Hajja Salesjana

Top Photo by Grant Ritchie. Bottom Photo by Ricardo iv Tamayo - Unsplash.com Dear friends, readers of the Salesian Bulletin, I greet you cordially and extend my best wishes to you in this new year 2024 that we inaugurated just a short while ago. I wish with all my heart that it will be a year filled with God’s presence in our lives and with blessings. You know that I’m accustomed, whenever possible, to write this greeting to share something that I’ve experienced and that has had an impact on me for one reason or another. On the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord (January 6), I was in my hometown, Luanco-Asturias, feeling very connected with my roots, with the sea and nature that saw my birth and my growth, as well as with my countrymen. On that day, I went to celebrate Holy Mass. The pastor of my town kindly granted me this privilege while he went to another of the parishes entrusted to him. In this way, we were able to celebrate this solemnity in more Christian communities. What I want to tell you is that it was a morning in which the Lord had prepared some unexpected encounters for me. As I learned about the situation of some people, the certainty of how the Lord consoles and comforts us even when pain, sickness, or limitation have settled into some lives was made more real for me. Before going to celebrate Mass, I began my journey that morning by visiting an elderly person who had been a doctor in my village for many years – a great family doctor, a believer – and, by the way, a Salesian past pupil from Salamanca. For years and years he was one of the figures I heard my parents talk about when they would sometimes go to the doctor. I made this family visit to him in response to his daughter’s invitation and met this man of faith who told me that, as a doctor, he could give only a little of the great amount he had received from God. Now, with a grave illness, he only asked the Good Lord Encounters on Epiphany with amazing people who have good hearts and luminous faith by the Rector Major Don Ángel Fernández Artime 8 Jannar-Marzu 2024 hajja