Rome (Italy). The video of Strenna 2022 of the Rector Major of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, presented by him in preview to the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians on 27 December 2021 in Rome at the Generalate and on 28 December through an interview at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome, is available on the YouTube language channels of the Salesian Information Agency ANS in Italian, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
“Do everything through love, nothing through constraint” is the theme of Strenna 2022, in the year of the 400th anniversary of the death of St. Francis de Sales.
The video, lasting about 20 minutes, starts from Annecy, France, the land of Saint Francis de Sales, and from the places of Haute-Savoie, where he was a tireless Bishop and shepherd of souls, to present the origins of the “saint of loving-kindness”. Right from the start, the Rector Major grasps the common traits between Francis de Sales and John Bosco: both Savoyards, both with a special bond with their respective mothers, first educators in the faith, but above all, both passionate about God and humanity.
“The water of the Savoy stream, like the spirit that will shape Francis di Sales, will arrive in Turin and then in the whole world”. Despite the differences in wealth; the first is born in a castle, the second in a poor country house, the spirit developed by Francis de Sales will reach Turin, to Giovanni Bosco, and from there to the whole world.
The video underlines how Don Bosco always showed himself indebted to the Bishop of Geneva admiring his patience and kindness put at the service of others; his sensitivity and acumen used in the mission of spiritual director; charity towards one’s neighbor as the measure and cipher of prayer and of the relationship with God. From him he took some fundamental ideas for his spirituality.
Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime recalls some of the most well-known maxims of St. Francis de Sales: “You can all be saints, wherever you are”, “We must flourish where God planted us”, “Study how to make yourself loved” that today become the patrimony of the Salesian Family, which takes its name from the saint and, through Don Bosco, drank from his spirituality.
“The motto of the Strenna, Do everything through Love, nothing through constraint, is for us Salesians like a fourth Salesian vote”, summarizes the Rector Major. The video ends with a prayer before the heart of St. Francis de Sales, which is still found uncorrupt in the Monastery of the Visitandines in Treviso, to entrust the Salesian Family, the young people, and the Salesian works to his intercession.
Source: ANS
