He was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went about among the villages teaching. (Mark 6. 1 - 6)
I wonder how often you have been in a situation where your work or your mission keeps coming up against barriers or difficulties. That seems to have been the situation that Jesus faced here when he taught in his home town of Nazareth. Elsewhere, at this time, his teaching and his healing ministry were broadly welcomed. In Nazareth, however, he encountered an almost complete block.
Such situations pose a dilemma; do we press on regardless and push on through the obstacles convinced of the need for our work or mission, or should we view the existence of barriers to progress as a reason for reflecting on our approach and altering our plans? In this situation, Jesus modified his immediate activity in Nazareth but pressed on with his wider mission. This is an approach that he later commended to his apostles when he sent them out to preach saying, ‘If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.’
It is advice that those the Church has recognised as saints have often followed as well. Today, the Church remembers John Bosco, Priest and Founder of the Salesians. Born in 1815 to a peasant family, John Bosco spent most of his life in the Turin area of Italy. He had a particular call to help young men and pioneered new educational methods, for example, in rejecting corporal punishment. His work with homeless youth received the admiration even of anticlerical politicians and his promotion of vocational training, including evening classes and industrial schools, became a pattern for others to follow. To extend the work, he founded in 1859 a religious community, the Pious Society of St Francis de Sales, usually known as the Salesians. It grew rapidly and was well-established in several countries by the time of his death on this day in 1888.
What that brief summary of John Bosco’s life fails to reflect is the extent to which his ministry encountered opposition. John's early years were spent as a shepherd, and he received his first instruction from a parish priest. His childhood experiences are thought to have inspired him to become a priest. At the time, being a priest was generally seen as a profession for the privileged classes, rather than farmers, although it was not unknown. Some biographers portray his older brother Antonio as the main obstacle for Bosco's ambition to study, as the brother protested that John was just "a farmer like us!" - a similar response to that which Jesus encountered in Nazareth!
Later, when visiting Turin’s prisons, John Bosco was disturbed to see so many boys from 12 to 18 years of age. He was determined to find a means to prevent them ending up here and began to meet the boys where they worked and gathered in shops and market places. He looked for jobs for the unemployed and provided sleeping quarters for those sleeping rough. As a result, he was turned out of several places in succession. After only two months based in the church of St. Martin, the entire neighbourhood expressed its annoyance with the noise coming from the boys at play. A formal complaint was lodged against them with the municipality. The group was evicted.
Opposition to Bosco and his work came from various quarters. Several attempts were also made on his life, including a near-stabbing, bludgeoning and a shooting. He was also subjected to petty annoyances and obstacles which, at times, seemed to spell the ruin of his undertaking. His perseverance in the face of all difficulties led many to the conclusion that he was insane, and an attempt was even made to confine him in an asylum. He persevered, however, to the point that some of the boys he helped decided to do what he was doing, that is, to work in the service of abandoned boys. And that was the origin of the Salesians, the religious order that would carry on his work.
At the time of John Bosco's death in 1888 there were 250 houses of the Salesian Society in all parts of the world, containing 130,000 children, and from which there annually went out 18,000 finished apprentices. Up to 1888 over six thousand priests had also gone forth from John Bosco's institutions. Today Salesian houses are located far and wide, and include elementary and high schools, colleges, seminaries, hospitals, vocational schools, and foreign missions.
John Bosco’s certainty that, in the face of desperate circumstances, he would nonetheless build a thriving religious community for boys came from a vision received as a dream. In his dream he saw Our Lady directing him in the way he should go; a way that involved walking on thorns. Friends, lay and clergy, were alongside him but declined to also walk on thorns. Finally, a new group of followers arrived who were willing to walk with him. The Mother of God said to him: ‘The thorns on the ground represent the sensitive human affections, sympathies and antipathies that divert a teacher from his true goal, hurt him, hinder his mission and prevent him from forming and reaping wreathes for eternal life. Roses are the symbol of the ardent charity by which you and your associates must distinguish yourselves. The thorns symbolize the obstacles, sufferings and sorrows that await you. But do not lose heart. With charity and mortification you will overcome everything and will have roses without thorns!’
God also calls us to face and overcome obstacles when these are encountered as part of the ministry to which we are called. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote: ‘My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.’ (James 1. 2 - 4)
That is what we see lived out by Jesus, his apostles and John Bosco. Jesus was amazed at the unbelief of those in Nazareth but then he continued his mission by going to other villages to teach there instead. John Bosco’s fellow priests tried to persuade him to abandon or at least limit his thankless work with youth, which had only brought ridicule and suffering. He had become obsessed by hopeless idealism, they told him. “Not at all,” replied Bosco, “I see things plainly as they are. Presently we shall have churches, vast playgrounds, priests, helpers of all kinds and thousands of boys.” Such was his confidence about these goals that he freely and frequently spoke of them as accomplished realities.
The perseverance and endurance of Jesus and John Bosco was, therefore, based on their sense of calling and mission. Are we clear about our call and mission? Then, when we are, do we have a similar degree of commitment to pressing on despite the obstacles we face? Let us pray: O God, who raised up John Bosco as a father and teacher of the young, grant we pray, that, aflame with the same fire of love, we may seek out souls and serve you alone. Amen.
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Bob Dylan - Pressing On.
