Holiness

EDUCATING TO HOLINESS

I would like to take the occasion to begin a series which may run for some weeks, on the striking and extraordinarily rich pedagogical relationship that existed between young Dominic Savio and his mentor, Don Bosco. A Salesian historian, Peter Stella, is my source, and if we had the money I'd make sure everyone had a copy of his recent in-depth analysis of the religious outlook and spirituality of Don Bosco. But back to the relationship between himself and Dominic in a school situation that is just so instructive for ourselves.

One of the triggers for Dominic was the connection Don Bosco made between happiness and religion - a connection as old as the human race, in fact; nor was Don Bosco the first to link them with the basic concerns and desires of young people. But Don BOsco used every means that were attractive and helpful to young people to do this. He wrote a sort of every day book for his kids called 'The Companion of Youth' - prayer book, helpful hints, even a kind of diary. It opens as if addressed to a boy - and 'takes on' the prevailing attitude that one had to be remote from fun in order to 'get to heaven'. Let's recall that Don Bosco, as a youngster, had formed a 'Society for a Good Time' (Societa' dell'Allegria), with its psalmic motto: Serve the Lord in gladness. Don Bosco highlighted the importance of having a good time, seeing it as a sign of maturity. Deeply convinced from personal experience that joy and the Christian life are not in opposition, Don Bosco as Christian educator is careful to dose out religious instruction and practice to young people so that they may come to share his conviction in ever more mature ways. he wants them to realise that the Christian way of life is not sad by nature, that in fact it tends to broaden into increasing joy. The boys themselves could verify this in Don Bosco within the confines of the Oratory. Theology leads Don Bosco to formulate his assertion thus: "Only religion and the grace of God can make human beings content and happy".

There is another line of thought Don Bosco frequently put to the boys at the Oratory: give yourself to God as soon as you hear his voice! For Don Bosco, the connection between early dedication to God, life, and assuring oneself of eternal salvation is as plain as day..but it is put in simple and positive terms: "If we start out with a good life when we are young we shall remain good through our later years...if bad habits take hold when we are young, we shall often keep them throughout life until death..". Giving oneself to God? What does this mean for Don Bosco? Initiating a series of choices. When it comes to later choices, like getting a job, Don Bosco calls this "following the voice of God who calls". Simply put, Don Bosco saw the life of a young person as open to a two way dynamic - God calling and the person responding. If you take a look at Don Bosco's biographies of Savio and Magone, we quickly begin to realise that their 'virtues' weren't just the results of environment and education based on human factors, nor the results of an innate youthful tendency towards the ideal. The matter is much more complex. Divine and human factors intervene to produce episodes and personalities that Don Bosco does not hesitate to call holy and perfect. In the end, the Church was prepared to back his intuition in the case of Dominic Savio!

What a fresh way of looking at what we are doing in Catholic education today. There is almost nothing in the above that could not apply here, if only we would be brave and single-minded enough to accept that God's grace can, as Judith Wright once put it "slant a sudden laser through a common day". She saw it once, in a human (Australian) face. Can we?