RMG – A video-prayer for 205th anniversary of Don Bosco's birth

12 August 2020

(ANS - Rome) - There are just four days to 16 August, the day on which the whole Salesian Family in the world commemorates the birth of the Father and Teacher of Youth, St. John Bosco. In this 2020, marked by a pandemic that still grips a large part of the global population, the heirs of his charism are looking again at Don Bosco to find in him those elements that are always valid - in every time, place and circumstance - to accompany young people, and especially those who are poorer and in need.

This yearning for service and holiness lived in everyday life has become a video-prayer, which combines the evocative images of the Salesian mission carried out all over the world with the words that flowed from the heart of Fr Pascual Chávez, Rector Major from 2008 to 2014, on the occasion of the recognition of the body of Don Bosco for the worldwide pilgrimage of his relics.

"In front of your body, Don Bosco, I ask you that all of us Salesians, your children, and all the members of the Salesian Family, succeed in having:

your eyes, to contemplate nothing but the young people of the world;

your heart, to love them as you knew how to love them, so as to make them feel loved;

your mind, full of apostolic imagination to respond to their needs and expectations;

your industrious hands, to make your dreams and their dreams come true;

finally, your feet, to meet them wherever they are.”

The video, produced thanks to the efforts of the Department for Social Communication, is a tribute to Don Bosco and a wish for all those who still follow in his footsteps today. It is possible to see it - in the six most widely spoken languages in the Salesian Congregation - on ANSChannel and on the sdb.org website.