The spirit of prayer 1

Who of us has not heard a thousand times about the Salesians’ spirit of initiative and action? It may have been sincere praise that portrayed us as benevolent people in order to stimulate us even more towards doing good. Or they might have been the malicious insinuations of some envious person, and perhaps even a satanic artifice of our adversaries meant to obstruct our providential mission on behalf of youth. Whatever it may have been, everyone everywhere talks about us, even with exaggeration.

This should not surprise us. Divine Providence has given us a vast field to cultivate, which everyone may observe, and from the beginning our field has produced most abundant fruit. It did not take long for rather indifferent people to notice.

After the grace of God and the protection of Mary Help of Christians, the rapid spread of Salesian works in Europe and America is due to the tireless efforts and admirable energy of Don Bosco, Father Rua, Bishop Cagliero, and many of their other sons. It was their indefatigable zeal and their holy hard labours that in every age have caused many vocations to blossom on their path, given rise to so many and such varied institutes, and caused people to consider our humble Society a true prodigy.

There is no doubt that this spirit of initiative, this ardour, and this never interrupted work has given great honour to our Pious Society and attracted the admiration and praise of all good people. Even now, this is the most consoling proof of the vitality of our Society, or rather of the singular protection and assistance of the powerful Help of Christians over it. Considering this, who of us does not feel in his heart the happiest hopes for the future?

Speaking to you from my heart, however, I confess I cannot avoid the painful thought and fear that this over-hyped activity of the Salesians, this zeal which till now seemed that no discouragement could touch, this warm enthusiasm which till now has been sustained by constant happy success, that the day may come when it may not bear fruit, purified and sanctified

1 From the circular letter “On the spirit of piety” (May 15, 1911), in Paolo Albera, Lettere Circolari ai Salesiani (Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1922) (cited from now on as LC), pp. 24-40, at 25-35. [Editor’s note: This collection includes 42 letters and runs 504 pages, beginning with a January 1911 summary of General Chapter 11 and ending with the September 1921 convocation of GC12 and notes on the revision of the Constitutions and the 300th anniversary of the death of St.

by a true and solid piety.

Let us first try to have the right idea of piety. The word in Latin (pietas) means the love, veneration, and help that a child owes to those who brought him into existence. It was the most beautiful praise that one could give a young person that he had great piety towards his parents.

But this word took on an immensely nobler and more sublime meaning in the language of the Church. It signifies the complexity of those acts by which a Christian honours God by considering him as Father. Hence you can easily see the difference between the virtue of religion and piety.

Religion is a virtue that inclines us to perform all the acts that belong to the honour and worship of God, who, having created us, ought to be recognised by us and worshipped as the supreme Lord and ruler of the universe.

Piety makes us honour God not only as Creator but also as the kindest of Fathers who voluntarie genuit nos verbo veritatis (“of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth” [James 1:18]),² voluntarily gave us life through his omnipotent word, which is the word of truth. Because of piety we are no longer satisfied with only the worship, I would call almost official, that religion imposes on us, but we feel the duty to serve God with that tender affection, with that attentive delicacy, with that profound devotion, which is the essence of religion, one of the most precious gifts of the Holy Spirit, and, according to Saint Paul, the source of all grace and blessings for the present life and the future one.

Therefore, Bishop Louis Gaston de Ségur was right when he wrote:

“Christian piety is the union of our thoughts, our affections, and our whole life with the thoughts, feelings, and spirit of Jesus. It is Jesus living with us.” It is piety that wisely regulates our relations with God, that sanctifies all our relations with our neighbour, according to the saying of Saint Francis de Sales that “truly pious souls have wings to lift them up to God in prayer, and have feet to walk among human beings by a loving and holy life.”

This imaginative concept of our holy Doctor teaches us to distinguish between religious practices, which we usually do at certain hours of the day, and the spirit of piety, which must accompany us at every moment, whose purpose is to sanctify our every thought, word, and action, although it is not a direct part of the worship we give to God. It is precisely this spirit of piety that I would like to instil in myself and in all my dear confreres, not limiting this circular to dealing with each religious practice that the

2 Editor’s note: Except as noted, Scripture quotations come from the Revised Standard Version. When the citation is in brackets, it is not given in Fr. Albera’s text.]

Constitutions prescribe for us.

The spirit of piety must be considered as the end; the exercises of piety are but the means to achieve and preserve it. Happy is he who possesses it, since in everything he will have no other aim than God, he will strive to love him more and more ardently, he will seek nothing other than to please him. How deplorable, on the other hand, is the condition of those who lack it! Even when one performs various acts of piety during the day, according to the testimony of Saint Francis de Sales he would be nothing more than

“an image, a ghost of true piety.”

In saying this, I do not mean in the least to diminish the high esteem that we must have of the various external forms that piety takes, which are necessary to our soul like wood to keep the fire alive, like water to flowers.

But I want to say that the spirit of piety is its basis and foundation, and that it can still be a means of compensation for those souls to whom unexpected labours or the particular needs of their condition do not allow them to perform entirely the religious practices that the Rule imposes.

But there is more. If we let a considerable time pass without manifesting this spirit of piety, if unfortunately we allow it to die out in us, how could that intimate relationship exist, that ineffable kinship that Jesus Christ wants to establish between himself and souls through the sacrament of Baptism? There would no longer be any relationship between that God whom we call by the sweet name of Father, and us who have the good fortune to be named and really be his sons.

Furthermore, is it not true that that spirit of faith would also weaken, by which we are so convinced of the truths of our holy religion that we always preserve its lively memory, so as to feel its salutary influence in every circumstance of life? Without this spirit, we no longer pay attention to the Holy Spirit who often visits us, instructs us, even consoles us and helps us in our infirmities: adiuvat infirmitatem nostrum (“he helps in our weakness” [Rom 8:26]).

If it is well cultivated, on the contrary, this spirit ensures that our union with God is never interrupted. It communicates an intimately religious character to every action, even a profane one, and it raises every action to supernatural merit, so that like fragrant incense it is part of that unin-terrupted worship that we must lend to God. When we practise piety, according to Saint Gregory the Great, our life becomes a beginning of that happiness which the blessed inhabitants of heaven enjoy: inchoatio vitae aeternae (“the sparking of eternal life”).

But the bonds that bind the Christian soul to God become much more

solemn for those who have had the good fortune to make religious profession.

By this act the soul is married to Jesus Christ, to him it dedicates itself without reserve, to him it consecrates its faculties, senses, and entire life.

It really becomes entirely a thing of God. Precisely for this reason, if there is someone who must possess the spirit of piety, it is the religious. He must be so endowed with this piety as to communicate it to those around him.

By the grace of God, we can count many confreres – priests, clerics and coadjutors – who in terms of the spirit of piety are true models and arouse the admiration of all.

But unfortunately I must add, et flens dico (“I tell you with tears” [Phil 3:18]), that there are also Salesians who on this point leave much to desire.

Unfortunately, some lack piety who, when they were novices, had edified all their companions with their fervour.

I would call some no longer sons of Don Bosco, who consider religious practices an unbearable burden, use every effort to excuse themselves from them, and everywhere give the sad spectacle of their laxity and indif-ference. They are delicate plants that the frost has frozen; they are flowers that the wind has beaten to the ground; or they are branches that, if not yet completely detached from the vine, unfortunately vegetate in a most deplorable mediocrity and will never bear fruit. …

Without a spirit of piety, the religious will have no means of shaking from his soul that worldly dust which, unfortunately, will come to settle daily on him who is always in contact with the world, as Saint Leo the Great warns us. Despite our profession, despite even our sacred ordination, we do not cease to be children of Adam, to be exposed to a thousand temp-tations; we could at any moment succumb to the seductions of creatures and the assaults of our passions.

We will be safe only under the shield of true piety; only with religious practices will we be able to restore our spirit, correspond to God’s grace, and reach the level of perfection that God expects of us. This is why those who were raised up by God to reform religious congregations that had fallen from their primitive fervour first turned all their attention to make piety flourish in their hearts. Any attempt would have been in vain if the ground had not been prepared first.

But on the day of trial we will be more convinced how necessary is the spirit of piety. Precisely because we work tirelessly, precisely because the choicest portion of the flock of Jesus Christ is entrusted to us, and because we reap some fruit among them, the arrows of our enemies will be directed against us.

Unfortunately, the hour of the storm will come. We have to be ready for the fight. We might see ourselves abandoned by those who professed to be our friends; we will see around us only adversaries or the indifferent. Who knows that, God permitting, we too do not have to pass through ignem et aquam (“fire and water” [Psalm 66:12]), amid severe physical or moral sufferings?

In such a painful circumstance, let us persuade ourselves that only from the spirit of piety will we be able to draw strength and comfort. This was the source from which the Venerable Don Bosco³ drew that unalterable evenness of character and that pure joy which, like a resplendent halo, seemed to adorn his forehead more richly in the days of his greatest sorrows.

Lack of piety on our part would make barren our ministry on behalf of souls, and even our grand solemnities would be thrown back in our faces like filthy mud, as the Lord protested through the mouth of the prophet Malachi (2:3).

On this topic I may not pass over in silence an argument that more than any other should be effective for Salesians. The whole system of education taught by Don Bosco is based on piety. If this were not practised as it ought, every ornament, every prestige to our institutions would become much inferior to lay institutes.

Well, we could not instil piety in our pupils if we ourselves were not abundantly equipped with it. The education that we would give our students would be incomplete, since the slightest breath of impiety and immorality would erase in them those principles that, with so much sweat and long years of work, we have tried to imprint on their hearts. If a Salesian is not firmly devout, he will never be fit for the role of educator. The best method to teach piety is to model it.

Let us remember that no better praise could be given to a Salesian than to say that he is truly devout. For this reason, in the exercise of our apos-tolate we should always have before our eyes our Venerable Don Bosco, who first shows himself to us as a model of piety.

Those who knew him remember the devout manner with which Don Bosco celebrated Holy Mass. So it was not surprising if the faithful crowded around the altar to watch him. Often, even without knowing who he was, they went away saying that priest must be a saint.

One would have said that the life of the Servant of God was a continuous prayer, an uninterrupted union with God. The unalterable

evenness of temperament that shone on his invariably smiling face showed this. Whenever we resorted to him for advice, he seemed to interrupt his conversation with God to listen to us, and it seemed that God inspired the thoughts and encouragement he gave us. How edifying for us to hear him recite the Our Father or the Angelus!

The impression he made as he gave the blessing of Mary Help of Chris-tians to the sick will never be erased from my memory. As he pronounced the Hail Mary and the words of the blessing, you could say that his face was transfigured; his eyes filled with tears and his voice trembled on his lip.

For me they were clues that virtus de illo exibat (“power came forth from him” [Luke 6:19]); therefore, I was not surprised that miraculous effects followed his blessing, if the afflicted were comforted, the sick healed.

Let us therefore make some practical resolutions: 1. Let us make a reso-lution to be faithful and exact in our practices of piety.

2. Let us promise to sanctify our daily actions. May the Salesians continue to give the example of a spirit of initiative and great activity, but may this always and in everything be the expansion of a true, prudent, constant zeal and firm piety.

3. Let us do our utmost to make our piety fervent, and our fervour be an ardent desire and a generous will to please God in everything.