15. Salesian Loving-kindness
Sent to young people by the God who is 'all charity',1 the Salesian is open and cordial, ready to make the first approach and to welcome others with unfailing kindliness, respect and patience.
His love is that of a father, brother and friend, able to draw out friendship in return; this is the loving-kindness1 so much recommended by Don Bosco.
His chastity and well-balanced attitude open his heart to spiritual fatherhood and give transparent witness to God's anticipating love.
It is interesting that among the 12 articles which explore different elements of the Salesian Spirit, it is only in this article that the word ‘Salesian’ is used in the title to describe this particular quality: Salesian loving-kindness. It seems to affirm that the secret handed over to us here is so original and characteristic of don Bosco’s spirit that it cannot but be ‘Salesian’, typically his, a charism within our charism.
It has been a great blessing for me in so many ways to journey for many years with young people aspiring to remain with don Bosco and make their first steps in our Congregation in West Africa. I always treasure the sharing which each novice makes at the beginning of the year to all the community about the spark which first ignited his interest in Salesian life: what made this very path more attractive, more appealing than many other possible options?
For the large majority of the novices, what enkindled the desire to follow don Bosco was the loving kindness of the first Salesians they ever met, “open and cordial, ready to make the first approach and to welcome with unfailing kindness, respect and patience”.
We thank God for this gift and for the fact that it is taking root in our land as it did in every country where don Bosco arrived. It is the same seed, the same quality of love which made the first oratory at Valdocco such a special place. “The food was nothing to rave about. When we think of how we ate and slept, we just wonder how we pulled through without harm and complaint. We were happy because we felt we were loved. We lived in a wonderful atmosphere and we were totally absorbed in it; nothing else mattered” (Giacinto Ballesio, BM IV, 233).
We thank God for this gift and for the fact that it is taking root in our land as it did in every country where don Bosco arrived. It is the same seed, the same quality of love which made the first oratory at Valdocco such a special place. “The food was nothing to rave about. When we think of how we ate and slept, we just wonder how we pulled through without harm and complaint. We were happy because we felt we were loved. We lived in a wonderful atmosphere and we were totally absorbed in it; nothing else mattered” (Giacinto Ballesio, BM IV, 233).
When we deal with this article during the novitiate class on ‘Constitutions’ one of the emphases goes on the two adjectives used to qualify ‘kindness’ in the text of the article.
The ‘kindness’ must indeed be ‘loving’. Or maybe we can swap and say that love is kind. It is kind in all what don Bosco is, has and does because it is real love.
But does it? Does kindness, does love, wanted and nurtured above anything else, ever fail? Don Bosco was aware not only of the beauty but also of the frailty of this gift. The letter of Rome of 1884 expresses vividly all his concern of a ‘climate change’ he could perceive in the oratory, which was now much bigger, much more ‘institutional’ than the Valdocco of the days of mama Margaret and Dominc Savio. “Now the superiors are thought of precisely as superiors and no longer s fathers, brothers and friends; they are feared and little loved.” (Letter from Rome)
The concern of don Bosco is even greater when the loving-kindness is at risk where it should be experienced and lived primarily: namely within the community, first and foremost among the confreres. To be kind and cordial to outsiders or to the youth but not to be able to “to welcome with unfailing kindness, respect and patience” my brother in the same community is a sharp contradiction, an inauthenticity which undermines the fruitfulness of all what we do, because our Salesian mission has only one subject: the community. When we are not in communion among ourselves we can have individual performances but not fruitful mission.
The mementos given by Don Bosco to the first missionaries in 1875 are short pieces of advices. For the 13th, don Bosco insists at length (it is in fact the longest among them): “Love one another, advice one another, correct one another, and do not be carried away by either envy or rancour. Let the good of one become the good of all, and let the troubles and suffering of one be regarded as the troubles and sufferings of all, and let each one strive to banish or at least to mitigate the sorrows of others”. (Appendix to Constitutions, 266)
One of Don Bosco’s final word’s of advice on his deathbed to Bishop Cagliero was; “Love one another as brothers. Help and bear one another.” (T. Bosco, 377).
A love so kind and so enduring is not an endowment received automatically with the first profession. It is an art that is acquired through a long life training where it requires all the best disposition, good will and determination on the side of the apprentice and where the community where I’m now is always the best workshop for its practice.
Let us ‘return to don Bosco’ especially in this quality of amorevolezza, that fr Rinaldi considered as our fourth vow. By doing so we sow and nurture the Salesian charism in West Africa. Any other commitment without this character will produce something else. Only this quality will make don Bosco alive in Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
God our Father, source of all love, through your Spirit you bring us the living force of true friendship. Make us ope and cordial in welcoming others and especially the young.
Make us generous and impartial in our love for each and all, with a sincere and chaste affection, so that we may prove to be for those we meet a reflection and foretaste of you’re your own anticipating fatherly love.
1The original Italian term used is AMOREVOLEZZA which conveys a meaning not easy to translate in a single word. Amore = love. Love is what matters. A love that is so genuine and strong that captures all the best energies of the will (...VOLEZZA, from volere = to want, to desire, to wish). All what I want and I wish is prompted by the love I have for you. “Ti voglio bene”, I want your good, or I want your good above anything else. This is don Bosco with Bartholomew Garelli and all those he will meet after that first encounter. In English it has been translated as loving kindness.
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