But the young person is not at the mercy of evil. He is rather lovingly 'besieged’ by the inexhaustible resources of the transcendent world of God and His Grace, offered through the Catholic faith: God, Jesus Christ, The Church, The Sacraments, The Virgin Mother, a countless number of Intercessors, the Word of God.
Religion is the foundation, the source and the soul of the young person's life and of his growing process. The appeal to God is absolutely necessary and, naturally, it calls for human cooperation: Prayer, getting away from sin, praying for forgiveness, putting the resolutions made in Confession into practice, the exercise of brotherly charity; in a few but essential words, the service of God, good works, duty. “My dear boys”, Don Bosco asked those who were about to hold back, “Do we want to go to heaven in a coach?”, the best form of transport in his time.764
But the hinge on which the whole divine -human synergy depends as a determining factor is the
mediation provided by education. For this reason it naturally follows that the primary virtue needed in
a young man is obedience. What contributes most to the “feared shipwreck of the young” is not meeting up with “perverse companions” or parental neglect but their possible “unfaithful disposition towards a good education”765)and even before that, the fact that they consider education to be worthless”. The presence and the work of educators who are competent and “consecrated” to caring for youth is absolutely necessary for the young person's salvation. Quite literally, “God needs men”. This primary initiative essentially calls for a response on the part of the young person, his submission and willing cooperation. This was the first message Don Bosco addressed to youth in the first book entirely written for them:
Since a tender plant, even though planted in good soil in a garden may take the wrong turn
and end up badly if it is not cultivated and, so to speak, guided to a certain thickness,
likewise you, my dear children, will bend and take a turn towards evil if you do not allow
yourselves to be bent by the ones whose task it is to direct you, first of all your parents,
then your superiors and elders.766
The second great manifesto was directed to educators. The Preventive System, which is a multi-hued experience before it becomes a formula, is entirely for them: to guide them and spur them on to exercising a kindof responsibility which has countless implications: personal and social, temporal and eternal.
This was the message that Don Bosco launched, one more time, as his earthly life fell “into the sear of the yellow leaf”: "Work at the good education of youth, especially poor and abandoned youth which are in the majority, and you will be able to easily give glory to God and guarantee benefits for religion, save many souls and cooperate effectively in the reform and wellbeing of civil society. For reason, religion, history and experience have proven that our religion and civil society will be good or bad, according to the good or bad education imparted to youth”.767
764Circular to Salesians 6 Jan. 1884., E IV 250.
765G. Bosco, Biografia del sacerdote Giuseppe Caffasso... p. 12 OE II 362. 766G. Bosco, Il giovane provveduto...., pp 13-16, OE II 193-196.
767Conference to Cooperators in Turin 1883 31 May. BS 7 (1883), no. 7, July, p. 104.-