The Venerable Don Bosco, the Apostle of Youth/Chapter XVI
CHAPTER XVI
PAPAL APPROBATION OF THE RULES AND CONSTITUTIONS. THE SPIRIT OF ST. FRANCIS OF SALES DOMINATES
April 3, 1874, was a day of benediction, a day of sacred and perpetual memorial to the sons of Don Bosco, for on that day Pope Pius IX solemnly approved the Rules and Constitutions which the founder, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, had framed for his Society of St. Francis of Sales. The members who thus dedicate themselves to God are "to study to acquire Christian perfection; to devote their lives to works of charity, spiritual and temporal, especially among children and youth, and to the education of scholars. Destitute children are to receive the preference."
The Society is composed of priests, divinity students and lay students. The vows of chastity, obedience and poverty are the same as in other religious orders, except that the vow of poverty regards only the administration of property and does not prohibit its possession. The administration of patrimonies, benefices, or property of any kind is restricted to the Superior-General, who is elected for twelve years, and may be re-elected, but cannot hold the keys of administration unless the Pope confirms his election. The prefect, spiritual director, steward and three councillors are elected for six years. Each house has its rector, prefect, steward, catechist and councillors, and every foundation must have at least six Salesian members.
The first vows are binding only for three years, when final vows may be taken. As in other orders, the Society is bound only to those who have pronounced their final vows. The members celebrate Mass daily, or, if not priests, assist at the holy Sacrifice. A half-hour, at least, of morning mental prayer is required, with the recitation of five mysteries of the rosary, and spiritual reading for a stated time. Weekly confession, the Friday fast, and a day's retreat every month are prescribed, with an annual retreat of from six to ten days.
The Constitutions remark: "Salesians should take particular care even of trifles, and keep clothes, beds, and cells tidy. Holiness of life is the adornment of religious. Should necessity arise, heat, cold, hunger, thirst, hard work, and contempt from men must be courageously endured, if conductive to the glory of God, their own salvation or that of their neighbor."
Shortly after Pius IX by his bull of approbation, had confirmed the Salesian Order and brought it definitively into the great religious family of the Church, he set the seal of his solemn approval upon the Rules and Constitutions of the new Congregation of Mary, Help of Christians.
"This Institute is for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls," his Holiness declared to Don Bosco. "The good Master has again chosen you as His instrument; let us humbly thank Him and refer all to His grace. I am convinced that the Sisters of Mary, Help of Christians, will accomplish similar effects in the education of girls to those wrought by the Salesian Fathers and Brothers in the education of boys." And succeeding years have confirmed this prophecy of the saintly Pius IX.
Don Bosco confided to the Holy Father his solicitude in regard to the maintenance of both societies. "As to that, do not hesitate," the Pope said, reassuringly; "if the work is to last the nuns must remain under your authority and that of your successors. They can work amalgamated with you, as the Sisters of Charity worked with St. Vincent de Paul."
Don Rua, assistant to Don Bosco, was appointed prefect of the Society of Mary, Help of Christians; and the first Salesian house for girls was established under his direction about July, 1874. The progress of the Society, its wide expansion, was so astonishing that in ten years, 1884, more than thirty houses flourished in Italy, France and America. Wherever an Oratory for boys was founded the people called for a similar organization for girls. In the beginning Mary Mazzarello's nuns numbered only thirteen; when, in 1884, after incredible labors and sacrifices she died in the odor of sanctity, consumed with the love of God and zeal for the souls of His little ones, she left behind her carrying on the supernatural work she had initiated in Mornese valley more than two hundred and fifty nuns imbued with the apostolic spirit of the founder and of his glorious patron, St. Francis of Sales.
The holy Bishop of Geneva has bequeathed to numbers of religious orders who serve holily the Church of God, his name and his spirit. His own creation, which he trained from the cradle of infancy, the Order of the Visitation, he so impregnated with his spirit, through his holy life, his oral instructions during many years, and his incomparable spiritual writings, especially the Constitutions and Directory he devised for his nuns, that the spirit of the Visitation is essentially one with his own, so much so that it has ever been deemed the distinctive mark of the Order. And the spirit of love and gentleness is the keystone of the Salesian Order; it is its strength, its raison d'etre, I might say; the golden-winged angel who, from its wide-scattered missions, bears thousands of souls to the shining land.
Unkindness is the chief assistant to Satan in peopling the prisons of hell. Who knows what a terrible train of consequences may follow that act of unkindness? Anger lays hold of the victim, temptation, the unholy spirit of revenge, take possession of him. Unkindness hinders prayer, creates distrust of God, and in cruelly flagellating the heart, steels it against its fellow-creatures. It may cast one into a slough of despond from which he shall never arise. Unkindness is a negative word; its sound has grown familiar to us, and we do not realize the world of misery that vocable shuts up in its unholy bounds.
But what if positive harshness and violence and contempt put stings and swords into the act? And how do you know what state of pain your victim is in already? The heart may be filled to bursting, the mind crushed under disappointment and misfortune. O, this is terrible, when a grown man or woman is its prey! What, then, is it to the child just entering on the career of life in a world filled to repletion with the riches and beauty and love of the Creator? A world where happiness with outstretched hands awaits every step of yours, eager to be led to the rough and thorny ways where toil and suffer the little helpless waifs and strays, those early pilgrims of sorrow, those shorn lambs of God, shorn of all human comfort, made old with misery ere life has half begun. Ah, does not your gentle heart see and know that they should be playing in the gardens of innocent pleasure, their minds expanding in homes of learning, their souls uplifted in temples of worship and holy peace?
Can you save one—can you save many—and have you not done it? Look abroad over our free, beautiful republic, rolling in affluence, its wealth distributed over the nations of the world, a land where pleasure and luxury run riot,—and where crime and poverty run riot, too,—and see dotting its great cities and its hillsides, prisons, workhouses, homes for feeble-minded children, reformatories for boys and girls. Enter those repellent precincts and look about you upon the hapless ones whom the world has walled in from social communion with their fellows—study those young faces especially, and compare them with happy faces you know and love and surround with all the sweetness earth can give. Then if you have courage and love equal to it, question them. Ask men, ask women, ask girls and boys: "What brought you here?"
I venture to say that one-half the answers in low, bitter, conclusive tones will be "Unkindness." Do this and I may well suppress my meagre yet awe-inspiring knowledge. Your life-long lesson will be learned—an appalling one—as it was learned by the young priest of Turin, just ordained, and sinking into the depths of his great, Christ-like heart, all on fire with the love of the Redeemer and His little ones, brought forth supernatural deeds that parallel and perhaps surpass all that history has recorded of the achievements of a single man—"a miraculous man," as one of his own saintly disciples delights in calling Don Bosco.
And, therefore, this great Apostle and Father of Youth would have none of it. Unkindness should be banished from his homes like a serpent. His children should be conducted through ways of gentleness and love, hand in hand with prayer and virtue. His priests and brothers should be trained to the perfection of the spirit of their great titular patron and Doctor of the Church, and their souls daily fed on his sublime and sweetly practical doctrines. Philothea, the Treatise on the Love of God, the Conferences and Controversies, the Spirit of St. Francis of Sales, the heavenly Sermons and Letters—with what love and devotion and masterly skill did Don Bosco study this treasured library of the Church! And how penetrating and replete with divine unction were his words as he discoursed to his beloved disciples in his own beautiful style of St. Francis' luminous teachings on prayer, abandonment to the will of God, and the perfect practice of the religious virtues, all comprised in celestial love!
No harsh note from Salesian lyre is heard!
His spell is all of sweetness; yet the strong,
Clear message rings like ancient prophet's word;
Anon, to his full gaze as mysteries throng
Its breathings are the loved Disciple's own;
And now it rises like the ecstatic song
Of some grand seraph veiled before the Throne!
The Holy Father Pius IX approved and confirmed in perpetuum the Rules of the Society, April 3, 1874