heart, then the pupil will respond with an increased ability to understand and a keener ability to show affection. Thanks to reason, the young will perceive the reasonableness of the law of work, the law of a personal commitment to build things up together, the satisfaction which comes from good results obtained in the classroom and in the workshops. Thanks to his heart, he will effectively have the revitalizing experience of the “family” as found in the community of superiors and classmates, mutual trust and friendship. Finally a joyous awareness will blossom, an awareness that it is worth living and working together, which are the initial steps required for an effective socializing process.
Besides, the awareness that “life is worth living” will be strengthened at higher and more mature levels by the religious Christian experience, thanks to which success at a temporal level will reach out into the wider horizon of eternal salvation. The basic presupposition of all the above, is the Gospel warning "What then will a man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins his life?”844
According to Don Bosco it wasprecisely this thought which led many young people to leave the world, many rich people to give away their riches to the poor, many missionaries to leave their country and go to far away land, many martyrs to give their life for their faith.845
The search f or salvation is presented to the young as the lesson needed to learn the highest profession
of being a Christian, for it is the one which gives meaning and fulfillment to all other professions: the
profession of the shoemaker, carpenter, and that of the st udent. Don Bosco explained this thought in an
emotional 'good night' talk given on April 30, 1865.
Oh! If I only could share ow I feel. Words fail me to express how important this topic is.
Oh! If all of you kept this great truth in your mind, if you were to work only to save your
soul, then you would have no need of sermons, meditations, the exercise for a happy death,
because then you would have all that is needed for your happiness. If your actions were to
have this important goal as their aim, how luck y would you be, how happy Don Bosco
would be. This would turn out to be what I consider the best: the Oratory would be an
'earthly Paradise'. We would have no more theft, bad talk, dangerous readings, backbiting
etc. Everyone would do their duty. And this is why: let us all be convinced that the priest,
the cleric, the student, the artisan, the poor and the rich, the superior and the pupil: they all
have to work toward this goal, otherwise any efforts on their part will prove useless.
846
5. Steps required to be saved
The life of grace in its simplest form, which means freedom from sin, up to its highest form, which is that of perfection and holiness, does not allow a choice by principle and develops in continuity from freedom from damnation and the ascent to the highest of forms of charity: love of God and love of neighbour. What gives fullness and unity to the life of grace is the reality of salvation. Thus F.X. Durrwell, in his wonderful summary of Christian spirituality, could write:
The doctrine of man's sanctification is the same as the doctrine of his eternal salvation -
since man cannot find salvation other than through his sanctification in God and it is well
known that the doctrine of salvation has a range equal to that of all theology.847
Don Bosco knows the 'degrees' of spiritual life. In his eulogy on Fr.Cafasso, Don Bosco spoke of
moral, ascetic and mystic theology
848. But he dis not show these as confessor or spiritual director. He
put them into practice, informally. He writes about them but not in exp licit terms, when he refers to the gradual “pedagogy of salvation”, mindful of the different of readiness or lack of readiness different
844Mt 16:26.
845G. Bosco, Il Giubileo e pratiche divote per la visita delle chiese. Turin, P. De-Agostini 1854, p. 48, OE V 256. 846G.B. Lemoyne, Cronaca 1864 ff, good night on 30 April 1865. pp. 133-135.
847F.X. Durrwell, Dan le Christ Rédempteur. Notes de vie spirituelle. Le Puy Lyon, Éditions X. Mappus 1960, p. 7. 848G. Bosco, Biografia del sacerdote Giusppe Caffasso,p. 77 and 89, OE XII 427 and 439.