Rome (Italy). On 28 July 2022, the Rector Major of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, Father and Center of Unity of the Salesian Family, after a phase of consultation and discernment with the Salesian Family Leaders, the members of the General Council, and other experts, announced the theme and guidelines of the Strenna for the year 2023:
“AS THE YEAST IN TODAY’S HUMAN FAMILY. The lay dimension in the family of Don Bosco”
The Rector Major specifies as a first aspect, the twofold nature of the recipients of the Strenna: young children, adolescents, and older youth wherever Don Bosco’s Family is to be found in all the presences of the world and, at the same time, all the Groups of the Salesian Family, with the aim of discovering or rediscovering the lay dimension and the complementarity of the Groups, called together and to be “leaven in the dough of the bread of humanity.”
The evocative image of leaven in the dough of bread is taken from the parable of Luke’s Gospel, “a parable of great evangelical, pedagogical, and current educational wisdom, which expresses the nature of the Kingdom of God that Jesus lived and taught”:
Again, Jesus said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed [in] with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch of dough was leavened.” (Lk 13: 20-21).
The Rector Major explains that the leaven is “the only living ingredient,” the element that is used in small quantities but that “has the ability to influence, condition, and transform the whole batch of dough.”
The metaphor refers to the mission and commitment of each person, in relation to the great Human Family in which the Salesian Family is inserted:
“Every person in this world is called to discover the meaning of their own existence, which is precisely that of living in a healthy and fraternal lifestyle within the Human Family. The parable of the leaven and this Strenna proposal then urge us to enter the world of great challenges through the dynamics of time and human history.”
“The construction of the Human Family is a responsibility and a commitment of all of us,” continues Fr. Ángel. Justice and dignity for the least and the discarded, truth, peace, and fraternity, care for the common home, the need for God, are just some of the needs that he identifies, drawing them from the texts of the Ministry of Pope Francis.
The Salesian reference is ‘the recipe for holiness’, “proposed by Don Bosco to his young people, in particular to Dominic Savio (on the evening of 24 June 1855) and contains: joy, fulfilling duties, and doing good. A whole program that indicates how to be leaven in the small space where God planted us.”
The complementarity of vocations in Don Bosco’s family, with the commitment and co-responsibility of each and every one, are according to him, fundamental in order to be truly effective in the mission in favor of the education of young people:
“Being UNITED as a Salesian family, and always together with many lay people present in the world in mission and formation becomes an unavoidable mission requirement, if one does not want to remain irrelevant”.
With a great sense of gratitude, Fr. Ángel also brings to our attention the tradition of holiness which has borne so much fruit on the great tree of the Salesian Family, “young people, lay people, martyrs, people who have filled their lives with the leaven of love, love that gives itself to the end, faithful to Jesus Christ and His Gospel.” Zeferino Namuncurà and Laura Vicuña, Alberto Marvelli, Domenico Savio, Alessandrina da Costa, Attilio Giordani, the young martyrs of Poznam, the young Bashir of Pakistan, and the Indian Boi-Bororo Simao, the benefactress Dorotea Chopitea, the mother of Don Bosco, Mamma Margherita, and Artemide Zatti, now close to canonization, are the examples proposed.
The presentation of the theme of the Strenna concludes with the invitation of the Rector Major to the whole Family of Don Bosco and in particular to the laity and many others of this vast Salesian movement “to respond in a creative, collaborative, and concrete way, in everything possible, to this humble proposal of Strenna 2023 to truly be this leaven similar to that preached in the Gospel of Jesus our Lord”.
