The
Missionary Intent of Don Bosco in the light of the text
The
text itself can be analyzed even just by face value. The very
language ie. The vocabulary of the text can distinguish two
intentions of being missionary in Don Bosco's mind. The first being
the restoration of the faith of the people and second the development
of peoples. In modern terms this could easily pass for two arms of
evangelization: The direct evangelization and the indirect
evangelization. And by Direct evangelization it means the forthright
proclamation of the Gospel and its values. The Indirect
evangelization would mean the promotion of human and social
development answer the plight of the human need.
Are
these the intentions of Don Bosco? Does the choice of words, as Don
Bosco scribbled on the train express these two roles of a missionary?
Here
Below is the text re-arranged based on the degree of 'religiosity' of
the vocabulary used by Don Bosco when he wrote them in 1875.
1:
Seek souls,
but not money, honours, or rank.
10:
Love, revere, respect the other religious Orders, and always speak
well of them. This is a way to gain the esteem of all, and to
promote
the good of the (Salesian) Congregation.
12:
Let the world know that you are poor in clothing,
food, dwelling, and you will be rich in the sight
of God and you will win people's hearts.
13:
Love
one another,
counsel one another, correct one another, but do not give in to
either envy, or resentment; on the contrary, let the good of one
be the good of all; the
pain and suffering of one be considered the pain and suffering of
all,
and let each one try to eliminate, or at least ameliorate them.
14:
Keep your Rules, and never forget the monthly Exercise
for a Happy Death.
15:
Every morning recommend to God the work of the day, in
particular Confessions, classes, religious instruction, preaching.
16:
Constantly recommend devotion to Mary Help of Christians,
and to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
17:
To the young people recommend frequent Confession and
Communion.
18:
To cultivate vocations to the priesthood and religious life
instill 1) love of chastity; 2) horror of the contrary
vice; 3) the avoidance of indisciplined companions; 4)
frequent Communion; 5) charity, by means of special
signs of kindness and goodwill.
20:
Amidst toil and suffering never forget that a great reward
awaits us in Heaven.
|
2:
Use charity and the greatest courtesy with all, but avoid
conversations and familiarity with persons of the opposite sex, or
persons of questionable life-style.
3:
Do not go visiting, except for motives of charity or out of
necessity.
4:
Never accept invitations to dinner except for the most serious
reasons. In these cases arrange for two of you to go.
5:
Take special care of the sick, of the children, of the aged, and
of the poor, and you will win for yourselves the blessings of God
and the good will of people.
6:
Pay due respect to all civil, religious, municipal and government
authorities.
7:
When meeting a person in authority in the street, be sure to greet
him respectfully.
8:
Do the same for ecclesiastics and religious.
9:
Stay away from idleness and disputes. Great sobriety in food,
drink and rest.
11:
Take care of your health. Work, but only to the extent your
strength allows.
19: In
disputed matters, listen to both sides before coming to a
decision. |
Amen.
|
|
The
first advice was regarding the main objective of saving souls. And
the last advice is the reward of Paradise. Immediately after Don
Bosco scribbles the first advice he rattles on with the second till
the eleventh which all can be taken as very practical advice for
human strategies for social effectiveness and longevity. And
then Don Bosco shifts immediately with a barrage of spiritual advices
which he dropped off earlier after scribbling the first advice on
seeking souls. From the tenth till the twentieth with the exception
of the nineteenth are all highly spiritual advices that one cannot
but notice when seeing its vocabularies. From the abundance of the
heart, the mouth speaks but in this case, the hand writes what the
heart would want to say. In short by the very vocabulary of the text,
Don Bosco can be understood to be expressing apparently
two
general themes
taken
at face value.
The
first theme would be the mystical
advices.
Replete with the vocabulary and sentiments to cultivate a deeper
experience and sense of God characterizes mystical language. The left
column justifies the said theme on mystics. These ten advices on the
left column: §1,
§10, §12, §13, §14, §15, §16, §17, §18, §20 having
more explicitly spiritual language, would easily be shoved aside with
indifference by a non-religious social worker. Instead the other ten
advices on the right column §2,
§3, §4, §5, §6, §7, §8, §9, §11, §19 would be considered
power-words
or
social wisdom sayings by the same non-religious social worker because
the language and the content are very 'sociologically' acceptable ie.
Advices for purely social human development as Non-Governmental
Organizations would champion in this time and age. If
the left column can be titled as a mystical themed portion, the right
column could easily pass for a social-worker theme title.
Mindful
that Don Bosco did not in any way write a draft and so give him ample
time to re-arrange the development of the text. He
scribbled the text on the train and when finished, he handed it to be
recopied that he may hand it to his departing sons. Could he have
rearranged it first? Yes he could. But did he even see the need to
rearrange the points to give clarity to what he wanted to express?
The
text shows that Don Bosco was shifting randomly from a highly
spiritual
advices
to a practical social service
to-do-list of advice.
Knowing his sons, Don
Bosco knew obviously that all
ten
were
religious, to mean all
having
religious vows and only
some
receiving
the ministry of priesthood.
Don Bosco did not distinguish what advice was only
meant
for the priest and what went only
for
the Lay Salesian or
cleric.
Don Bosco meant his memento for all his sons ie. plain and simple
equally meant: to my religious sons.
By
dint of randomly writing and in turn showing a random interplay of
spiritual advice
and human advice, Don Bosco viewed the spiritual and the human
aspects of mission to be emanating from one and the same heart of a
missionary. For Don Bosco there was no dichotomy of spiritual moments
and human ones.
There was no distinction between the SPIRITUAL personality and the
HUMANE1
personality. There
was no split or dual personality to speak of.
Referring
to the previous assertion that Don Bosco seemed to convey two themes:
that of the Mystics theme and the Social-Worker
theme.
If we were to be consistent, there ought
not to
be
two but in fact only one theme of advices.
A spiritual theme... a
mystical theme.
In
the previous pages with regards the context of the Author, it should
be remembered that for Don Bosco, social development in
the context of his ecclesiology and pastoral approach meant
constructing civility
out
of any society.
And as previously defined, for Don Bosco civility
is
not social upliftment for it's sake. For Don Bosco in stark contrast
to barbarian and savage life-styles
that are detrimental to the human being and human society,
civilization
was a society replete with Christian (to mean Catholic for
Don Bosco)
religion so as to imbue the citizenry with Christ through education,
work and the sacraments and make life moral and thus
assure
human progress. For
Don Bosco social-work had the soul's benefit in view. For Don Bosco
social-progress had the Glory of God in view. For
Don Bosco, the memento had only a mystical point of view... that his
sons would take to heart these advices to help them experience God.
The
Memento's usefulness
Will
this Missionary Memento of Don Bosco have a more distinguished place
in the preparation and sustenance of Missionaries ad gentes? The
answer lies in the hands of those who will receive this memento
themselves. One thing is for sure, that when these mementos are not
taken to heart, a missionary does not simply stagnate, he simply
implodes.
It
is very interesting that Molineri's relationship with Father
Tomatis would
actually serve as the trigger finger to understand what value has the
advices, formation, mementos of Don Bosco to his missionary sons then
and now.
Is
it possible for a Missionary to be a tireless worker in the vineyard
of the Lord and yet praying
little? How is it possible that each one can actually go on their own
work marvelously like
a good social-worker would and
yet find the mission life a
heavy
burden
when
living as a religious is not that as
marvelous
while
living in the midst of one or two who stopped
living
as little-mystics.
Father
Fagnano writes to Don
Bosco that the relationship between Father Tomatis and Brother
Molinari has were more strained, and they did not get along. Fagnano
continues that generally Brother Molinari is in good health. And yet,
he expresses that Molinari has little affection for prayer and
meditation. And at one time Molinari even insulted Father Tomatis and
Father Cassini. Fagnano recounts that Molinari says 'he can not
tolerate the abrupt whims of change' of Father Tomatis. Fagnano
explicitly describes both the exterior and interior bearing of
Molinari as vain in dress and appearance and somewhat neglectful in
following of the Rules of the Salesian Society. Despite the negative
report that preceded, Fagnano himself say 'however, I trust him to
change, because by a gentle but firm word, he obeys.2
Just
to illustrate more emphatically what the memento of Don Bosco could
have and should have been to the missionaries, it would be unique to
portray the attitudes of Molinari in the light of the religious and
'mystical' advices of Don Bosco. Worthy and important to note is
that, when subjecting an evaluation on the figure of Molinari below,
the assessment is done on the attitude of a missionary and not the
very person of Molinari. The assessment of A
missionary
with an attitude similar to Molinari:
1:
Seek souls, not money honours, or rank. An
attitude like Molinari
gets an “D minus grade” when he asks that respect which Tomatis
probably did not give; 10:
Love, revere, respect the other religious Orders, and always speak
well of them. This is a way to gain the esteem of all, and to promote
the good of the (Salesian) Congregation. An
attitude like Molinari
gets an “F grade” when he can show respect to others but not to
his own congregation;
12:
Let the world know that you are poor in clothing, food, dwelling, and
you will be rich in the sight of God and you will win people's
hearts. An
attitude like Molinari
gets an “F grade” when he definitely has become more vain;
13: Love one another, counsel one another, correct one another, but
do not give in to either envy, or resentment; on the contrary, let
the good of one be the good of all; the pain and suffering of one be
considered the pain and suffering of all, and let each one try to
eliminate, or at least ameliorate them. An
attitude like Molinari
gets an “D grade” obviously since Tomatis or even Cassini may
have provoked him; 14:
Keep your Rules, and never forget the monthly Exercise for a Happy
Death. Molinari gets an “F grade” because he was not faithful
already to the Rule; 15:
Every morning recommend to God the work of the day, in particular
Confessions, classes, religious instruction, preaching. An
attitude like Molinari
gets an “D grade” because he hardly prays nor goes for meditation
in community and yet should be given the benefit of the doubt that he
still does in the privacy of his room; 16:
Constantly recommend devotion to Mary Help of Christians, and to
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
An
attitude like Molinari
gets an “D minus grade” continuing the reasons just stated
previously it would be hard to believe that one could be zealous if
one was not devout; 17:
To the young people recommend frequent Confession and Communion. An
attitude like Molinari
gets an “D minus grade” with the same reason as stated
previously; 18:
To cultivate vocations to the priesthood and religious life instill
1) love of chastity; 2) horror of the contrary vice; 3) the avoidance
of indisciplined companions; 4) frequent Communion; 5) charity, by
means of special signs of kindness and goodwill.
An
attitude like Molinari
gets an “F grade” because strife would not be a living witness to
attract others to live such life of conflict;
20: Amidst toil and suffering never forget that a great reward
awaits us in Heaven. An
attitude like Molinari
gets a “D minus grade” despite the faults, heaven waits. A big
doubt lingers if it were a reward fully deserved.
Could
a missionary with an attitude like Molinari as described by Tomatis
and Fagnano be assisted? Surely. First things first. Was the
missionary memento of Don Bosco received as a mystical memento or a
social-workers to-do-list? Because if a missionary took to heart this
memento written by a man of God like Don Bosco, he and many other
missionaries would easily be better religious and in all possibility,
be little mystics.
(...to be continued and concluded in 4/4)
1To
mean social services.
2
H.Baratta.
RESEÑA BIOGRÀFICA DE LOS DIEZ PRIMEROS MISIONEROS SALESIANOS
LLEGADOS A LA ARGENTINA. Coleccion Archivo Historico Salesiano Nro.
5. Buenos Aires. 1986, p.26. Tomatis
y Molinari
eran tirantes, y no se llevaban bien. molinari, salud buena; pero
sufrò un poco el mareo. Poco afecto a la oraciòn y la meditaciòn.
quiere ciertas cosas por capricho, y ;ay del que lo contradice!
insultò a Padre Tomatis y a Padre Cassini, que le dieron una
pequena ocasiòn. Dice que no puede tolerar los modos bruscos de
Padre Tomatis. Algo vanidoso en el vestir y en el querer aparecer, y
algo descuidado en las Reglas de la Sociedad. Sin embargo, tengo
confianza de hacerlo cambiar, porque a una orden suave, pero firme,
obedece. La communiòn, cuando puede.
(carta del 3.1.1876)
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