A Bicentenary Reflection on Don Bosco's Mission amongst the young.
1 Exposure
Don Bosco is ordained a
priest;
He goes
to the city
·
He walks its street,
·
he enters the slums,
·
he visits the prisons.
“I was horrified! I saw large numbers of youth, fine healthy youngsters,
alert of mind, - seeing them
idle there, infested with lice, lacking food for body and soul, really shocked
me.
Public
disgrace, family dishonour, and
personal shame were personified in those unfortunates.
What shocked
me most was to see that… they were abandoned to their own resources.”
·
Don Bosco still walks the streets today
·
Still goes to the cities
·
Still meets the young.
2 Rejection:
It was a dark night when I came upon the little boy.
Who are you? I asked.
He replied.
I am abandoned.
I am alone.
I am an outsider, even in my own family.
I belong no where.
I belong to no one.
Living hurts me.
Each day I hear that I am nobody.
I am a throw away.
I am a mistake.
I am a burden.
I am a parasite.
People are right to get rid of me.
People are right to want me out of the way.
I am without a home.
I am without any true friends,
Because I cannot
trust anyone enough
To let them be a
friend.
The people who hurt me most
are the people I once trusted.
I am never going to trust another person again.
I know that there are others like me but that’s no comfort.
We live in quarantine
each an
inhabitant of his own universe.
Everyone else is a stranger, a user.
Each meeting with another person is just
Another
opportunity for being rejected
Another opportunity for being kicked
Another opportunity for being thrown away
For being told I am nothing
That I am useless
That I am trash
That I should never have been born.
3 MINISTRY
How can I minister to one who
is so alone, to one who is so lost and so hurt? How can I break the good news
upon him, upon her? How can I heal when everything says it is too late for
healing, the damage is gone too far, the hurts are too deep? How can I say
welcome to someone who does not know the meaning of home?
Don
Bosco also was in anguish as to how he could reach out to them. He was disturbed
by their situation but left it “to the Lord's grace what the
outcome would be. Without God's grace, all human effort is vain.”
Scene : A youth sneaks into a sacristy.
I
come to you who are wounded, and lost in your world of pain. What do I say to
you? Be healed? Not yet because you are not ready to hear it.
First,
I show you my wounds because if I have no wounds I cannot heal you. I minister
from my wounds. I minister from my brokenness. Paul tells me to be proud of my
weakness. Paul tells me in my weakness is my strength. If I accept my wounds
and if I let you touch them, then together we can go to Jesus. By his wounds we
are healed.
Don
Bosco too carried a deep wound – the loss of his father left a mark on him. His
whole life was a search for the missing father he never had. His meeting with
Garelli touched on this wound, and in reaching out from this wound he would become
the father of so many poor youth. His whole life took on a meaning by becoming
that which he himself never had.
Don Bosco had enough personal
experience to know that for a child or young person in need,
the present moment is the only reality that he or she knows.
the present moment is the only reality that he or she knows.
That is why,inspired by the
Gospel call to welcome a child, he offered to help the young immediately
“Do you want to start now?”
4 Affirmation
“You are accepted just the way you are.
You are cherished.
You will never be alone again.
You are of enormous value.
You have a dignity no one can take away from you.
You have a place you can call your own.
You have people around you
Who care for you
and who love you
Life now can become something we can celebrate together
Each day we will grow to understand new depths of beauty
New heights of
life’s mystery, which is love.
You can begin to trust again,
For you are loved
You are loveable
You have no need to be afraid
It is never too late for healing
It is never to late for love.
5 Kairos
One day I met a wise old man and I asked him, “What do I need if
I am to minister to the homeless, to the broken?”
He
answered. Remember. Remember all the home-coming stories you ever heard. The
bible is a story of home-coming. Only in God can we really be at home. Let the
homeless teach you. Through them you will learn the depth of yearning that is
in all our hearts.
His Name is Today
but our worst crime is abandoning the children,
neglecting the fountain of
life.
Many of the things we need can
wait.
The child cannot.
Right now is the time his bones
are being formed,
his blood is being made and his
senses are being developed.
To him we cannot answer
Tomorrow.
His name is "Today."
. Gabriela Mistral (Nobel
Prize-winning poet from Chile)
Magnifcat
Let us sing that beautiful prayer asking Mary to once again
intervene through us on behalf of the young and rejoice with her for the great
things God has done for his little ones.
This Reflection on Don Bosco for the opening of the Bi-Centenary Celbrations can also be watched on Youtube.