The Reign and the Ruin - beware both are subtle

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

January 31, 2020: Celebrating St. John Bosco

2 Samuel 11:1-4,5-10,13-17; Mark 4: 26-34.

Jesus today explains how the Reign of God is subtle in its presence and its growth; it does not happen with a bang but it germinates, sprouts and grows in a manner that no one notices it.  

The danger is, even the enemy is subtle in his ways! The first reading presents how the chosen one falls into the inconspicuous trap set by the enemy. One fall follows the other...one worse than the former! 

The reminder given to us is the necessity to be alert all the time, as the Word of God reminds us very often. To be alert would mean to know what the Lord wants of us at a particular time and being able to choose exactly that. More than that, it means to be careful about the deceiving ways of the evil one, who is intent on winning us over to ruin, not merely by gross blunders but more dangerously by subtle compromises, slight slides instead of mighty falls. However the ruin is certain! 

St. John Bosco, the saint we celebrate today, understood this fact perfectly. That is why he suggested that the way out of sin, is holy joy! To be thoroughly occupied with good things, that you will never have the time to sin - that was his ingenuous suggestion to the young. 'Run, jump and shout, but do not sin,' he said. Let our hearts be so filled with the Lord, that we hardly have time to think of any other. 

The Reign, no doubt, is subtle; unfortunately the ruin too could be subtle. Our dedication to the Lord has to be absolute; let us serve the Lord in holy joy!

[Note: the readings are different where the proper of the feast of St. John Bosco is chosen; Since not everywhere the proper readings of the Saint will chosen, the readings reflected on here are of the day - i.e., Friday, 3rd week in Ordinary time]

TRIDUUM TO THE FEAST OF DON BOSCO - DAY 3

DON BOSCO - THE SAINTLY FOUNDER

The Three Promises - his salvific itinerary 

Why did Don Bosco found a congregation? Was that part of his dream at nine? It wasn't. It was no where in the horizon. Not even the historical context warranted such a move of founding a religious congregation while dozens of others were being suppressed and clamped down. What was in Don Bosco's mind? Of course, the mission given to him in his dream: show them the beauty of virtue and ugliness of sin; win them over with your loving kindness. In due time, he was promised that he would understand what he was called to. 

Don Bosco began to work for a small group of young people who needed him the most and that small group grew bigger by the day! At a point of time, he realised that even without being much conscious of it, he had opened himself to a mighty big world that the Lord held before him. Those words of our Blesssed Mother in the dream, "This is your field" was coming alive in ways and magnitude that were unprecedented. Don Bosco could not be satisfied with leading a few youngsters to God, he wanted to lead all the youth from all over the world, to God and to salvation! And the Congregation and the Salesian Family was the salvific itinerary that he proposed. An itinerary that consisted of three promises, three concrete promises - Bread, Work and Heaven! 

Da mihi animas, caetera tolle - that yearning to take the young to the Lord was uppermost in the heart of the saintly founder, who considered that not only as his passion, but also the way to his salvation. He proposed the same to his followers, his sons and daughters, his family, which stands spread far and wide today as Salesian Family. And this salvific itinerary, Don Bosco made it sound so simple with his three promises!

Bread - that was the promise of the Divine Providence. When Jesus called, if you wish to be my disciple, give up everything, take up your cross and then, come follow me, Jesus was underlining the God who provides, the God who takes care of our every need! The promise of bread is not so much a promise of convenience and absence of suffering, but a challenge to a way of life that is totally dependent on God! A life of poverty that depends on God and thrives on God's providence. 

Work - that was the promise of Divine Will. Work is not just doing, it is not achieving, it is not sealing my name on everything around me, as if to say, I own them all! Work, more than doing, is the vocation to do the Will of God. The one who does the will of the Father is my brother, my sister, my mother! Don Bosco's promise of Work was born from his conviction that he was an instrument in the hands of God, and everyone who joined him became such an instrument. A life of obedience, that concerns itself with doing the will of God and nothing but the will of God.

Heaven - that was the promise of Divine Intimacy. We are a people of God, citizens of heaven, our celestial destination. But all the way to heaven, is heaven! That is the call we accept when we pray, 'May your kingdom come'. When we live a life of total dependence on God, a life totally for the will of God, that would be a life of pure and spotless love, the love that is born from the love of God, from that divine Intimacy that creates a paradise, wherever we are! 

Don Bosco's promises etch an itinerary so sure to take us all the way to that salvation that awaits each of us - the divine providence that sustains us, the divine will that guides us and the divine intimacy that sanctifies us. Let us walk with Don Bosco, profoundly certain that we are on a salvific itinerary. 

TRIDUUM TO THE FEAST OF DON BOSCO - DAY 2

DON BOSCO - THE MAN OF GOD

The Three Devotions - his spiritual project

In the dream of the Two Columns,  Don Bosco actually speaks of three important signs; the three elements that would make up a wholesome Salesian spirituality. The Column of the Eucharist, the Column of Our Blessed Mother and then the Ship steered by the Holy Father. In some predominantly Catholic cultures, these could be taken for granted, though it is difficult these days to find such predominantly Catholic cultures. Anyway the three elements underline the 'catholicity' of a son or daughter of Don Bosco. All the three of them are so specifically Catholic and are those very core elements that are under attack from any anti catholic force, be it in history or now. 

The devotion to the Blessed Sacrament sets the sense of God's continual presence to degree extremely high and makes a person awe filled in his or her daily life. When the Church , in the year 1905, declared that a person prepared duly could receive communion everyday, Don Bosco would have screamed with joy, if he were alive. Because that is what he wished for his children even before the Universal Church could come up with it. But today, is the Eucharistic presence being taken for granted? Is it being made into a mere ritual or is the sacrament truly received as a mode of uniting oneself with the Lord?

The devotion to Our Blessed Mother was for Don Bosco the most human form of tasting the love of God - in and through the love of a Mother, the Mother of God. Jokingly said, that Don Bosco found a short cut in Mary, to arrive at what he wanted from the Lord and Saviour, it could but be all meaningful. Mary is the short cut, the direct manifestation, the immediate proof of God's grace within human nature. That was the inspiration that Don Bosco had in growing to the full in his nature and grace - our devotion to the heavenly mother, has to make us more like her, ultimately more like her Son.

The devotion to the Holy Father, as sons and daughters of Holy Mother the Church, is a guarantee of remaining true to our identity: the identity of children of God. What would have Don Bosco done, in times like the present? People trying to form factions against the Holy Father, those trying to mislead the Papacy, those vying to destroy it and those trying to misinterpret it unceasingly? Times actually are not too different - in Don Bosco's time there was a great criticism of Pius IX and what was Don Bosco's stand: he said categorically: "it is better to go to heaven with Pius IX than to be right with those who criticise the Pope." We are beloved sons and daughters of the Church, and hence of the Holy Father! 

The call that we have today, the second day of the triduum, is the spiritual project that Don Bosco presents to us. It is a call to renew our awe and love for the Eucharistic Lord, to learn from our Blessed Mother and to resolve to stand with our Holy Father, as true and worthy children of God. 

TRIDUUM TO THE FEAST OF DON BOSCO - DAY 1

DON BOSCO - A SALESIAN EDUCATOR

The Three Pillars - his educative proposal

Was Don Bosco a Salesian? A curious question indeed! Though Don Bosco was a diocesan priest, when he founded the Congregation and to his great joy and satisfaction when on May 14, 1862, the first group of 22 Salesians made their first triennial vows to the Lord, as religious members of the newly founded Society of St. Francis de Sales, Don Bosco himself says, he too made his profession to the Lord, committing himself in perpetuity to the Religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. This we see in the seventh volume of his Biographical Memoirs. However, our point here is not so much about that, as it is about the 'Salesian' that Don Bosco was at heart - that is, a person who followed the life, example and spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, the saintly wise pastor. 

One of the great inspirations that Don Bosco received from Francis de Sales, and passed on to us his sons and daughters is the style of the accompanying persons in their growth. That was the fount from where Don Bosco drew the principles of his own educative proposal - the three pillars: Reason, Religion and Loving Kindness. He writes in his famous account of the Preventive System: "this system totally rests on reason, religion and loving kindness." We see the gentleness, the kindness, the tenderness of Francis de Sales and at the same time him firmness in guiding persons to sanctity. 

Religion would be the total surrender in faith to the Lord who has granted us the great gift of life and all the opportunities to grow to the full. That would be the sense of vocation with which we live, and invite the young with us to live with. That is the conviction that no one here on earth, finds oneself here by chance. There is a purpose to life and that purpose has to be discovered on a daily basis.

Reason would be the trust and and hope we have in the inherent goodness of the other, a goodness that reflects the image and likeness of the Divine that is placed within us. It is appealing to that goodness that one can challenge oneself or challenge anyone to values of great honour and dignity. We do not need any external reason to be good, we have an integral reason to be good and holy, because are we have it deep-seated in the core of our being. 

Loving Kindness is the intense experience of God's love and sharing the same with the others to whom we are sent. It is being signs and bearers of God's love to the young! It is the source from where one could derive for oneself or for those in need, all the necessary strength to face every kind of situation in life - good or bad, joyous or sad, challenging or discouraging - for we have a God who accompanies us with love, an unconditional unlimited love.

The call today for us on the first day of the triduum to the feast of Don Bosco is to make this educative proposal our own, in every way. Let us surrender ourselves in faith to the Lord and invite the young under our care to do hold on to God; let us hope in the goodness of every person around us and counter the culture of negativity that threatens the world today; let us abide in the love of God and share the same with every one whom we encounter that God's love can continue to live amidst us every day and every moment!