Refleksi ini saya buat dalam rangka peringatan 150 tahun berdirinya kongregasiku: SDB....
Master, where do you life? He replay: come and see
I begin my reflection for the 150th anniversary of our congregation with that statement to remain myself how great and powerful of the answer of Jesus. The disciples were asking HIM, Master, where do you life? And Jesus did not saw them the place, the house or the palace, but He INVITES them to come and see. To respond of the invitation of Jesus, the disciples left everything and follow HIM, they did not think and worry about anything. They were ready to go wherever He goes. They were ready to leave everything: their nets, works, parent, friends and also families. They give up everything, they were afraid but they overcome it just only to follow Jesus.
After that the disciples decided not only to stay with HIM but also take part of HIS life; mission and they were ready to learn from HIM. He also shares everything to them. In the part of the disciples, they take part of the Jesus’ mission, his apostolic zeal and also all the difficulties and joyfulness. They follow, learn and imitate HIM as a disciple and apostle of Jesus. They became another Jesus, herald of God News, fisher of man, apostle of kingdom of God, for the glory of His Name and salvation of the souls. They were ready to give their life for the sake of others.
Now, let us back on the situation at December 8th 1859. On 8 December 1859 at Don Bosco’s Oratory in Valdocco, the feast of Mary Immaculate was celebrated with great solemnity. The 184 boys who lived as boarders in Don Bosco’s House were the soul of the thousand boys in the festive oratory who crowded into the courtyards and the surrounding fields. They had sung, prayed and received Holy Communion during Don Bosco’s Mass. Then, having eaten the plentiful feast day breakfast, they noisily joined in a hundred games; they came together in groups for catechism. Many of them had managed to talk to Don Bosco about their work, their families, their problems, and their future. In the evening after the tuneful and peaceful songs of “till we meet again,” in the usual ‘Good night’ Don Bosco, tired but radiant, thanked Our Lady and everyone for the splendid day. Then to the boarders and their assistants-leaders, he made a short announcement which made the hearts of a score of them beat faster. “That evening Don Bosco announced that the next day he would hold a special conference in his room after the boys had retired to bed. Those concerned – priests, clerics and laymen who shared Don Bosco’s work at the Oratory and enjoyed his intimacy – understood that they were invited to attend and sensed that this meeting was to be an important one”. You can imagine in that situation, many reactions from the children. Some of them were thinking: Don Bosco want to make all of us as a monk, some of them maybe were afraid because they had own plan of life or plan future.
It was interested that all the young people had a simple reason why they want to work with Don Bosco: they just want to stay and help Don Bosco. Cagliero at the time was 21 years of age, he overcome his frighten and said: Monk or No, I want to stay with Don Bosco. To stay means took to take part of the master’s life, the painful, sadness, difficulties, joyfulness and also happiness. They were enjoyed to help accepted everything with the guide of Don Bosco for the salvation of souls.
So let us back to the style of Don Bosco to invite young people – his children – in his oratory. He invite them to his room, he invited them to attend his special meeting. In his room and more interesting was that Don Bosco did not tell them that he will found the congregation or order, but he invite them to help him to be assistance, to show always good example for other boys. He invited them to his room, to share his ideas, his plan, his apostolic zeal and also his life to his young people for the sake of other children. Don Bosco learn from Jesus how to invite people to share his plan, mission and apostolic zeal and the important thing was that he learn from Jesus how make them (the children) to be a good and brilliant apostle for the young people. We can see in the history of Salesian Congregation, Caliegro became a great missionary and leader of the first expedition of our congregation to Argentina, and became a great bishop and cardinal. Also BL. Michael Rua, he was the first successor of Don Bosco after don Bosco died. He was a great and first rector in Mirrabelo (the first salesian community outside Turin). He took a big responsibility for the flourish of our congregation.
Through two exemplar, Jesus and don Bosco, I want to back to my first encounter with Salesian. On May 2003, I went to the salesian house, just for to see the way of religious life. When I arrived in salesian community, Fr. Carbonell (He is a first salesian missionary in Indonesia, he come from Spain) welcomed me with the world: Arnold, welcome to salesian house, come and see. After few days, I felt the atmosphere of family spirit: spirit of share the mission of Don Bosco, share the personal vocation, the happiness and also I found that they always share their life to each of them. I found the important thing was that they are living, working, and sending to young people by community. And I aware it after I read the constitution. In the second part of our constitutions remain us that we – salesian sent to young people by community. So if we are sending by community, first of all we get the spirit from community life and share to the young people this spirit, and from our apostolate, we bring to the community the joyful, happiness, and also prayer for the young people. The success of our confers is success of community. Through the community we share our life, happiness, our apostolate; together we receive our Jesus in the holy Eucharist to strengthen one another and also to love one another, together we recite the church prayer for the Christian, together we pray our holy rosary. That is the spirit of salesian.
I continue my reflection to the steps of live and mutual growing of our intimacy with Lord and also in with our founder. In the Christian’s step, to grow in intimacy with the Lord through the three steps: 1).The step to knowing Jesus: in this step, we learn and knowing Jesus through our parent, family, friends, catechist, teachers, etc. In this step, we try to love God, but through the examples of other people. We do everything because we learn from them. 2). The step to imitate Jesus: we knew Jesus already through our parent, teacher, family, etc, and through them we learn about Jesus, about His love, etc, and now, in this step, we try with the help of the grace of God to imitate Jesus with our whole heart, and also we try to deep our faith in Jesus. 3).The step to reach the intimacy with Jesus. In this case, in every situation, we surround all our life, our difficulties, happiness to Jesus, and we never want to separate from HIM. This step we surrounding our self like our Mother, to give up everything and give our life body and soul to the Lord and let our life guiding by God. This step, we offer ourselves to the Lord as His disciple.
This all steps, if we connecting to the life of the disciples of Jesus, they come from many background of life, some of them knew Jesus through other people and come to looking for Jesus, to asking Him “master where do you life?” and the end, they left everything, to stay with Jesus, to learn, to imitate, and to give their life for the Good News and for the glory of God, they became themselves as a great disciple of Jesus. Also in the life of the young disciple of our co-founder, I believe that, they knew about God, fearing of God, love of God, etc, through their parents, relative, teacher, priests, etc, some of them met with Don Bosco and invited by Don Bosco to come and stay in the oratory. Some of them met Don Bosco when he celebrated the masses. They came from many backgrounds of life and to come to the oratory, to learn and to help one another, to study, to pray, to play and other activities. They became a good human person, good Christian, and through all the goodness, Don Bosco brought them to the great vision, to the great work: DA MIHI ANIMAS – the salvation of young people and the Glory of God through the Salesian congregation. With Don Bosco through the help of our mother Help of Christians, they became a great apostle of young people. Same as us here in Mongolia, we are working as a salesian, to plant here in the blessed land of Mongolia the salesian chrism for the glory of God, we are working together as a son of Don Bosco for the salvation of souls and the glory of God. We already knew God along path of our life, we imitate Him day by day, and we try with the help of the grace of God to be a great apostle of young people here in Mongolia for the salvation of soul and glory of God.
Now, our congregation reach at 150th years, we are walking along way with many challenges, but we have courage that Jesus is with us and our mothers Help of Christian always guide our congregation.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY OF OUR CONGREGATION
DA MIHI ANIMAS CETERA TOLEE
