Korzenie duchowości salezjańskiej

Abstract

To characterize the roots of the Salesian spirituality we have to turn to John Bosco, the person who was at the beginning of the Salesian existence at all. It is worth to describe his personality and all the factors of his own environment that had the great influence with lots of young people lived together with him. His appearance was described as a typical athlete. He had plenty of athletic ability. He'd not so complicated personality. Outright, outspoken, very joyful and optimistic person. That's why very often called as a madcap with the most positive prejudice in favor of him. There were a lot of sides of the environment that had a great influence with his spiritual and pastoral experience. The first one was his own family house. The second one was the school environment and connected with it all the humanities. And the last one, probably the most important was theology and the pastoral studies in boarding school called Convict in Turin. As it comes to all of these sides above, we have to notice that they become the beginning of his educational – priestly activity. The most important point of his charity was love, and the apostolic love for special. This love was growing up because of his spiritual contact with Jesus Christ – Good Shepherd. So, to summarize. The education should be based on love, but there are some specific forms, rules to respect: Faithfulness for tradition as well as the open-mindedness for innovation. Realism and feeling to all people who are in need. Wisdom and constancy. Generosity and concreteness. Total devote our energy to young people according to the spirit of belief in God. Heartening, full of love education. Nowadays we can think about the possibility of existening the Salesian spirituality in our everyday life as the same as if it was possible just after saint John Bosco's death, during all the over one hundred years of the human history till now. It can be difficult to answer on the spot if the experience of St. John Bosco can be found just now, in a little bit different society and quite different political and social context. The history of the Roman Catholic Church and all the written Salesian work taken together, teach us that this kind of experience can be and is delivered from one generation to the next one as a special kind of deposit inside the Salesian family. But generally the effects of working depend on open-mindedness of these people who are destined to teach and these ones who are destined to learn. Every time the positive results of getting any experiences are depends on our working with our personalities as the first. That's why St. John Bosco is still alive as long as we want him to be....