Hajja Salesjana - September October 2016

27 This is an existence which is very different from the ones of those who, as Pope Francis says in paragraph six of Evangelii Gaudium , are Christians who seem to live a lifestyle of an “Easterless” Lent. My dear friends, if we live with Don Bosco’s sensitivity and drink from the source of his charism, we cannot allow ourselves to fall into the temptation of pessimism or of a lack of joyous satisfaction. Certainly, we must face difficulties, but it is much more beautiful to animate every person in our groups to go forward by giving the best of themselves and of what we are; i.e., to show by our lives that we are educators and evangelizers, on fire for the good of the young and collaborators in “God’s Plans” . We also need to show that we want to continue making this dream of Don Bosco become a reality, with the same enthusiasm with which he succeeded in handing it on to his first Salesians and laity, and to do so together with our brother Salesians, within our Salesian Family, and with the many educators, friends, and laity involved in this work. In this way we may merit the title given us by Paul VI when he called us “missionaries to the young.” To be missionaries in life means, first of all, to believe that Jesus is the center of one’s life. This signifies that we must truly believe that our life is enriched when we give of ourselves, when we give ourselves up for others, and that, on the contrary, it is weakened and saddened by isolating ourselves or when seeking only our own comfort. It also means that we believe that the most beautiful life is one in which happiness is found by making others happy and by giving life to them. “’And may the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the good news not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervour, who have first received the joy of Christ.’” ( Evangelii Gaudium , paragraph 10) My dear friends, this is the heart, the core, of my dream for a Salesian Family which must feel that it is more alive than ever before and that is has the ecclesial duty to offer the best of itself so as to give freely what was received freely – as Jesus tells us in the Gospel. My most beautiful wish is that our faces might always reflect this joy about which we dream and that comes only from Him.