L’opera è intitolata Don Bosco, storia e spirito. “Storia”, perché la vita e l’opera di don Bosco si sono svolte in un contesto di eventi da cui è scaturita una nuova realtà che ha influenzato il suo pensiero e le sue scelte. “Spirito”, perché attraverso un processo interiore di docilità agli impulsi della grazia, egli ha saputo cogliere la novità emergente e rispondere col dono incondizionato di sé. Il contenuto è frutto di letture, ricerche e materiali elaborati per le lezioni accademiche, ma lo spirito che l’anima è frutto di una riflessione critica scaturita dall’interazione tra insegnante e allievi. Per l’edizione italiana i materiali sono stati rivisitati allo scopo di una maggiore chiarezza espositiva e distribuiti in tre volumi:
Vol. 1. Dai Becchi alla Casa dell’Oratorio (1815-1858)
Vol. 2. La Società e la Famiglia Salesiana (1859-1876)
Vol. 3. Ampliamento di orizzonti (1876-1888)
Quest’ultimo volume illustra il decennio conclusivo della vita di don Bosco. Fu un periodo fecondissimo di iniziative e di riflessioni, che inaugurò la diffusione mondiale dell’opera salesiana e vide espandersi la fama del Santo. Fu anche tempo di prova e di sofferenza, soprattutto negli anni del declino fisico. Dopo il primo capitolo, dedicato al contesto storico, il volume sviluppa quattro grandi tematiche che caratterizzarono questo periodo: gli sviluppi dell’Opera salesiana in Europa e in America, con attenzione agli ideali e alle visioni missionarie di don Bosco (cap. 2-6); le divergenze con l’arcivescovo Lorenzo Gastaldi, i motivi del contenzioso e la “concordia” voluta da Leone XIII (cap. 7-8); le cure per il consolidamento istituzionale, educativo e spirituale della Congregazione, delle opere e delle comunità (cap. 9-12); il declino fisico di don Bosco, la sua ultima malattia e la morte (cap. 13-14). Il capitolo conclusivo (cap. 15) illustra l’iter dei processi di beatificazione e canonizzazione, conclusi rispettivamente nel 1929 e nel 1934. Il volume contiene l’indice generale degli autori, dei nomi di persona e dei nomi di luogo dei tre volumi.
Quest’opera è intitolata Don Bosco, storia e spirito. “Storia”, perché la vita e l’opera di don Bosco si sono svolte in un contesto di eventi da cui è scaturita una nuova realtà che ha influenzato il suo pensiero e le sue scelte. “Spirito”, perché attraverso un processo interiore di docilità agli impulsi della grazia, egli ha saputo cogliere la novità emergente e rispondere col dono incondizionato di sé. Il contenuto è frutto di letture, ricerche e materiali elaborati per le lezioni, ma lo spirito che l’anima è frutto di una riflessione critica scaturita dall’interazione tra insegnante e allievi. Per l’edizione italiana i materiali sono stati rivisitati allo scopo di una maggiore chiarezza espositiva e distribuiti in tre volumi:
Vol. 1. Dai Becchi alla Casa dell’Oratorio (1815-1858)
Vol. 2. La Società e la Famiglia Salesiana (1859-1876)
Vol. 3. Ampliamento di orizzonti (1876-1888)
Questo secondo volume illustra il periodo storico nel quale don Bosco, portando a maturazione la sua vocazione educativa e apostolica in una visione sempre più ampia della propria missione, s’impegnò a realizzare un modello di consacrazione religiosa e di carità operativa che garantisse il proseguimento nel tempo e la diffusione nello spazio del carisma salesiano. L’ampio quadro storiografico del primo capitolo serve a comprendere e collocare le posizioni da lui assunte in campo civile e religioso, le scelte educative e formative, le fondazioni religiose, l’evoluzione delle opere e l’innovativa idea di cooperazione che andò maturando. Questi sono gli anni in cui il Santo, sviluppando una più acuta sensibilità ecclesiale, costruì il santuario di Maria Ausiliatrice, promosse la cura delle vocazioni adulte e fondò il “Bollettino Salesiano”, strumento di sensibilizzazione e organo di coordinamento della Famiglia salesiana.
Volume 7, the last in this series, surveys Don Bosco’s life and activity in the late seventies and eighties, roughly his last dozen years. These are his mature, reflective years; they are also the years of his quasi-retirement, gradually giving way to his sunset years. With regard to content, the nine chapters of this survey may be grouped under four headings.
(1) Chapters 1-3 deal with the Society’s internal organization and the regulations developed for that purpose. They cover such topics as the Society’s division into “inspectorates” (provinces), Don Bosco’s report of 1879 to the Holy See, general conferences and General Chapters.
(2) Chapters 4-6 speak of a founder’s concerns over the qualities of candidates seeking admission into the Society, and over the salesian religious spirit of the confreres. They express Don Bosco’s severe judgments of discipline in the Oratory communities. Also Don Bosco’s reflective and educational writings of the period.
(3) Chapters 7 and 8 tell the story, on the basis of archival sources and eyewitness testimonies, of Don Bosco’s progressive physical decline over the years 1884-1887—years plagued by worsening illness and yet marked with indomitable resolve to undertake fatiguing journeys to visit and encourage confreres, cooperators and benefactors.
(4) Chapter 9 describes the difficult and protracted itinerary of the processes of Don Bosco’s beatification and canonization.
The series Don Bosco, History and Spirit consists of seven volumes. The first three volumes survey the life and times of John Melchior Bosco (“Don Bosco,” 1815-1888) up to 1864, with particular attention to nineteenth-century political, social and religious history. This survey looks at Don Bosco’s own education, at his spiritual and theological formation. It examines the growth of the work, and the founding and initial development of the Society of St. Francis de Sales.
The next four volumes describes Don Bosco’s life and work in the period following the unification of Italy. In this setting Don Bosco, History and Spirit discusses the institutional developments and organization of the Salesian Society. It examines the development of permanent structures to guarantee the continuance of the Salesian work, and discusses some of the founder’s insights and ideas.
The main part of this Volume 6 (Chs. 1-5) of the series, Don Bosco: History and Spirit, continues the survey of the Society’s Institutional Expansion begun in the preceding chapter in its twofold aspect, external and internal. The external expansion is set in a different scenario and context—no longer in Europe but in South America. Chapters 1-4 describe the implantation of the Salesian work in South America, and specifically (after a briefs anthropological and historical introduction by way of establishing a context) they tell the story of the Argentine offer and of Don Bosco’s acceptance, out of several option available to him (Ch. 1). It is noted that the original offer was for implanting the Salesian work of behalf on poor children and immigrants in Buenos Aires and La Plata area. Don Bosco, however, out of a new missionary awareness at the same time aimed at committing the Society to missionary apostolate properly so called, among the aboriginal native population, and he eventually obtained Apostolic recognition (Chs. 2-3). Chapter 4 is a collection of appendices relating to the above.
Chapter 5 describes a further internal institutional expansion, the "founding" (organization) of the Salesian Cooperators and connected structures, namely, the Work of Mary Help of Christians and the Salesian Bulletin.
The last two chapters continue the discussion of further stages in the conflict between Don Bosco and Archbishop Gastaldi that had begun in connection with the approval of the Constitutions (1872-1874). The conflict, for a variety of causes, increases in bitterness through 1874-1877 (Ch. 6), and becomes more acrimonious with the appearance of defamatory pamphlets against the Archbishop (Ch. 7, 1877-1882). It is brought to an end only by Pope Leo XIII’s intervention, imposing a document of reconciliation (Concordia).
This fifth volume in the series, Don Bosco: History and Spirit, is chiefly devoted to a description of the institutional expansion of the Salesian work. The first two chapters describe the school reform legislation in the Kingdom of Sardinia, noting that the secularization of the public school was the first significant step taken by the liberal revolution in its program aimed at a general secularization of society and the gradual elimination of the Church’s influence. In this context Don Bosco’s historic decision to undertake the school apostolate in a major way in Piedmont and Liguria is understood as part of the Church’s effort to counteract the process of secularization. This may be rated as the the first great "external" expansion, spanning the 1860s and early 1870s. A second expansion described in the last chapter (Ch. 8) spans the decade 1875-85 and sees the Salesian work established in France and Spain, and further in Italy. This presentation is preceded, by way of context, by a brief historical survey of united Italy under the governments of the radical Left (from 1876), and by an even briefer sketch of the political-social situation in France in the first decade of the Third Republic (1875-85)–all this in the pontificate of Leo XIII (from 1878).
The middle section of the volume (Chs. 3-6) looks at the internal development of the institution especially from the standpoint of Don Bosco’s response to perceived needs of society and Church. This includes: Don Bosco’s espousal of the devotion and ideology of Mary, the Immaculate Help of Christians, and his decision to build the great church in her honor (1860s); Don Bosco’s protracted involvement (in a private capacity) in the negotiations between the Holy See and the Italian State for the appointment of bishops to vacant dioceses and obtaining for them the royal Exequatur (1865-74); Don Bosco’s founding, in association with Mary Mazzarello, of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christans as a companion congregation to the Salesian Society (1864-1872); lastly (from the 1860s), Don Bosco’s on-going reflection on the Salesian lay vocation and his articulation of the Salesian Brother’s participation in the Society’s mission.
This fourth volume of the series Don Bosco: History and Spirit,focuses on the early Salesian constitutions as presented by Don Bosco for approval (1860-1874)–in the times of the Turin Archbishops–of Luigi Fransoni (in exile) and ensuing four-year vacancy, of Alessandro Riccardi di Netro (1867-1870) and of Lorenzo Gastaldi (1872-1874).
In introductory Chapters 1 and 2, the process of approval is set in the context of the historic events of the unification of Italy by the taking of Rome and the dispossession of the pope, at the time of the of the First Vatican Council and of the Franco-Prussian war. Out of these painful experiences, Don Bosco "prophetically" decries the hubris of the perpetrators of such injustices (France and Italy) and envisions God’s terrible chastisements in prophecies and letters of 1870-1873.
The constitutions are discussed from a double point of view: first, under the aspect of the historical process of approval and of the principles that brought Don Bosco in confrontation with his Archbishops and the Roman authorities (Chs. 3-6); secondly, under the aspect of the novel religious outlook, profound insights and spirituality that Don Bosco sought to embody in the constitutions (Chs. 7-10). To highlight this second aspect, selected articles from selected chapters are chosen for discussion.
The series Don Bosco, History and Spirit consists of seven volumes. The first three volumes survey the life and times of John Melchior Bosco ("Don Bosco," 1815-1888) up to 1864, with particular attention to nineteenth-century political, social and religious history. This survey looks at Don Bosco’s own education, at his spiritual and theological formation. It examines the growth of the work, and the founding and initial development of the Society of St. Francis de Sales, in the context of the liberal revolution and the unification of Italy (1848-1861).
This and the next three volumes describe Don Bosco’s life and work in the period following the unification of Italy. In this setting Don Bosco, History and Spirit discusses the institutional developments and organization of the Salesian Society. It describes Don Bosco’s further ministerial choices, and surveys the expansion of the Salesian work. At the same time it examines the development of permanent structures to guarantee the continuance of the Salesian work, and discusses some of the founder’s insights and ideas, especially as they emerge from the reflective writings of his maturity.
