Hajja Salesjana April-June 2022

"May the charity and sweetness of Francis de Sales guide me in everything." This was the resolution that Don Bosco made at the beginning of his life as a priest and educator. It is from this reference to St. Francis de Sales that Salesian pedagogy takes its name. A teacher wrote, “Every day, I make my rounds to the classrooms. Whenever I would enter a room before COVID-19, the children would get up and huddle around me. That doesn't happen anymore. The fourth and fifth grade children want to run to me but hold back. The first graders, on the other hand, don’t even budge; they sit still, distant, and don’t react at all. This deeply worries me about their future ability to express affection.” Another adds, "We are facing a definite increase in aggression among the middle school students.” Parents tell their children THE GREAT GIFT THAT IS ST. FRANCIS DE SALES THE MESSAGE OF THE RECTOR MAJOR Don Ángel Fernández Artime to "stay away from the others.” What weight of loneliness, depression, and insecurity will today's children carry with them and for how long? What is the best pedagogical intervention? "Whoever feels loved will love," said Don Bosco. But kindness and goodness have never been spontaneous virtues. For Don Bosco, sweetness was not a natural gift either. He claimed to have awakened from the "dream" he had when he was nine years old with his fists aching from the blows he had given to the young blasphemers. As a teenager, he vigorously defended his friend Luigi Comollo. He himself said, “The next one who says something evil will have to deal with me. The tallest and most insolent ones made a wall in front of me, while two slaps landed on Luigi's face. Blinded at seeing this, 32 April - Ġunju 2022 hajja