognizes the “essential unity” of all knowledge and protects against the “alienation and fragmentation” of reason detached from “the pursuit of truth and virtue.”

The Pope praised the “great progress” in improving catechesis and reviewing texts for conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

He also lauded efforts to preserve the “great patrimony” of America’s Catholic elementary and high schools, many of which face problems because of changing demographics and increased costs.

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Hat tip to the Anchoress on this one!