1 A STORY THAT GOES WAY BACK

Our life is full of questions.

Some of these questions come directly from the society we live in. a society which fills us with the desire to possess the goods it markets so successfully. Other questions surface out of our lived experience, from the joys and sorrows which weave their way through the fabric of our existence. There are other questions which form the basis of what we talk about in our circle of friends. These questions are like fragments of humanity, coming out of the fact that we live and hope and love and eventually die. At times the questioning is like a cry of pain, emerging from the hurt caused by our rights being violated. When questions surface in our lives, we become restless and we search for answers.

Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello spent their lives seeking a real and practical response to the questions of the young people of their time. Perhaps their questions were different from ours, but nonetheless serious.

Can we use their answers today, or do we need to look for new answers to the new questions?

Jesus answers with the Beatitudes

There are in circulation plenty of answers to questions about life, so many that choosing is almost impossible. So what do we do?

The gospel responds in a fairly complex manner to these questions. It gathers up all these questions and points us toward a God who is a father who loves us, wants our happiness and wants us to be full of hope as we commit ourselves to living as his sons and daughters. The gospel has a unique kind of a logic so unique that it could even be termed strange. God takes the initiative. God invites us to experience his love, to believe in it and stake our lives on it. The gospel response challenges us to no half measures. The gospel tells us that life is measured in terms of how much we love it, and the measure of real love is our willingness to give up our life for what we love. Against this background our questions have a different quality about them. We come face to face with questions about the meaning of life and we seek out reasons as to why we should be hopeful in the face of suffering and death.
Such questions as these gravitate around me as a person: who am l? Is it true God loves me with no strings attached? When am I really alive and not just existing? What is this happiness for which I am so desperately searching? And who is this God who asks me to respond to his love by the way I love the people around me? Jesus replied to all these questions in such a challenging manner that on reading his reply we are tempted to close the book, except that we already know that Jesus lived the beatitudes long before he spoke them.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed arc those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted
for righteousness' sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 5:3-10).

The beatitudes speak of life and happiness in an unusual way. The first part is so enticing with its promises while the second part is so disturbing with its harsh warnings, The beatitudes are Christ's response to all who suffer. The beatitudes echo Christ's power, a power which manifests God's love by transforming death into life.

Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello: a gift to the young

Is it possible to offer the beatitudes to those who are starving, who feel dead in themselves, who desperately seek friends and companionship? Is it possible to propose the beatitudes as a plan of life for those who are seeking significance and who want to know if God really has anything to do with our desire for happiness? The same question was put to Don Bosco, a great friend of the young people of his day. Don Bosco was dissatisfied with the ideas about life and living current in his time. He tried to rewrite the gospel beatitudes for the poorest and most abandoned young people of his time - those no one really cared about. He looked to a saint he was very fond of for inspiration in this task. The saint was Francis of Sales, the name Don Bosco would eventually give to his followers. Don Bosco inspired others with his passion for the good of these young people. One of the first of these was Mother Mazzarello. Together with him and with other courageous young people who eventually came to be called "Salesians" a wonderful story takes shape, a story that has brought life and hope to many people.

The young people who arrived at Valdocco and Mornese "felt drawn into the atmosphere of spontaneity, joy and celebration. They felt they could be themselves. They felt at home." The place was bursting with life and the invitation to get involved in living. It was contagious. These young people were poor and without hope. They discovered again and again that Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello were a gift, an expression of God's love. These two people embodied the gospel beatitudes by their way of living, their friendship with the young people. Truly in Valdocco and Mornese something was present which went way back in time. The Scriptures are full of God's tenderness for his people. God's love is continually shown to the poorest of the poor, and emerges strongest in the moments of greatest difficulty. Don Bosco would often repeat: "Without a doubt God loves all of us as expressions of his very own being. He has a special affection for the young and he delights in their happiness." The young people of Valdocco and Mornese really felt this special affection and tender love in the faces and the lives of those women and men who had agreed to stay with Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello.

As so often happens in the history of God's presence among his people, the joy, love and acceptance experienced by even the most difficult of the young people slowly transformed them into seeing life more positively, and seeing themselves as worthy of respect. The young were drawn into the atmosphere and became truly "great". Michael Magone, Emma Ferrero, Francis Besucco and Emilia Mosca are all witnesses of the transforming power for good present in those early days at Valdocco and Mornese.

Indeed the happiness they and many others experienced was an overflow of the "passion" the Salesians and Sisters had for the young. for their growth in joy, true freedom and commitment to others All this was nothing less than an expression of a tremendous Iove for God and for life. It was, above all, the effect of viewing and valuing life positively in all its aspects. Quite simply they lived the belief that God shows his goodness in and through life. Don Bosco and Mother Maz7arello are a great gift from God for the life and joy and hope of many. They are a gift in a special way for young people, especially those most in need.

They worked in the Church with great zeal because of their conviction that God had given them the task of caring for the young. When they and the "fruits" of their educational service (Dominic Savio, Laura Vicuna...) were solemnly proclaimed "holy" by the Church it was in recognition of the fact that the Holy Spirit had intervened on behalf of young people ho a charismatic way in the human story.

The gospel of the beatitudes today

We come in at this point of the story.

It is by no means easy to try and re-write the beatitudes today as they were written at the beginning of the Salesian adventure. Our times are so different from those of the beginnings of the Salesian story. The dreams which light up our existence are very different from the dreams of Don Bosco's first friends.

Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello lived in a culture which was fairly religious. In their day believers recognized a certain sacredness about human existence. They read their life experience in the light of God's abiding presence. Today it is not like that. Even if we cannot say with any certainty where we seem to be going, we need to make some clear distinctions as we attempt to make sense out of life.

On the one hand, we are people of our time and have grown and matured as such. We are aware of our responsibility for others. We have discovered our autonomy. We are aware of the fact that we cannot continue to "pass the buck" on to others. There is another side however Many have tried to take on their responsibilities by distancing themselves from the God of life and from the story of humanity. We have become very presumptuous. We have arrived at the point of being convinced that without God we can do more.

Young people today are searching for life and happiness. Unfortunately, they are searching for these things in a disturbing manner. There are social and cultural reasons for this. It is enough to think of the situations of poverty, of deprivation, of oppression, of war in our world and our society, or of the role models which western culture presents to the young, all models which tend to equate happiness with material possessions.

Within this cultural context, and in the light of the visionary ideas the Second Vatican Council put forward, the Salesian Family is seeking better ways of being a gift of God to the young, especially the poorest and most abandoned among them

The letter the Pope wrote to the Salesian Family on the occasion of the Centenary of Don Bosco's death has sustained and encouraged our attempts to rethink a new way of being Christian. The Pope writes: "Don Bosco is the master of youth spirituality because he was able to live the gospel for the young taking into account their needs and expectations" (Juvenum Patris 5).

Little by little the Spirit of Jesus is helping us discover the awesome task entrusted to us.

We cannot just repeat the words Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello used. Doing so puts us on the wrong wavelength. Instead we need to speak with the heart of Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello to the heart of the life and culture of the young today.

The need to do this was clear within the Salesian Family. Many sought a response, but we were like athletes on starting blocks, waiting tensely for the pistol to be fired. The trigger finally came in the form of the two centenary celebrations: MM '81 and DB '88. The Salesian Family went back to its origins to re-discover some of the essential aspects of the Salesian charism. At the heart of Don Bosco's proposal is a Christian life-style. a project of spirituality that encompasses the whole of human experience. It is a 'holistic' way of living. Don Bosco summed it up in the words of scripture, "whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do it all for God's glory" (1 Cor. 10:31). initiatives have multiplied. From the first tentative steps an enthusiasm has been aroused. The idea has taken form. In all of this the Salesians, the Sisters and the young people have found themselves reflecting, praying, working and experimenting together on things that really matter. The spirituality project has become a common denominator, something to be shared and enriched in the sharing. It is a point of unity. The different responsibilities, presences and services carried out within the Salesian Family converge on the spirituality. It is important and open to all who want it; it is a new gospel of the beatitudes. It is a way of continuing the story which Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello wrote for the young of their day. It is a way of continuing the journey across today's landscape.

Salesian Youth Spirituality

For the past ten years the Salesian Family has called the spiritual experience born of this collaboration "Salesian Youth Spirituality".

Spirituality is an old and richly meaningful word.

Our new way of envisioning spirituality is that it is for everyone and not the prerogative of the chosen few-. it does not refer to a style of Christian living which turns its back on daily life to find its place in the desert or behind the walls of a monastery. Spirituality is about living each day immersed in the mystery of God. Jesus revealed to us that God is at the very heart of life. The Spirit of Jesus is at work within the very fiber of our humanness, our actions, our words and our life experiences. Truly spiritual women and men are those who choose to allow the mysterious and all-pervading presence of a living God to give meaning and purpose to their lives, their life choices and their optimism.
This conviction has helped us recognize the gift Don Bosco left us, a spirituality of life and daily living.
Encouraged by the words of the Pope in acknowledging Don Bosco as a "master of youth spirituality", we are taking this proposal and trying to re-write it with the new insights of our times in relation to God, the human person and education. The result of this re-drafting is a "Salesian Youth Spirituality" project. The adjective "Salesian" distinguishes the project from other proposals offered within the Church. The adjective "youth" underlines the fact that this proposal refers to young people and has the characteristics of youthfulness even when it is lived out by adults, as is the case for the Salesians and the Sisters. The noun "spirituality" attempts to reclaim a serious and challenging commitment based on the tradition of discipleship. Finally we are saying that we want the "Salesian" and "youth" aspects of our spirituality to encourage us to live that gospel radicality that has been the mark of so many Christians before us.

Signs of the Spirit's presence

In these last few years the experience of "Salesian Youth Spirituality" has become for many of us a way of growing in our understanding of life as call and response, as vocation. Some have re-discovered their religious vocation in greater depth, others have felt called to commit themselves, the whole of their lives in a radical way to the service of God's kingdom, while others have become more aware of their service as lay people in Don Bosco's style in the Church today.

Many young people have become involved in ministering to their peers, to other young people. They spend time and energy for and with others. These young people are an educating presence according to the best intuitions of the Salesian tradition. The formula and its contents have spread world-wide. There are many who are carrying forward the apostolic mission which Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello entrusted to us, a mission which has education very much at heart. Several of these young people live out this mission on a full-time basis, giving at least some years of their lives in one of the many forms of voluntary work. The experience of sharing "Salesian Youth Spirituality" has created an almost indefinable "movement of life" which goes by the name of the Salesian Youth Movement. It is a life style shared by groups and organizations and individuals committed to the task of educating in the different settings (oratory, school, youth center, parish or local community).

The horizons have widened. From the smallest of seeds a huge tree has grown. The tree continues to grow wherever there is an educator working with the enthusiasm of Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello for the good of young people.