(ANS – Rome)– Thanks to the collaboration of Fr Pierluigi Cameroni, Postulator General for the Salesian Family for the Causes of Saints, ANS tries, at the beginning of each month, to present the examples of Salesian holiness that the liturgical calendar recalls each month. This initiative can be an encouragement to discover (or rediscover) some features of their holiness and thus celebrate their memory with greater awareness.

“January offers for our imitation and prayerthe testimony of some members of the Salesian Family who have already been elevated to the honours of the altar and who we can look up to this year as models of faith”, Fr Cameroni points out.

15 January: BlessedLouis Variara

This person stands out for his extraordinary fidelity to ways inspired by God but laid down and even distorted by human contingencies. He was a Salesian missionary who spent 28 years in Colombia, dedicating himself to lepers in Agua de Dios. He transformed the sadness of this place through his Salesian cheerfulness, with music, theatre, sport, and a Salesian oratory lifestyle. And, since it is a unique case in the history of the Church, he founded the first religious community made up of lepers or children of lepers. He was a “Founder” beginning with the fact that he “founded” everything in full submission to religious obedience. He died while in an imposed and heavy “exile” which had distanced him from his total dedication of his life to the sick and to his Institute, uniting in himself unrestricted religious obedience in fidelity to the work the Lord had asked of him, and his submission to orders from his legitimate superior which seemed to alienate him from God's ways.

22 January: BlessedLaura Vicuña

As a young girl she offered her life for her mother's salvation, as she would tell her before dying: “I have offered my life for you for the past two years, to obtain the grace of your return to the Faith. Mamma, before dying, will I have the joy of seeing you repent?”. Doing everything for her mother's salvation was Laura's constant concern. She redoubled her prayer, sought opportunities for sacrifice that each day offered, and bore everything in her heart as a great secret known only to the Lord. And when, during the holidays Manuél Mora, who was living with her mother, fell in love with Laura and did everything to get her, the girl rejected him more than once, decisively and with the strength that came from her authentic faith. Laura0s offer was accepted and the young girl died peacefully after she had uttered these happy words: “Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Mary! Now I die happy!”.

24 January: St Francis de Sales

He we have such a complex figure, a mine of wisdom we can draw from like a bee gathers pollen from flower to flower, especially some of his sayings on faith: “Faith is the ray from heaven that helps us see God in everything and everything in God”; “We could put it like this: God is the painter, our faith is the painting, its colours are God's Word, the brush is the Church”; “Faith is our spirit's great friend and can, rightly, say something to human knowledge”; “Salvation is indicated by faith, prepared for by hope, but only given by charity”; “Temptations against faith are aimed at our intelligence to get it to find fault, daydream and fantasise”.

30 January: Blessed Bronislaws Markiewicz

Founder of the male and female Congregations of St Michael the Archangel. At 18 years of age, Bronislaws lost his faith. “I wanted to attach myself to the opinions of my teachers”, he later wrote. “And along with losing faith in God I lost peace of soul and any sense of inner harmony. I was invaded by sadness”. In desperation, Bronislaws had recourse to some of the great Polish writers. Very much moved by one of them, he fell to his knees and exclaimed: “My God, if you exist, let me know you!... Let me see the Truth and I will spend my life in action of grace!... Look, I will be ready for any humiliation”. Heaven's answer was immediate: “God has heard me! In the blink of an eyelid, mu soul was suffused with light. I believed everything the Holy church teaches. I immediately made a general confession”. But conversion brought a tough struggle with it at a moral level: “I fell yet again, many times but You, O Lord Jesus never abandoned me!”. This experience of struggle would produce a revived faith and strengthened hope and charity, a keen desire to live humbly, as Blessed Bronislaws often told his boys “Without humility or acceptance of humiliations, you will not find the Lord Jesus in prayer, fasting, tears, or in vigil”.

31 January: Don Bosco

In the sdb.org section dedicated to Salesian holiness you can find other information and resources on Salesian Saints and Blesseds.

Published 02/01/2014