Hajja Salesjana January February 2017

3 1 In the many “Valdoccos” of the world What is said of Aleppo can be said of many other places. One of the things which Don Bosco used to remind his Salesians with great insistence – and, most especially, the missionaries who went to America – was this: “Care especially for the sick, the children, the elderly, and the poor.” This explains the little “Salesian Miracle” in Aleppo – that a house exists where everyone and each one can find a home. They won’t find much to eat because there’s a scarcity everywhere, but they continue singing to life and betting strongly on life in a situation of death. This reality fills me with joy and, from this day forward, my lips will profess their homage and thanksgiving to Don Bosco who without any pretensions was great because he was able to reach to the depths of a person’s heart with just a look, a glance, a silence, or a word. And this is what continues to happen today in the many “Valdoccos” of the world. Thus I cannot resist sharing with you a very simple incident that speaks of the good sentiments and greatness of Don Bosco’s heart. It is only a little anecdote, but it says it all. Many years after Don Bosco’s death, a Salesian, Don Alessandro Luchelli, who had lived at the Oratory in Valdocco (Turin) for a number of years with Don Bosco, recounted the story that in 1884 discipline at Valdocco had become very strict, contrary to Salesian tradition – so much so that Don Bosco himself was pained to see certain things happening. He expressed his concerns in our well-known “Letter of 1884 from Rome.” Alessandro continues: “One day, Don Bosco encountered me as I was standing beside a line of boys under my care while they were waiting for their turn to go to the study hall. I kept strict discipline with a stern expression on my face, demanding that they maintain a perfect, single-file line. At that moment, Don Bosco passed by, placed his hand on my shoulder, and said to me: “But leave them be.” Don Bosco didn’t like lines. He tolerated them only when the number of boys had increased greatly and it seemed to be necessary.” Now I share with you this other testimony which speaks of this heart of a father who safeguards the simplest things of the home, the family, and the young people of a Salesian house. Just as in Aleppo, so it is in Sierra Leone, in Ghana, in “Don Bosco City” in Colombia, in Ethiopia, and among the refugee children sheltered in the Salesian houses in Germany – as it is in hundreds and hundreds of others which could be named. This is what needs to be said to us also today, together with Fr. Munir of Aleppo, that Don Bosco is alive – very alive in those Salesian houses around the world where the Salesian spirit thrives and, also, in how much life his sons and daughters – Religious and laity – give everywhere, trying in the simplicity of their lives “to be Don Bosco today”!