N S J B

INTRODUCTION DAYS 01-09

L: “We are
going through
very difficult
times; we
have
experienced
something we
could never
have imagined
or suspected...

ALL: This has

all happened
because of
COVID-19...
Fear, sorrow,
lack of
security, tears,
loss and
desperation
have filled the hearts of the rich and poor, the famous
and the unsung, elderly and young.” (Strenna 2021, no. 1)

L: “There is one moment in the history of the

Oratory that we simply must recall because it is so
close to the worldwide difficulty we all find
ourselves immersed in due to the pandemic....
Cholera breaks out in Turin...
ALL: The vision of faith and the practice of charity,
including in a heroic way, was no private virtue, a
characteristic just of Don Bosco or a few super-
generous types; it was the lifestyle of that small
educative community. Hope is a community virtue,
one that is nurtured through mutual example and
through the strength of fraternal communion.” (Strenna
2021, no. 4)

L: To you, Father, our praise is due for Don Bosco...

ALL: For the dream that inspired him, the trials that
tempered him, and the signs that guided him...

L: To you Father, our praise is due for Don Bosco...

ALL: For those who shared his indomitable zeal, men

and women, religious and lay, in every time and
place...

L: To you Father, our praise is due for Don Bosco...

ALL: For the humble beginnings at Valdocco and for

every educative environment called to be a
revelation and gift of your love...

L: To you, Father, our praise is due for Don Bosco...

ALL: For the immense ranks of young people who

invade our life and disturb our heart, prompting it
to imitate that of the Good Shepherd... (cf. Ian Murdoch, SDB,
Starting Again from Don Bosco, p. 37)

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 DAYS 01 and 06
DON BOSCO AS MYSTIC OF THE SPIRIT
“Amidst life’s toughest challenges, it takes great
faith in God to go through.”

L: “This harsh
reality of pain
and sickness
the world is
going through
today seems
to drive
people more
to scandal and
protest than
to faith; to
doubt rather
than to
trusting
abandonment.
But just the same, faced with this human cry or
along with it there is always, for us believers, God.”
(Strenna 2021, no. 3)

ALL: We gaze upon Don Bosco: “My entire life came into
being, grew and developed in intimate contact with the
supernatural. If the world has been my testing ground,
faith has been my response as a believer. I have been
accustomed to saying: ‘Amidst life’s toughest challenges
it takes great faith in God to go through.’” (Pascual Chavez, SDB,
Getting to Know Don Bosco: His Spirituality, p. 3)

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 L: “In all this time, it
may seem to many
that this discretion of
God, who intervenes
only with the silent
call of his love, is
unbearable. And yet
this is the authentic
reality of God who
shows solidarity in
accompanying us,
making himself close;
far from the image of
the God of power
who intervenes to
change things
‘magically’.”
(Strenna 2021, no. 3)

ALL: We hear Don Bosco telling us: “I allowed myself to

be guided by a phrase from my mother’s lips: ‘We are in
the Lord’s hands, and he is the best of fathers who
constantly watches over us for our good and knows what
is and what is not best for us.” (Pascual Chavez, SDB, Getting to Know Don
Bosco: His Spirituality, p. 4)

L: “He gives power to the faint, abundant strength to the

weak.” (Isaiah 40:29)

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

L: “Though young men faint and grow weary, and youths

stagger and fall, they that hope in the LORD will renew
their strength.” (Isaiah 40:30-31)

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

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 DAYS 02 and 07
DON BOSCO AS PROPHET OF ENCOUNTER
“I always needed everyone... I lived asking and
thanking.”

L: “There are certainly many people who, as citizens

and from a civilian perspective, with a clear
awareness of our humanity and without any faith
perspective, are attempting to tackle this situation
and this crisis. But among these there is also us. And
today’s world needs the witness of our lives; the
witness of us who have found the meaning of our
lives in the encounter with Christ.” (Strenna 2021, no. 3)

ALL: “Gone is the time for the belief that we can do

everything with our own resources, on our own, like
‘giants of vanity’ for whom nothing is impossible...
The others are ‘me’ declined as ‘we’, much more
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dependent on the richness of humanity in its values
of beauty and shared life... Let us start from an “us”
that joins the plural and the different with the
particular, rich, unique, unrepeatable and beautiful
that belongs to each person, to each of us, precious
as we are in ourselves.” (Strenna 2021, no. 5)

L: We gaze upon Don Bosco: “I was born poor, and

yet through my hands have passed incredible sums,
to which I never attached my heart. For me being
poor means being free... free, not fettered! Poor as I
was, I knew and frequented many ‘well off’. I had a
conviction that was not always understood, indeed,
raised a hornet’s nest of criticism, tedious and
suffocating.” (Pascual Chavez, SDB, Getting to Know Don Bosco: His Pedagogy, p.
25)

ALL: We hear Don Bosco telling us: “I have written

thousands of letters, the majority of them to solicit
grants from public bodies and from benefactors. In
all, though, there is always a ‘thank you’, a word of
sincere gratitude... To thank was always considered
a strict duty of justice.” (Pascual Chavez, SDB, Getting to Know Don Bosco:
His Pedagogy, p. 26)

L: Let us transform isolation into an opportunity to

seek our own authenticity and true and sincere
encounter. (cf. Strenna 2021, no. 5)

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

L: Let us shift from being closed, from looking at the

other as a risk and an adversary, to opening our
doors and hearts in acceptance. (cf. Strenna 2021, no. 5)
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ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

L: Let us move from division to unity, from arguing,

lack of respect and division to joining forces and to
harmony. (cf. Strenna 2021, no. 5)

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

DAYS 03 and 08
DON BOSCO AS SERVANT-LEADER OF THE YOUNG
“I have struggled for a lifetime to give back to many
young people the joy of living.”

L: “More
than ever,
presence
and
witness are
needed –
our
presence,
and as a
testimony,
the joy that
comes
from our
faith ‘that
hopes’,
because ‘faith and hope go forward together’... And
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 this especially for the young who we cannot leave
on their own – more so now than ever – they are
waiting for us with open arms so that we can once
again inhabit their lives, with the strength of a love
capable of conquering everything, because in all
this only love can triumph!” (Strenna 2021, no. 5)

ALL: We gave upon Don Bosco: “We were entering

the Industrial Age. I had to adapt to new times, new
trends... I wanted to build a better world by offering
many young people a bread earned honestly by a
worthy work as free people and not like slaves to be
exploited. I knew that ‘the devil has servants
everywhere’, even though I had the certainty that
‘he who has God has everything.’” (Pascual Chavez, SDB, Getting
to Know Don Bosco: His Pedagogy, p. 31)

L: “We must once again dream the dream of the young.

We must put ourselves in that situation which enables us
to overcome what fear has prevented from becoming
reality... Each of our works must allow itself to be flooded
by the living, generous and revitalizing heart of each
young person who transforms homes with walls of
silence into spaces of life of young people. We want that
life! That is the life that saves us!” (Strenna 2021, no. 5)

ALL: We hear Don Bosco telling us: “I have struggled

for a lifetime to give back to many young people the
joy of living, by clothing them with a dignity too
often trampled upon... I haven’t changed the world,
far from it! But despite the inevitable mistakes that
always accompany human action, I have been aware
of my part. I opened new ways to educate, love and
serve youth. My dreams have left a mark.” (Pascual Chavez,
SDB, Getting to Know Don Bosco: His Pedagogy, pp. 33-34)

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L: “We listen to the cry of young people who ask for
presence, attention, accompaniment, availability, and
who also ask us to show them the true face of
God.” (Strenna 2021, no. 5)

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

L: If we pay attention to them, if we listen to them, they

will ask us with greater intensity to speak to them first of
all about this Lord who enlivens our hope.” (Strenna 2021, no. 5)

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

L: “It is the good news of the resurrection that revives

our hope and makes us new people for a new time.
Because this world will end. And only what we have loved
will remain.”

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

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 DAYS 04 and 09
DON BOSCO AS A MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD “IN DUE
TIME”
“What sanctifies is not the suffering, but the
patience.”

L: “The believing
response to the hope
that God gives rise to
is based on the
Gospel as God’s
power for the
constant
transformation and
renewal of life. In his
direct kind of
language Pope
Francis invites us to
be ‘more people of
the spring than of the
autumn’. The
Christian sees the
‘buds’ of a new world
rather than the
‘yellow leaves’ on the branches. We do not take
refuge in nostalgia and complaint, because we know
that God wants us to be heirs to a promise and
tireless nurturers of dreams...

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ALL: “But some questions continue to be legitimate
ones: Who do we wish to be, faced with the reality
we are called to live through? And how do we want
to live through all this? Because we would be losing
a great opportunity if we were not to capitalize on
the experience we are going through, the pain
included.” (Strenna 2021, no. 3)

L: We gaze upon Don Bosco: “I was nicely greeted by

the rector of the seminary who worried with the
pitiful state of exhaustion in which he found me,
addressed fraternal words of comfort: ‘Reverend
Father, none better than you knows how much
suffering sanctifies.’ Whereupon, I was allowed to
correct him by saying: ‘What sanctifies is not the
suffering, but the patience... What sustains patience
is hope. Let hope support us, were we to lack
patience.” (Pascual Chavez, SDB, Getting to Know Don Bosco: His Pedagogy, pp. 38-
39)

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 ALL: We hear Don Bosco
telling us: “As a good
farmer I had learned to
wait, learning and
practicing the lessons of
patience. I remembered
hearing many times
from my mum a saying
filled with wisdom: ‘By
walking, the burden of
the donkey gets
adjusted’... This memory
of my childhood made
me say later: ‘For over
time, the medlars ripen,
men change, the
difficulties are
smoothed out’.” (Pascual
Chavez, SDB, Getting to Know Don Bosco:

His Pedagogy, pp. 40)

L: Bl. Stefan Sandor

“deeply believed that
his life had to be lived in
the midst of his people
and culture, which was
going through moments
of uncertainty and
desolation. His upright
attitude restores our
perspective of ‘knowing
how to stay’... to be a sign of God’s love when he
‘appears’ to be absent from history.” (Strenna 2021, no. 4)

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ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

L: “Without losing
heart, but with the
hope of those who
place their faith in
Christ our Lord,
Servant of God
Charles Braga had
the patience that
Don Bosco
recommended so
much for knowing
how to accompany
young people as
they built a
mature
personality...
enabling him to build bridges rather than barriers
between cultures.” (Strenna 2021, no. 4)

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

L: Servant of God, the Volunteer with Don Bosco,

Antonino Baglieri, “who, after long suffering,
discovered the great opportunity to be reborn to a
new life in the Cross... let himself be touched by the
community that strengthened him, both in his
personality and in his faith, and saved him.” (Strenna
2021, no. 4)

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

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 DAY 05
DON BOSCO AS A MAN WHO SMILED IN REAL
DIFFICULTIES
“Don’t think that I am beaten; just tired!”

L: “Christian
hope makes
faith tenacious,
able to
withstand the
shocks of life;
it allows us to
see beyond
every obstacle,
it opens our
eyes and
allows us to
place our life
and history
within an
interpretation
made in the
light of God’s
salvation...
While we
recognize our poverty and fragility, God gives us his
heart.” (Strenna 2021, no. 6)

ALL: “So then, aware of our fragility and how difficult

the task is today of educating and forming people,
more than ever we need to be sowers of hope,
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provocateurs of true hope, whisperers of this same
hope. Don Bosco did this in a passionate and almost
natural way. And we are involved in this because we
truly believe that it is hope that sustains life, looks
after it, protects it.” (Strenna 2021, no. 6)

L: “’I can’t carry on.’ Yes, those are my words, and I

wrote them in a letter in 1853 addressed to Canon
de Gaudenzi, a real friend, the complete priest, later
Bishop of Vigevano... Don’t think, however, that I am
beaten; just tired... Believe me, however, I wasn’t
just playing victim, but just stating the fact, pure
and simple.

ALL: Don’t forget that at Valdocco word had got

around that the greater were the problems and the
heavier the tribulations the more the Salesians –
and first the boys – saw me calmer than usual. They
guessed the conclusion: ‘Don Bosco must be really
in difficulties today if he looks so happy and
smiling’.” (Pascual Chavez, SDB, Getting to Know Don Bosco: His Spirituality, pp. 48-
49)

L: Let us learn that prayer with the young and their

families is the school of hope. (Strenna 2021, no. 6)

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

L: Let us grow by living with a sense of the fatigue of

daily life, which is also made up of subdued though
intimate joys, real encounters, and surprises that
surprise the soul. (Strenna 2021, no. 6)

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

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L: Let us live hope especially in times of difficulty
and loss... Hope is the last bastion of life. It is like
the light at sunset: it still manages to give life to
objects before they blend into the darkness and
allows us to see our way home before night
descends and all is wrapped in darkness. (Strenna 2021, no.
6)

ALL: St. John Bosco, keep us hopeful.

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