Reading and meditation on the Word of God on Friday of the third week in Ordinary Time, January 31, 2025; Memorial of Saint John Bosco, Priest

Delivered by Father Peter Tukan, SDB from Salesian Don Bosco Gerak in the Diocese of Labuan Bajo, Indonesia. Hebrews 10: 32-39; Rs psalm 37: 3-4.5-6.23-24.39-40; Mark 4: 26-34 STEADFAST IN HOPE   Our meditation on this day has the theme: Steadfast in Hope.  Every January 31, the Salesian Society of Don Bosco (SDB), the Salesian Family, and many others who live the spirit of Saint John Bosco celebrate it as a feast, which is the day of the death of the saint from Turin, Northern Italy. He was a diocesan priest of the Archdiocese of Turin, endowed with a special charism by the Holy Spirit, to work for the education of the most abandoned and poor young people.   He founded a men's consecrated life society named SDB (Salesian of Don Bosco), and a women's society named FMA (Daughters of Mary Help of Christians). He also founded a lay collaborator called the Salesian Cooperator. He followed the spiritual intuition and teaching of Saint Francis of Sales, Bishop of Geneva (Switzerland) who lived more than 200 years before Don Bosco, so the institutes and large families he founded are called the Salesians. The education system for young people popularized by Don Bosco, recognized by the Church and used as an effective Catholic education system, is called the preventive system.   Early in his work for the good and salvation of adolescents and youth of the city of Turin, Don Bosco for the fist time found their lives and circumstances to be very poor. They were the same as garbage thrown away and trampled or destroyed. Family and community life with the condition of the young generation like this is clearly included in the category of humanitarian emergency. Poverty, ignorance, crime, illness, harassment and forced labor in factories or industries, were common situations of the young generation at that time. It seems that the loss of hope for the Church and society was very real.   But Don Bosco was steadfast in his faith and humanitarian initiative underpinned by a change mentality for the better. Don Bosco was an original product of the enlightenment after the medieval period of the world. He wanted changes and new methods in education. He wanted his steadfastness of faith and humanitarian initiative to bring in society and the Church a hope of newness. It should start with the education of the younger generation, which in turn will create change and spread it around the world.   The Letter to the Hebrews of today’s reading reinforces us that, like Don Bosco, we have the responsibility to hold fast to hope, which is manifested by mutual concern and support in love among us. The light and strength that we have must be shareable. What is with us and what is shared will be added more and more by God. Let us pray. In the name of the Father... O Lord Jesus, make us bearers and spreaders of hope to our neighbors. Our Father who art in heaven... In the name of the Father...