austraLasia #3379
Tale of Two Churches
TURIN: 24 February 2014 -- San Giovanni Evangelista and the Consolata - two churches indelibly stamped on the Salesian character, the first-named because Don Bosco built it, the second is Turin's and Don Bosco's 'mother' church. Long before the title 'Help of Christians' came onto the scene, Our Lady of Consolation was the church and title Don Bosco looked to.
Today the Chapter members visit both churches - in one they hear the final talk on Work and Temperance, given in the three language groups, and in the other, they listen to the Archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia.
After lunch back at Valdocco, everyone hops aboard the coaches and they begin their long trip back to Rome, where they may arrive towards midnight.
Some details regarding St John the Evangelist's and the Consolata churches
St John the Evangelist's
- 1847 Don Bosco builds a second Oratory down from the new Railway Station (Porta Nuova) towards the river Po, on land outside the city confines used by local washerwomen to dry clothes. They were not happy! The Oratory was named after St Aloysius (San Luigi's). It was also a developing urban area in the 1850's and a hotbed of Waldensian activity. Also a Jewish area.
- 1870-1875 Don Bosco buys up some extra land. He wants to build a church and a hostel for poor boys. He does both. It is worth noting that St Callistus Caravario, whose Feast (along with St Louis Versiglia) we celebrate on 25 February, was a resident at the hostel.
- 1877: He begins the construction of the church, which is consecrated in 1882. But he wants to make it a monument in honour of his favourite Pope, Pius IX and runs foul of the Archbishop who also wants to build his own monument to Pius IX! Don Bosco is not put off and places a statue of the Pope in front of the Church.
The Consolata
- It probably goes back as far as the 4th century. Still today you can see old Roman ruins to one side of the church; it is not far from the main original Roman area. Turin still bears the marks of this Roman camp - one of the most orderly cities in Italy! Was Rome ever like that one wonders?
- In the 10th and 11th centuries it was rebuilt Roman style then later in Baroque style. In fact today's 'Consolata' is three churches and you see them quite distinctly once you enter. Off to the right is a lower, older chapel of Our Lady of Graces (and St Joseph Cafasso's remains are nearby in a small side chapel). Then at the centre of it all up a few steps and through an iron gate is the Consolata Sanctuary proper. The rest is St Andrew's church.
- The nearby monastery, emptied of Cistercians during the time of the law of Suppression (as happened at Valsalice, recall, to the De la Salles), was taken over by the diocese and became the new 'Convitto' after the one next to St Francis of Assissi's that Don Bosco attended, was closed down.
- The Consolata was the Oratory's church before Don Bosco built the St Francis church and when the Pinardi chapel got too small for numbers. The Consolata was only a hop, skip and a jump for the boys, with Don Bosco hopping, skipping and jumping with them, probably. When Mama Margaret died, it was here that he came and told Our Lady that she was to be his mother.
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St John the Evangelist and the Consolata
"Work and Temperance: as seen and interpreted by Don Bosco's Successors"
Fr Giraudo takes just the first two of Don Bosco's Successors (Rua and Albera) as a way of looking at how they interpreted Don Bosco's 'Work and Temperance'. Perhaps the punchline comes right at the end of his talk:
So then, in the sensitivities and outlook of the first two successors of Don Bosco, the motto of the Congregation, Work and Temperance, is enriched by a third element, Prayer or Piety. This aspect is certainly not absent in the teaching and practices of Don Bosco's life, but it became urgent to emphasis it in new historical contexts to correct what is revealed to be the “dominant defect” of the Salesians: undisciplined hard work, excessive agitation, educative superficiality. Thus was the "spirit of Don Bosco" being clarified in all its wealth of spiritual nuances and its ascetic implications for the daily life of Salesian communities.
He begins with Fr Rua, noting that reference to the substance of Don Bosco's motto 'Work and Temperance' is a constant one, even though it appears only once in the circulars, formulated as such at the beginning of the 1892-1893 school year. Drawing on his circular letters (all of which, along with his correspondence, is available in SDL, by the way) he notes that Fr Rua's Circulars show a marked insistence on ascetics and abstemiousness, piety, religious regularity, pastoral zeal and the primacy of religion in the education of the young. He was aware that with the growth of the Congregation there was the risk that there might be a lessening of its spiritual impulse.
Turning to Fr Albera, the presentation notes that his spiritual magisterium particularly emphasised the link between the spirit of piety and discipline of life, and offered an overall interpretation of the 'spirit of Don Bosco' ... From his contemplation of this ideal, Fr Albera then moved on to suggest practical resolutions. Fr Albera has in mind a spiritual pathology which was widespread in the Salesian Congregation: “the great illness of many given to God's service is agitation and excessive zeal given to exterior matters. How difficult it is to reign in our activity and keep it within the right limits!"
The Archbishop of Turin looking to the Bicentneary year 2015
The archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia, speaks enthusiastically about the upcoming celebrations for the Bicentenary of St John Bosco's birth, and speaks just as proudly of the fact that this is why we have also decided to offer the many pilgrims who will come to Turin an extraordinary showing of the Shroud, the cloth which according to tradition Jesus’ body in the Sepulchre was wrapped in. The fact that this display will take place in the Jubilee year of St John Bosco commits us to encouraging the world of the young through particular events and initiatives so they can discover the spiritual wealth of the Saint, Father, teacher and friend of youth on the one hand and on the other be accompanied in meditating and praying before the Shroud.
Archbishop Nosiglia reveals that as a child, he attended the Salesian Sisters' school in Campo Liguore, where he grew up, and that as he watched the filmstrips on Don Bosco with much interest every Sunday, it seemed to me that the Saint was truly there amongst us kids. I confess that last month, too, when we bore the Casket in procession with so many young people from Turin, I felt the compelling prayer of this hymn [he is referring to the fact that in the parish they regularly sang 'Don Bosco ritorna'] within me and heard it as a stimulus asking me, as bishop and pastor of the Church in Turin: are we capable of returning to throwing ourselves amidst the young to listen to their criticisms and expectations regarding the Church and the joy of finding ourselves all there together on the journey in the same faith and love?
He reminds his listeners that Don Bosco not only speaks to young people today. He speaks to parents and teachers, other educators, and he speaks to the Church: encouraging it to change its approach to the young and their problems in life. He helps us to understand that it is not only the young who must return to the Church; it is rather the Church that must return to the young.
--------------
Reminder of timetable for these days.
24 February Monday
8.30 a.m. Off to St John the Evangelist's in Turin, the church built by Don Bosco close to his second oratory of 'San Luigi' (St Aloysius).
10.00 a.m. 4th and final talk by Giraudo: Work and Temperance: Don Bosco's motto as seen by his Successors. And again, 3 groups.
11.00 .a.m. back down towards Valdocco again, but this time to the Church of the Consolata where the Archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia, will be main celebrant and homilist at the Mass to be celebrated at 12 noon. Our Lady of Consolation (the 'Consolata') is the Patroness of Turin. It is a fascinating history as to how this came about - check it out on the Internet
1.30 p.m. Lunch at Valdocco and by 2.30 p.m. departure by coach(es) to Rome.
25 February (Feast of Sts Louis Versiglia and Callistus Caravario)
Presentation of the Rector Major's Report and reports from Sectors and Regions
26 February
Presentation of the Rector Major's Report and reports from Sectors and Regions. Retreat begins in the evening.
PS: The North American Provinces are running a Facebook page which will also help with information and background.
Terminology
If there is any terminology used that you are unsure of, and you don't have the app, look it up in the Salesians A-Z web page.
-------------
Yesterday's beautiful country was Australia. And the first lot (which we said was China) includes a border issue - half of the beautiful volcanic lake you saw is Korean, so we can't really say it is a Chinese lake! Not only that, but it is the spiritual soul, the 'birthplace' of everything that is Korean - so people who have just visited Colle and Valdocco have a sense of what that must mean to Koreans. Unfortunately for half of the Korean Peninsula, access to the Lake tends to be through China since difficult politics makes direct access impossible.
Hope you didn't make the mistake of confusing yesterday's pics with Korea - or that would be a border dispute with beautiful Australia! The 'Korean' signs are from multicultural Sydney. The Southern Lights (the Aurora Australis) are as seen from south of Hobart. The camels - you can guess where - the Red Centre. The vineyards are South Australia.
And - here is an extraordinary video with a beautiful message from Pope Francis. Addressing Tony Palmer, an Evangelical Penteocstal bishop as "my brother, a bishop-brother" and saying they had "been friends for years," the pope offered what he said were greetings "both joyful and full of longing" to participants in a forthcoming meeting of the Kenneth Copeland Ministries, a Pentecostal group that sponsors large prayer gatherings around the world.
Tale of Two Churches
Work and temperance as seen and interpreted by Don Bosco's Successors
TURIN: 24 February 2014 -- San Giovanni Evangelista and the Consolata - two churches indelibly stamped on the Salesian character, the first-named because Don Bosco built it, the second is Turin's and Don Bosco's 'mother' church. Long before the title 'Help of Christians' came onto the scene, Our Lady of Consolation was the church and title Don Bosco looked to.
Today the Chapter members visit both churches - in one they hear the final talk on Work and Temperance, given in the three language groups, and in the other, they listen to the Archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia.
After lunch back at Valdocco, everyone hops aboard the coaches and they begin their long trip back to Rome, where they may arrive towards midnight.
Some details regarding St John the Evangelist's and the Consolata churches
St John the Evangelist's
- 1847 Don Bosco builds a second Oratory down from the new Railway Station (Porta Nuova) towards the river Po, on land outside the city confines used by local washerwomen to dry clothes. They were not happy! The Oratory was named after St Aloysius (San Luigi's). It was also a developing urban area in the 1850's and a hotbed of Waldensian activity. Also a Jewish area.
- 1870-1875 Don Bosco buys up some extra land. He wants to build a church and a hostel for poor boys. He does both. It is worth noting that St Callistus Caravario, whose Feast (along with St Louis Versiglia) we celebrate on 25 February, was a resident at the hostel.
- 1877: He begins the construction of the church, which is consecrated in 1882. But he wants to make it a monument in honour of his favourite Pope, Pius IX and runs foul of the Archbishop who also wants to build his own monument to Pius IX! Don Bosco is not put off and places a statue of the Pope in front of the Church.
The Consolata
- It probably goes back as far as the 4th century. Still today you can see old Roman ruins to one side of the church; it is not far from the main original Roman area. Turin still bears the marks of this Roman camp - one of the most orderly cities in Italy! Was Rome ever like that one wonders?
- In the 10th and 11th centuries it was rebuilt Roman style then later in Baroque style. In fact today's 'Consolata' is three churches and you see them quite distinctly once you enter. Off to the right is a lower, older chapel of Our Lady of Graces (and St Joseph Cafasso's remains are nearby in a small side chapel). Then at the centre of it all up a few steps and through an iron gate is the Consolata Sanctuary proper. The rest is St Andrew's church.
- The nearby monastery, emptied of Cistercians during the time of the law of Suppression (as happened at Valsalice, recall, to the De la Salles), was taken over by the diocese and became the new 'Convitto' after the one next to St Francis of Assissi's that Don Bosco attended, was closed down.
- The Consolata was the Oratory's church before Don Bosco built the St Francis church and when the Pinardi chapel got too small for numbers. The Consolata was only a hop, skip and a jump for the boys, with Don Bosco hopping, skipping and jumping with them, probably. When Mama Margaret died, it was here that he came and told Our Lady that she was to be his mother.
--------------
St John the Evangelist and the Consolata
"Work and Temperance: as seen and interpreted by Don Bosco's Successors"
Fr Giraudo takes just the first two of Don Bosco's Successors (Rua and Albera) as a way of looking at how they interpreted Don Bosco's 'Work and Temperance'. Perhaps the punchline comes right at the end of his talk:
So then, in the sensitivities and outlook of the first two successors of Don Bosco, the motto of the Congregation, Work and Temperance, is enriched by a third element, Prayer or Piety. This aspect is certainly not absent in the teaching and practices of Don Bosco's life, but it became urgent to emphasis it in new historical contexts to correct what is revealed to be the “dominant defect” of the Salesians: undisciplined hard work, excessive agitation, educative superficiality. Thus was the "spirit of Don Bosco" being clarified in all its wealth of spiritual nuances and its ascetic implications for the daily life of Salesian communities.
He begins with Fr Rua, noting that reference to the substance of Don Bosco's motto 'Work and Temperance' is a constant one, even though it appears only once in the circulars, formulated as such at the beginning of the 1892-1893 school year. Drawing on his circular letters (all of which, along with his correspondence, is available in SDL, by the way) he notes that Fr Rua's Circulars show a marked insistence on ascetics and abstemiousness, piety, religious regularity, pastoral zeal and the primacy of religion in the education of the young. He was aware that with the growth of the Congregation there was the risk that there might be a lessening of its spiritual impulse.
Turning to Fr Albera, the presentation notes that his spiritual magisterium particularly emphasised the link between the spirit of piety and discipline of life, and offered an overall interpretation of the 'spirit of Don Bosco' ... From his contemplation of this ideal, Fr Albera then moved on to suggest practical resolutions. Fr Albera has in mind a spiritual pathology which was widespread in the Salesian Congregation: “the great illness of many given to God's service is agitation and excessive zeal given to exterior matters. How difficult it is to reign in our activity and keep it within the right limits!"
The Archbishop of Turin looking to the Bicentneary year 2015
The archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia, speaks enthusiastically about the upcoming celebrations for the Bicentenary of St John Bosco's birth, and speaks just as proudly of the fact that this is why we have also decided to offer the many pilgrims who will come to Turin an extraordinary showing of the Shroud, the cloth which according to tradition Jesus’ body in the Sepulchre was wrapped in. The fact that this display will take place in the Jubilee year of St John Bosco commits us to encouraging the world of the young through particular events and initiatives so they can discover the spiritual wealth of the Saint, Father, teacher and friend of youth on the one hand and on the other be accompanied in meditating and praying before the Shroud.
Archbishop Nosiglia reveals that as a child, he attended the Salesian Sisters' school in Campo Liguore, where he grew up, and that as he watched the filmstrips on Don Bosco with much interest every Sunday, it seemed to me that the Saint was truly there amongst us kids. I confess that last month, too, when we bore the Casket in procession with so many young people from Turin, I felt the compelling prayer of this hymn [he is referring to the fact that in the parish they regularly sang 'Don Bosco ritorna'] within me and heard it as a stimulus asking me, as bishop and pastor of the Church in Turin: are we capable of returning to throwing ourselves amidst the young to listen to their criticisms and expectations regarding the Church and the joy of finding ourselves all there together on the journey in the same faith and love?
He reminds his listeners that Don Bosco not only speaks to young people today. He speaks to parents and teachers, other educators, and he speaks to the Church: encouraging it to change its approach to the young and their problems in life. He helps us to understand that it is not only the young who must return to the Church; it is rather the Church that must return to the young.
--------------
Reminder of timetable for these days.
24 February Monday
8.30 a.m. Off to St John the Evangelist's in Turin, the church built by Don Bosco close to his second oratory of 'San Luigi' (St Aloysius).
10.00 a.m. 4th and final talk by Giraudo: Work and Temperance: Don Bosco's motto as seen by his Successors. And again, 3 groups.
11.00 .a.m. back down towards Valdocco again, but this time to the Church of the Consolata where the Archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia, will be main celebrant and homilist at the Mass to be celebrated at 12 noon. Our Lady of Consolation (the 'Consolata') is the Patroness of Turin. It is a fascinating history as to how this came about - check it out on the Internet
1.30 p.m. Lunch at Valdocco and by 2.30 p.m. departure by coach(es) to Rome.
25 February (Feast of Sts Louis Versiglia and Callistus Caravario)
Presentation of the Rector Major's Report and reports from Sectors and Regions
26 February
Presentation of the Rector Major's Report and reports from Sectors and Regions. Retreat begins in the evening.
PS: The North American Provinces are running a Facebook page which will also help with information and background.
Terminology
If there is any terminology used that you are unsure of, and you don't have the app, look it up in the Salesians A-Z web page.
-------------
Yesterday's beautiful country was Australia. And the first lot (which we said was China) includes a border issue - half of the beautiful volcanic lake you saw is Korean, so we can't really say it is a Chinese lake! Not only that, but it is the spiritual soul, the 'birthplace' of everything that is Korean - so people who have just visited Colle and Valdocco have a sense of what that must mean to Koreans. Unfortunately for half of the Korean Peninsula, access to the Lake tends to be through China since difficult politics makes direct access impossible.
Hope you didn't make the mistake of confusing yesterday's pics with Korea - or that would be a border dispute with beautiful Australia! The 'Korean' signs are from multicultural Sydney. The Southern Lights (the Aurora Australis) are as seen from south of Hobart. The camels - you can guess where - the Red Centre. The vineyards are South Australia.
And - here is an extraordinary video with a beautiful message from Pope Francis. Addressing Tony Palmer, an Evangelical Penteocstal bishop as "my brother, a bishop-brother" and saying they had "been friends for years," the pope offered what he said were greetings "both joyful and full of longing" to participants in a forthcoming meeting of the Kenneth Copeland Ministries, a Pentecostal group that sponsors large prayer gatherings around the world.
