people should render to the mission of the Church, especially regarding the education of the young and even more specifically on their use of wealth. His strong position on almsgiving is typical. He interpreted and proposed almsgiving as a strict and obligatory exercise of social justice ante litteram.863 Instead among the gamut of educational objectives pursued by Don Bosco we do not find a developed
idea o f the socially and politically committed human being. The idea is scarcely developed as a specific
aim being made explicit more within moral and religious objectives. This is partly due to the social
situation in Don Bosco's Italy, when active or passive p olitics were reserved for those who could take
advantage of privileged cultural and economic circumstances. We have to add, though, that Don Bosco
made political choice something which involved education. This was the choice he made for himself
and his col laborators. For Don Bosco someone who is actively involved in civil and political society is,
first of all and continues to be the Christian who does his job honestly and competently. He is someone
who contributes to order and progress of society by wisely exercising authority over his family, getting
involved inasmuch as is possible in charitable works calling for solidarity, and one who is a model of
faith including spiritual and corporal acts of mercy.
Don Bosco's comments to a gathering of past pupils o f the Oratory on July 25, 1880, are significant.
Referring to someone who had criticized the place where he had received his education and then
inviting them all to forgive and pray for ungrateful people of the kind, then he went on to say:
We are Salesian s and as such we forget everything, we forgive everyone, we do good to
everyone as much as we can, and harm no one. This way we have “the simplicity of the
dove and the prudence of the snake”, keeping a lookout for traitors and treason.864
10 Life is vocation and mission
The place everyone in society holds, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is never casual or arbitrary. Everyone is called to live according to his own vocation, namely, to hold onto a well defined place which responds to God’s will and guarantees the graces given. Several times Don Bosco declared that vocational choice is the most important aspect of a person's life.865
The choice, while responding to questions raised by one's neighbour, and particularly by the young, is
suited to the apti tudes and inclinations of the person. In turn these aptitudes and inclinations make a
person ready to make a commitment which could be “to live as lay person, an ecclesiastic or as a religious”.
The problem is posed and solved in more precise terms in a letter addressed to the students of the two last years of high school at San Martino. “There are two states along which one can walk on the way to heaven: the ecclesiastical state or the lay state. As for the lay state”, Don Bosco declared expeditiously, “everyone has to choose the studies, employment, profession which allows him to fulfill his duties as a good Christian and meet with the approval of his parents”. With regard to the ecclesiastical state, Don Bosco provides more detailed directions. First of all, he indicates what kinds of detachment the ecclesiastical state entails:
Renouncing the comforts and the glory of the world and earthly joys, in order to give
oneself to God's service... In making this choice the only counsellor who can be decisive is
the confessor. He is to be heeded without paying attention to superiors or inferiors, relatives
or friends... Whoever enters into the ecclesiastical state with the sole intention of giving
himself to God service and walking the path to salvation, has the moral certitude of doing a
great deal of good to his soul and the souls of his neighbor.
863Cr. P. Braido, Laicità e laici nel progetto operativo di don Bosco..., pp. 23-30. 864BS 4 (1880) no. 9, Sept. p. 10.
865Cf for example an evening talk on 7 July 1876, G. Barberis, Cronichetta, qud. 2. p. 2.