The year 1988 marks the first centenary of the death of Don Bosco, an extraordinary Christian educator who had a unique way of helping young people to become mature Christians and citizens. The following pages are intended to be a tribute to my spiritual father and guide and to share the wealth of his educative method with those who may not be familiar with it.
But the members of the Salesian Family will be celebrating the first centenary of Don Bosco's death in many ways. real tribute that we can give to Don Bosco is to understand, live and share with others his educative method which was Don Bosco's lasting contribution to the Church and Society at all times.
We are a hundred years away from the death of our father and founder, St. John Bosco. Distance sometimes adds magic and mystique to persons and things. This must be the case with us Salesians too, but in a positive sense. The distance in time should add to the magic and mystique that Don Bosco still continues to exercise on youth and those who work for him. Hence during this first centenary of the death of Don Bosco we too are drawn to the multi-faceted personality of this great Christian educator.
Among all the remarkable features of his personality and contribution to the world and the Church is his personal method of education. In this paper I intend to discuss Don Bosco's unique educative method and its relevance in the Asian context.
This will be, it is hoped, a useful exercise for us to under-stand better Don Bosco's educative method and inculturate it into the Asian context. In this manner we shall be applying it to Asia creatively.
2. THE WRONG TITLE FOR A RIGHT THING
A wrong name usually betrays an inadequate or partial or even wrong understanding of a thing. It can lead to reducing reality to dimensions narrower than the reality itself. Thus by speaking of "hearing" and "seeing" Mass, many reduced the unique and infinitely rich and enriching sacrifice and sacrament of the Eucharist to merely hearing and seeing. For many, the Sunday Mass is only "hearing" and "seeing", rather than a joyful, transforming experience of and participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the case with the reality of Don Bosco's Educative Method or what has been so far mistakenly called "the Preventive System of Education". Don Bosco's method of education has been saddled too long with a wrong, negative, inaccurate or inadequate name, namely, "The Preventive System of Education".
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