Own Your Formation

One evening St. Philip Neri said to his youngsters, "My dear boys, I have something to tell you. Do you want to hear it?"

"Yes, yes," they replied excitedly.

"Good! Listen then. In this world there are lots of smart people and lots of fools. The smart ones are those who sweat and suffer a little to gain heaven; the fools are those who follow the path of eternal perdition. And there are so many of these!"

It's the same with you, my dear sons. Many of you are smart; some are fools. The other day a lad came to me.

"Don Bosco, may I go home?"

"Why?"

"Because I can't stand the cold here."

"My dear boy," I said to him, "don't you know that we must put up with a little suffering and learn to subdue our flesh in order to win heaven?"

Had this boy been really smart, he would have said to himself, Oh well, if I stick it out, I'll gain more merits for heaven. I want to show Our Lady how much I appreciate Her bringing me here, away from so many spiritual dangers, and making it easy for me to do good and find my vocation.

Then there are other youngsters who are even bigger fools; they eat meat on forbidden days, indulge in foul conversations or songs, read bad books, and run down their superiors. They are fools who heedlessly rush to perdition. To their dismay, they will realize, when it will be too late, that they thought they were smart because they got away with their wrongdoings. Seemingly, they fooled their superiors, but, in truth, they made fools of themselves. BM Vol. 8, ch. 2, p.15

Keep in mind that Don Bosco wanted his boys to own their formation. He never coerced them to stay or to leave the oratory. Moreover, Don Bosco nurtured vocations and is always concerned about their salvation.

Article 28: Young people called to serve the Church ...We are convinced that many young people are rich in spiritual potential and give indications of an apostolic vocation. We help them discover, accept and deveolp the gift of a lay, consecrated or priestly vocation, for the benefit of the whole Church and the Salesian Family.