Education and Evangelization: The Life Choice for the Salesian Educator

By Fr. Louis Molinelli, SDB, Delegate for Youth Ministry

The Salesian Youth Ministry Frame of Reference speaks of our Salesian charismatic identity as interwoven intimately with the Preventive System. It reminds us that St. John Bosco made education his life choice and the reason for everything he did (p. 129). Don Bosco grew into this over the years of his life until it became his specific way of being a citizen, a Catholic Christian, and a priest. Let’s read his words:

Take note of what I am. I am all for you, day and night, morning and evening, all the time. I have no other aim than to gain your moral, intellectual, and physical well- being. For you I study, for you I work, for you I live, for you I am ready to give my life.

Like Don Bosco, the Preventive System is our legacy to the world of education. However, it is not just a system that can be put into place by anyone! It requires some interior qualities: the willingness to dedicate our time, energy, knowledge, and skill for the welfare of the young; to persevere in a systematic way despite difficulties in pursuit of the welfare of the young. For us Salesians, evangelization cannot be lived in any other way except by putting the Preventive System into a primary place in our lives and ministry.

Let us reflect on how well we really know and have interiorized the Preventive System as an integral part of our lives. Is it our fundamental choice?