Mercy is connected with love expressed in few words and many deeds, with works of spiritual and corporal mercy which Don Bosco had come to know from his catechism and from the family and the religious world in which he lived as a child. The social and educational assistance provided by the preventive system becomes a huge organisation directed towards collecting and redistributing alms, bread, school, apprenticeships.
Loving kindness is also a more interior and respected work of spiritual mercy. Among the acts of spiritual mercy, according to the Gospel,1064 fraternal corre ction was always considered the most
important of all.
Fraternal correction, as we will see in chapter 17, is one of the most characteristic expressions of
preventive education. Its task is to help young people emerge from the imperfections peculiar to the ir age and the prejudices they might have, and offer them them new and better ideas to lead them to more
upright and productive behaviour in life, here and now and for eternity.
Material and spiritual alms -giving, education, re -education....these all respo nd to a keen sensitivity to the most varied kinds of poverty and miseries of body and spirit, with real concern for doing something
about them, through loving kindness; providing food, clothing, shelter and education; readiness to
warn, advise, correct, co mfort and guide.
Loving Kindness also has other facets by means of which the educational relationship becomes a
profoundly moral one: they are piety and affability or approachability. Piety covers an almost unlimited
range, beginning with our parents and c ountry to the point of reaching out to anyone with whom we
have blood or just social ties. It includes the respect children have for parents and relatives. It is
because of piety, considered not only in terms of its ultimate objective, namely, God, that na tural or adopted children honour their parents and pupils honor their teachers and other educators. The latter, in
turn, come to the aid of the former, children and pupils, their needs and requests for the immediate
present and the future, and thus they be come loving fathers, brothers and friends of those whom they
benefit.
Affability, approachability comes from a reservoir of humaneness, sociability, natural goodness, as well
as the theological virtue of charity. It enriches justice with a remarkable note of amiability, courtesy and finesse. This is the more simple kind of friendship which has some affinity with that great
friendship represented by charity and which establishes orderliness, spontaneity and graciousness
among those who enjoy being together. Perhaps better than all the other facets, it reflects the face of
loving kindness of which Don Bosco wrote and spoke: see that you build up a sympathetic harmony
through word and deed, in the mutual expectations of daily common life. According to Don Bosc o, affability in word and deed puts a final touch on 'demonstrated love'.
He repeatedly insists on appealing to the heart, to love made evident by deeds and which in turn is the
proof of an effective education.
Recommend to all of our people to direct all their efforts to two cardinal points: to make
oneself loved, not feared
1065
if you want to be loved, make yourself lovable
1066
To succeed with the young, do your best to be well loved, not feared
1067
-mannered with them: make yourselves
father for his 'amorevolezza', the gifts he gave to the monastery, and the 'amorevolezza' he exercises towards his
daughter. (Cf. M.C. Galilei, Lettere al padre, ed. Giuliana Morandini. Turin, Edizione La Rosa 1983).
1064 Mt. 18:15-17.
1065 Letter to Bishop John Cagliero, 10 Feb. 1885, E IV 313.
1066 MB X 1022.
1067 MB XIV 513.