Pope: the Salesian, an educator who embraces the fragility of marginalized children
In the preface to the book "Evangelii gaudium con don Bosco", Francis writes that the Salesian is "an optimist by nature, he knows how to look at children with positive realism". "The Salesians - he writes - have trained me in beauty, at work and in being very happy". "They helped me grow without fear, without obsessions". "They helped me to move forward in joy and prayer".
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - The Salesian is "an optimist by nature, he knows how to look at children with positive realism", he is "an educator who embraces the fragility of young people living in marginalization and without a future, bending over their wounds and he cares like a good Samaritan ".
Pope Francis writes in the preface to the book "Evangelii gaudium con don Bosco", in which he underlines that the proposal proposed by St. John Bosco in the social and existential outskirts was a high measure of Christian life.
St. John Bosco, writes the Pope, "was not a saint who had ‘a Good Friday face’, sad and long but rather "’an Easter Sunday [face]". He was a "healthy bearer" of the "joy of the Gospel", always "joyful, welcoming, despite the thousand labors that besieged him daily". He believed that "holiness consisted in being very happy".
Francis writes, Don Bosco had "a revolutionary message in a time when priests lived the life of the people with detachment". And, "as Don Bosco still teaches today, the Salesian recognizes in each of them, even the most rebellious and out of control," that point of access to the good to work with patience and trust ".
The Salesian of today, "knows how to look around, sees critical situations and problems, confronts them, analyzes them and makes courageous decisions". "He is called to meet all the peripheries of the world and of history, the peripheries of work and the family, of culture and economy, which need to be healed".
Francis also recounts his personal experience when he attended the sixth grade at the Wilfrid Barón de los Santos Angeles College, in Ramos Mejía, an Argentinean city located in the province of Buenos Aires. "The Salesians - he writes – educated me in beauty, work and in being very happy". "They helped me grow without fear, without obsessions". "They helped me to move forward in joy and prayer".
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