This spiritual moment, which celebrates devotion to Our Lady Help of Christians, will be held online, allowing all the faithful to take part from their homes.

The videos will be available daily from tomorrow on the Salesians’ YouTube channel and also on the various language channels of ANSChannel. Each day, join in prayer with reflections, comments from the Rector Major and testimonies, in a rich experience of faith and devotion.

In addition to the videos, a downloadable booklet will be made available so that participants can follow the prayers and meditations on a daily basis.

• Guide - Novena Maria Auxiliadora 2024 (146 downloads )

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The meekness of the lambs is perceived with the intensity of the contrast, staged immediately after its opposite represented by the ferocity of the animals that preceded them. When John somehow relives the same dream on the eve of the migration of the first oratory from the Ecclesiastical Boarding School to Valdocco, his reaction seems more ready and bold than when he was nine years old. We are on the second Sunday in October 1844: “I dreamt I saw myself in the midst of a multitude of wolves, of goats and kids, of lambs, sheep, rams, dogs and birds. All together they made a noise, a clamour, or rather a devilish noise that would frighten the bravest. I wanted to flee…” (Salesian Sources, 1241-1242).

The meekness and charity that we wish to achieve here must first and foremost be an inner ‘metamorphosis’ for John and for those who will become not only lambs, but shepherds of the flock, as foreshadowed in the dream of 1844 mentioned above. It is a ripe fruit that comes from a long gestation. It is an Easter fruit. It is a mutation that cannot be improvised and requires a long apprenticeship, as it was for the 12 apostles from the first meeting with the Master on the Lake of Galilee to the final ascent to Jerusalem, and from that new beginning to ‘the ends of the earth’ to which they were sent.

In the catechism, we used to learn to distinguish between cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance) and the theological virtues (faith, hope and charity). The latter are not the result of the ingenuity and volition of those who try their best. There is a combination of nature and grace, of grace and freedom, that allows this charity from above to become the energy that moves our steps and fills relationships with a vitality where ‘as it is in heaven’ and ‘as it is on earth’ are both at home.

There is an article in the Constitutions of the Salesians of Don Bosco dedicated entirely to the founder. Art 21: “The Lord has given us Don Bosco as our father and teacher. We study him and imitate him, admiring in him a splendid accord of nature and grace. Deeply human, rich in the virtues of his people, he was open to earthly realities; deeply man of God, filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, he lived ‘as if he saw the invisible’ (Heb 11:27). These two aspects merged into a strongly unified life project: the service of the young. This is the charity to which he was trained. By whom? By Providence to which he responded as best as he could, but which made use of many, first and foremost those wolves who became lambs: the young were Don Bosco’s first formators, by grace.

The meekness of the lambs in the dream, then, is not a bucolic image of tranquility, of a spring garden perfumed with flowers. If we look at the whole of Don Bosco’s life and mission, the realisation of that dream, it is rather a lamb and shepherd with a biblical flavour.

And in Scripture, the word that explains and illuminates all the others is always the concluding one, the one that comes from Easter. There, where the shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, we understand the scope of “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Mt 5:5): the cross is the fullness of this beatitude-prophecy. There is another reference to meekness in the same gospel, even more intense because the Master directly proposes himself as a model, precisely on this aspect: “Learn from me, who am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29).

The word used in the Greek of the gospels and rendered in Italian as ‘meek’ is PRAUS – praeis in the plural. In Greek culture, it was one of the most honoured virtues, whose distant root came from the military world, and more specifically from the employment of horses in it. PRAUS was the well-trained horse, as docile as it was vigorous, ready to lie in wait for even very long periods of time as to throw itself into the thick of battle, faithful in everything to its rider.

When the lady, as beautiful as she is motherly, asks John to make himself humble, strong and robust, is she not pointing in the same direction? Is it not this kind of patient and daring resilience that will make John capable of continuing to walk amidst thorny roses and to go on ‘to the point of recklessness’, until his last breath, in the ‘da mihi animas caetera tolle’ that has become one with his life?

This is the way of being of one who has made his own in heart, mind and strength that hymn to charity that Don Bosco places at the foundation of the Preventive System, when finally in 1877 he decided to write it down, or rather to describe what he had already been living and showing the way to live for years. The practice of this system is all based on the words of St. Paul: “Charitas benigna est, patiens est; omnia suffert, omnia sperat, omnia sustinet. Charity is benign and patient; it suffers all things, but hopes all things and sustains all troubles.”

Two inspirations for us:

• For those who believe, the gifts of grace, of which charity is the highest, are first and foremost desired and hence first and foremost asked for. Rather than starting from the effort, perhaps even from discouragement at feeling so distant and poor, one can allow oneself to be attracted, fascinated, conquered by the value and beauty of this ‘splendid agreement’ and ask for it as a grace. It is a grace of unity, of harmony of the heart in tune with the movements of the Spirit, which will grow with us along with this desire, where we can also involve our saints in prayer, starting with St. John Bosco. Let us not forget that he can be prayed to as well as admired.
  
• Charity is not an outline but the heart of everything, to which we constantly return, the origin and goal of every other step (as is the Eucharist). Whatever point we find ourselves at and ‘the point where the freedom lies’ in the people we accompany, we can always start from there. There is no publican at the back of the temple who cannot be heard, or thief on the cross who is precluded from Paradise, or Samaritan woman at the well who is precluded from encounter. There is no Bartolomeo Garelli in the sacristy on 8 December 1841 or Michele Magone at the station in Carmagnola who is not in the right place, at the right time, if there is a little of Don Bosco’s charity on the other side, now as then. From there we set off, and as a goal never anything less than the fullness of charity which is the same as the fullness of life in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit AMEN.
  
  Silvio Roggia SDB

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With the main aim of deepening and spreading devotion to Mary Help of Christians, the International Congresses of Mary Help of Christians are events organised by the Association of Mary Help of Christians (ADMA) and are aimed at the whole Salesian Family.

Promoting the spirit of solidarity and mutual aid, a Solidarity Fund has been set up by ADMA Turin Primary to support the most disadvantaged groups, enabling them to be present as well.

Donations can be made by bank transfer to IBAN IT16 V030 6909 6061 0000 0130 575 or via this link.

The total amount raised will be divided between the groups that request this support. There are no contributions for individual participants.

For further information, please contact .

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The press conference for the 9th International Congress of Mary Help of Christians, which will take place in Fatima from August 29 to September 1, 2024, was widely reported by the Ecclesia agency. Watch the video report and learn about the program and the main speakers of the event, which has the central theme “I Will Give You the Mistress”.

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The Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, José Ornelas, will preside at the opening Eucharist of the IX International Congress of Mary Help of Christians, on August 29 at 7pm. The announcement was made at a press conference held in the early afternoon of Friday, March 15, at the headquarters of the Salesian Province in Lisbon.

The Rector of the Shrine, Fr. Carlos Cabecinhas, will give the first talk on the morning of the 30th. The talk by the Rector of the Shrine is intended to give all the participants, who may be more or less familiar with Fatima, a contextualization of the history and message of one of the greatest places of Marian devotion in the world.

Father Tarcízio Morais, Provincial of the Salesians, extended the invitation to all the Marian movements in the country and to the whole Church to take part. He stressed that, although the Association of Mary Help of Christians is organizing the event, “the number one objective of the Congress is to get to know and deepen devotion to Mary”.

As soon as the intention to hold the Congress in Fatima was presented, recalled Father António Marcelino, SDB, of the Congress organizing team, the Shrine welcomed the initiative with total availability. “This Congress is from Fatima,” he recalled.

Andrea Bozzolo, Rector of the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome; the Spanish biblical scholar, Father Juan José Bartolomé; the specialist in Systematic Theology, the Uruguayan Sister Adriana Silva Castillo; the psychologist and psychotherapist, Maria Rita Scrimieri; and the Auxiliary Bishop of Donetsk, Ukraine, Bishop Maksym Ryabukha, SDB.

Bishop Maksym Ryabukha, SDB, will give a testimony to the participants and preside over the rosary and procession on the last day of August at the Shrine of Fatima.

The organization hopes to attract around 1,000 participants to the meeting, which has been the average attendance at recent congresses. “Initially, when it was announced that the next congress would be held in Portugal, we expected around 1,500 participants. But this has been the average for the last few congresses,” said the head of the organization, Father Marcelino.

Registration for the congress will remain open until July 24, said the organizers.

The detailed program for the IX Congress is being released by the organizers, who guarantee that there will also be many moments of prayer, with daily Eucharists and the Way of the Cross. “The participants ask for it,” explained the priest. On the days of the Congress, participants will have the opportunity to take part in the Eucharist in various languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. The opening and closing Eucharists will be joint.

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D. Maksym Ryabukha, Salesian Bishop of Ukraine, will give his testimony about living St John Bosco’s dream amid a community at war.

The Salesian was director of the Salesian House of Mary Help of Christians at the gates of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, at the time of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army. Since the invasion, the Salesian has been a point of contact with the Salesians in the country. The ANS Agency reported on the way the Church has supported the population, distributing humanitarian aid, celebrating the Eucharist in the bunkers, visiting displaced people and trying to maintain the normality of the daily lives of children and young people, where possible, with travelling oratories and holiday camps.

In the summer of 2022, the Salesian was responsible for organising summer camps in Ukraine, providing “at least a few moments of serenity for young people who have seen death up close and are still pursuing life with all their might”, the religious explained.

In August, the Ukrainian bishop will be in Portugal to speak to the participants of the IX Congress of Mary Help of Christians, which will take place in Fatima between 29 August and 1 September.

On Saturday 31 August, Bishop Maksym will preside over the Rosary at 9.30 pm and the Candlelight Procession, on a day when, as usual on this date, a large turnout of faithful is expected.

D. Maksym Ryabukha was ordained Auxiliary Bishop of the Donetsk Archiepiscopal Exarchate and appointed Titular Bishop of Stephaniacum in the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv on 22 December 2022.

Foto © Ukranian Greek Catholic Church

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The program Manhã Viva on TV Canção Nova has presented the hymn of the IX International Congress of Mary Help of Christians. Father Simão Cruz and António Ferreira, the author and composer of the theme, were the guests on the program.

“I will give you the Teacher” is the name of the hymn for the International Congress of Mary Help of Christians, which will bring together the Salesian Family in Fatima from August 29 to September 1, 2024. Father Simão Cruz and António Ferreira, the author and composer of this theme, were present on the program Manhã Viva to present the hymn.

A Salesian for over 56 years, Fr. Simão Cruz began by explaining his connection to the Congregation, which he owes to a friend. António Ferreira, he also recalled his connection to the Salesians, to whom he has always been attached, having even studied theology. Today, this connection continues and António is a music teacher at the Salesians in Estoril.

The choice of the two of them for this project was made by those responsible for the Congress in Portugal, in particular Fr. It was an almost inevitable choice. With a master’s degree in Music, and greatly influenced by his mother – “who took part in all the church choirs” – António Ferreira has always been connected to music and, above all, singing. Father Simão Cruz, on the other hand, has always loved poetry and so it was easy for him to create the poem for this hymn, which is inspired by Don Bosco’s “Dream of the 9 year olds”.

How important is a hymn?

During the creation of the hymn’s melody, António Ferreira tried to create a “simple song” that everyone can sing at “all times”.

Created in “harmony”, combining the “lyrical part with the musical part”, the hymn “Darei-te a Mestra” was conceived, as Fr. Simão says, with “inspiration and creativity”. Two poems were created and the one that best reflected the “Dream of 9 Years”, whose bicentenary we are celebrating, was chosen.

For António Ferreira, music, and in particular this hymn, will have a “prominent place” at the IX International Congress of Mary Help of Christians, since its mission will be to “bring the participants together”. “The hymn can be a link between the participants, establishing unity,” emphasizes the music teacher.

“I will give you the Teacher”

The video clip, which features the hymn sung in Portuguese and the chorus translated into English and Italian, and later also into Spanish, also aims to emphasize the Salesians’ connection to education, namely by presenting the various Salesian presences that have schools.

Mary, Mother and Teacher

When asked what he expects from this International Congress of Mary Help of Christians, António Ferreira said: “I hope that we feel gathered, as Don Bosco’s family, around Mary Help of Christians. Simão, what will bring all the participants together is “the love and affection that the Salesian Family has for Our Lady Help of Christians”.

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Hearing a word that comes from outside. At the beginning of the dream, there is a theophany: a venerable man appears, in virile age, nobly clothed in a white mantle, with a luminous face that could not look at him. The voice that calls Giovannino (he called me by name) comes from outside and with a command (he ordered me), to understand life as a dream to be realised (self-realisation as today’s culture understands it). No one gives himself a name but receives it. I do not call myself. In the name is written the vocation and in it is included the method (not with blows but with meekness and charity), the mission/end (to gain these friends of yours), the content (instruction on sin and virtue).
Know the identity of those who speak to you. Who are you? The question about the identity of the mysterious character concerns us all. “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus asks his disciples. Mary wonders what the meaning of such a greeting was. It is impossible to escape such a question in order to give an answer of meaning to one’s life. One does not belong to ADMA without asking Jesus and without receiving from Him the answer, “the Son of Mary”. In Don Bosco’s experience, the knowledge of Jesus comes through Mary. In the millenary experience of the Church, Mary’s womb which generated Jesus continues to form Him in the minds and hearts of those who believe in Him.
Don’t be in a hurry. It is not uncommon to come across wanting everything and now, to have a desire and see it already fulfilled. Yet, this is not the way of education, God’s pedagogy. It is enough to read the letter to the Hebrews to understand that God’s action passes through correction, education, patience. It takes a long time. Our Lady says to John: “in due time you will understand everything”. The understanding of the dream for Don Bosco happened in Rome in the Sacred Heart Basilica on 16th May 1887: “That morning, Don Bosco wanted to go down to the church to celebrate at the altar of Mary Help of Christians. No less than fifteen times, during the Holy Eucharist, he stopped, seized with strong emotion and shedding tears. Fr. Viglietti, who was assisting him, had to direct him from time to time so that he could go on. […] Who would not have wanted to know what was the cause of such emotion? Fr. Viglietti, when he saw him return to his usual calm, asked him. He replied: ‘I had before my eyes the scene when I dreamt of the Congregation when I was ten years old. I could see and hear my mother and brothers questioning the dream…- Our Lady had told him then: ‘In due time you will understand everything’ – Sixty-two years of hard work, sacrifices and struggles had now passed since that day, and a sudden flash of lightning revealed to him, in the erection of the Church of the Sacred Heart in Rome, the crowning of the mission that had mysteriously overshadowed him at the beginning of his life.
From the Becchi of Castelnuovo to the See of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, how long and arduous had been the journey! He felt at that point that his personal work was coming to an end, blessed Divine Providence with tears in his eyes, and looked up confidently to the sojourn of eternal peace in God’s bosom’ (MB, XVIII, 340-341). Often God’s ways seem so tortuous, so different from how we would have traced them, yet the patience that comes from faith is the only way to see the divine plan realised.
Making peace with one’s family history. Giovannino shares the dream with his family the next morning. It is amusing to listen to the reactions of his siblings ‘who laughed’, his mother and grandmother: ‘keeper of goats, sheep or other animals’, ‘who knows, maybe he will become a priest’, ‘leader of brigands’, ‘you mustn’t worry about dreams’. He was of his grandmother’s opinion at the time, and in the original manuscript it is emphasised, precisely to reinforce the idea that it seemed such an impossible thing to achieve, that it was better to concentrate on the present, to live the everyday, to be concrete in the peasant life to be carried on with focus. I invite you to read between the lines the relationships within the Bosco family: there had been the serious loss of the father and yet there had been no lack of dialogue, everyone could express themselves freely and their identity was respected and valued, relational difficulties and differences of opinion were addressed in truth and resolved even through painful choices of estrangement (cf. Cascina Moglia). The balancing and wise presence of the mother guaranteed a serene, though challenging, growth of relationships. How important it is to reread one’s own family history, to make peace with the relational wounds we may have suffered from our parents, siblings, other relatives! Our personal balance and our response to what the Lord is asking us to do depends on it. The worst attitude would be to flee from this reality or to pretend that there are no difficulties: such a position would impede the healthy development of our vocation and mission.

2. The inheritance of the name

The son is given a name. In the name, there is all its singularity and uniqueness. Maria Zambrano writes: “Nothing is more decisive in a life than one’s origins. That is why a father represents much more than a man who begot us. He gives us a name. As long as our individual life lasts, we are marked by this name and thanks to this we are someone well-defined. Our individuality, so concrete, is linked to the name we receive from our father, for us a seal, a distinguishing mark. To have a name is to have a clear origin, to belong to a lineage, to have a destiny, to feel called by unmistakable voices, to feel bound and obliged. Having a name, we feel that in each of our actions, we bring into play the whole inheritance that binds us. We feel responsible for things that, if they were ours, would not press us and, instead, press us much more than those that directly affect us. It is the burden, the call of those who called themselves like us, living continuity that forms real history; we are heirs, we are always continuators.
Nothing began with us. The name gives us concretely, without abstract considerations, the historical responsibility that belongs to everyone, not only to those who occupy a high, leading position. We are all, in one way or another, responsible for history, custodians of continuity. Historical responsibility in the face of something that is more difficult to name: the awareness of our limitedness, of having been generated; humility in the face of origin (M. Zambrano, Towards a Knowledge of the Soul, 118).

3. The story of Nathanael (Jn 1:45-51)

Background: Nathanael, also called Bartholomew, is one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. At the beginning of John’s Gospel, the story of his vocation is told, the way the Lord called him. He is a very pleasant character and has to do with the theme of the name and the gradual understanding of it in one’s life. One day Philip tells his friend Nathanael that he has met Jesus of Nazareth and that He is the Messiah of whom Moses spoke in the Law and the Prophets. Nathanael’s reaction expresses his scepticism: the Messiah cannot have his home in an insignificant village like Nazareth. We are faced with the usual scandal that all those who have not yet come to faith raise before the person of God who becomes man like us. We are faced with the evangelical logic of the humble sign from which comes the greatest good, which is hidden from the man who considers himself secure in this world. Philip does not attempt to clarify or resolve his companion’s doubt, but seeks to invite him to a personal experience with the Master, the same one he had previously lived and which changed his life. Only faith is capable of overcoming the motives of scandal and human self-sufficiency. And Jesus actually arouses it in every man who listens to his word, as Nathanael did, who agreed to accept the mystery that Philip proposed to him with the simple invitation: Come and see (v.46).
The encounter. Nathanael’s readiness to meet Jesus, a sign of his sincere search and his desire to come to the truth, is recognised by the one who reads the heart of man. And Jesus, seeing him on his way, willing and open, anticipates and greets him as an authentic representative of Israel, a man in whom there is no duplicity of life and who confesses his own poverty before God. Jesus, in this future disciple of his, considers one of the ‘remnant’, of the true people of God, precisely because he knows Jesus by seeing him. The disciple, astonished by Jesus’ words about him, asks the Master how he can know him. The expression: “How do you know me?” reveals the divine origin of the person of Jesus, the supernatural knowledge he has of the secrets of men. Jesus knows Nathanael well because he knows every man and knows what is in the depths of each one. Precisely this Jesus gives Nathanael yet another proof to reveal to him the knowledge of his person: he saw him while he was under the fig tree. The fact is a clear allusion to Nathanael’s knowledge of the Jewish traditions about the Messiah and the love he had for the Scriptures, as the rabbis used to read and comment on the Torah under the tree. There, too, the disciple was accompanied and sustained by God’s loving gaze. Nathanael surrenders before the evidence and recognises in Jesus the Messiah and confesses: “You are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel” (v. 49).
The promise: With his testimony of human faith in the Messiah, Nathanael is open to a further revelation of Jesus. And the evangelist, by putting the promise on Jesus’ lips: “You will see greater things than these” (v. 50), emphasises that the disciple’s initial faith will be strengthened by further signs of Jesus’ ministerial activity, which manifest the glory of the Son of Man. The revelation, which Christ promises the disciple, already finds a clear and solemn affirmation in v. 51: “Truly, truly, I say unto you, you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man”. Detached from the singular context of the passage, the “you shall see” contains a great prophecy about the manifestation of Jesus’ glory, which extends throughout the whole of his life until his return to the Father. The verse is the summit towards which the whole pericope tends in a crescendo movement towards the person of Jesus. At the beginning, a small group of people are searching for Jesus and, in order to understand who he is, they try to establish a comparison with the Baptist (1:19-34). Subsequently, the disciples reflect on Jesus and confess him under various titles: Lamb of God (v.36), Rabbi (v.38), Messiah (v.41), the one whom Moses wrote in the law and the prophets (v.45), Son of God and King of Israel (v.49). Finally, to the man’s efforts to understand who Jesus is, Jesus himself gives an answer that serves to correct and complete the various comprehensions. The disciples did not err in their presentation of the Master, but always placed him in the context of Israel’s messianic hopes. Jesus goes beyond this hope, uses apocalyptic language and speaks of the continuous revelation of the Father, of a movement of angels ascending and descending, recalling the scene in Jacob, in which the patriarch dreamt of seeing a ladder resting on the earth, as the summit reached heaven; and upon it, behold, the angels of God ascending and descending (Gen 28:12). The ascending and descending is a reminder of the human and divine reality of Jesus. Although he is among men, he is in communion with the Father and fulfils his function as a revealer, because he is the ‘place’ where the Father’s world is reflected. For the evangelist, every true Israelite stands before the ‘house of God’ and the ‘gate of heaven’, prefigured by the historical person of Jesus, where the mystery of the ‘Son of Man’ is contemplated. The man Jesus is the Son of man, he is the incarnate Logos and the man glorified by the resurrection, who reveals the Father with authority. At the end of this first itinerary of faith of the disciples, we can see how John put terminology on their lips concerning the deepening of the mystery of the person of Jesus, which, in fact, took place throughout the whole earthly affair with the Lord until his resurrection.

4. For the concreteness of the journey

What John Bosco experienced in his dream and understood at the end of his life and what Jesus revealed to Nathanael and read in the light of his resurrection show us that the mystery of the name and meaning of life is understood from the end. Just as the meaning of a film cannot be deduced from the opening scene, but only from the final one, in the same way from the moment that ‘we are time’, the dynamics of a life are understood gradually and in a constant process of growth. From an educational point of view, the human virtue most frequently mentioned in the New Testament and consequent to being time is patience or perseverance (upomonè), particularly suited to living more like sowers than harvesters, more like farmers than shopkeepers.  The term (upo=under and minus=to stay) literally indicates Mary’s attitude of ‘staying under the cross’, of being submissive to the Father’s will. Thus, as in the dream, Mary will reveal to us the name of her Son in the interweaving of her and our history.

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The FMA will bring their experience and dedication to create a playful and educational environment, providing moments of fun and learning for our little participants. With a variety of activities planned, the animation service will ensure that the children and young people have an enriching experience while the adults enjoy the congress.

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Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, Rector Major of the Salesians, has sent a short video inviting the Salesian Family to take part in the 9th International Congress of Mary Help of Christians.

From 29 August to 1 September 2024, Fatima will host the 9th International Congress of Mary Help of Christians, promoted by the Association of Mary Help of Christians (ADMA). Recalling the importance of this meeting for the entire Salesian Family, the Rector Major of the Salesians, Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, made a brief video appeal for everyone to take part with a “Salesian Marian heart”.

Recorded in the courtyard of Valdocco in Turin, in the video the Rector Major highlights the IX International Congress of Mary Help of Christians as an “event of the Salesian Family” and recalls the great emotion with which the congress in Buenos Aires was lived: “I still remember the real emotion and deep meaning with which we lived the Buenos Aires Congress,” he emphasised.

António Marcelino, one of the coordinators of the meeting, made a similar appeal: “I’m sure you know that the Pope was in Portugal and in Fatima, and he invited us to be present at ‘everything, everything, everything’ and ‘everyone, everyone, everyone’, because the Church’s events are for everyone.”

These were the first videos in a series of nine that will be released until the IX International Congress of Mary Help of Christians, in which various personalities from the Salesian world will invite everyone to take part in this important Family moment.

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