Hajja Salesjana November December 2017

1 6 2017 marks the 100th year since the Salesian Secret Service was set up by none other than Blessed Philip Rinaldi, third successor of Don Bosco. What?! You'd never heard of this? A few of you will already have guessed which Salesian Family group I am referring to. Exactly a hundred years ago, three women got together with Don Rinaldi and, undoubtedly through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, decided to set up a group of people who dedicated their lives to helping people experience the love of God through Don Bosco's method of loving kindness and optimism. However, rather than working with youngsters in explicitly Salesian environments, where SDBs and FMAs already carried out valuable work, this new group would seek to diffuse Don Bosco's spirit in places where a fixed Salesian presence was harder to attain. Such places included hospitals, prisons, schools, social services, industries, refugee groups, youth centres, families, and numerous other environments. Basically, anywhere you could find people, particularly youngsters, this new Salesian group wanted to diffuse Don Bosco’s spirit. Today, there are around 1500 men and women around the world who have answered the call to this mission. They dress ordinarily and work ordinary jobs, from teachers to doctors, from psychologists to administrators. In fact, you might even know some of them, without realising that they are secret agents of Don Bosco! In line with his spirit, their underlying and overarching purpose in life is to ensure they not only love people they meet in life, but to ensure that these people know they are loved. This also translates into this Salesian group striving to achieve excellence in whatever career they choose, such that they can provide the best service they can to the people they have been called to work with. Today, this group of people is known as the Volunteers of Don Bosco (VDBs if they're female, CDBs if they're male). How are they different from any of the Salesian Cooperators or even Past Pupils, you might ask? There is, indeed, a fundamental 100 years of the Salesian Secret Service by a local VDB