(Rome) The theme of the Strenna for 2015, the year in which we celebrate the Bicentennial of Don Bosco’s birth (1815-2015) has been presented.?
He did not take a step, he did not pronounce a word, and he undertook nothing that did not have as its goal the salvation of young people? This is what Don Rua said of Don Bosco.

And this is the root and source that Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, the tenth successor of Don Bosco, has announced as the theme of his first Strenna that goes directly to the heart of the mission: Like Don Bosco, with the young and for the young. In fact, to say Don Bosco, is to say the young people. It is not possible to recall a story about the Saint without the company of the young people.

In the three year preparation for the Bicentennial of Don Bosco’s birth, the first step was the effort to study his historical figure in order to know his traits as an educator. Then there was the call to penetrate the deep secret and the ultimate reason for his surprising apostolic activity in order to discover ?Don Bosco mystic?, his interior life, his profound union with God rich in faith, in hope, in pastoral charity which was the source of the fruitfulness of his action and of his timeliness in every age. The year 2015 is the invitation to celebrate the great gift of Don Bosco, with and for the young, for the Church, for the Salesian Family.

The Strenna is a gift of the Rector Major as the successor of Don Bosco and Father of the whole Salesian Family which, in the distinction and diversity of the groups, finds its ulterior stimulus to meet and live the common Salesian mission of service to the young, especially the poorest.
Fr. Fernández Artime emphasized that ?the source of the apostolic dynamism that sustained Don Bosco and must sustain every member of the Salesian Family is pastoral charity that has its basic model in the heart of Jesus?.

The Rector Major also affirmed, ?I permitted myself to say on various occasions that when Pope Francis speaks of going to the outskirts, addressing the whole Church, we are called upon in a very vibrant and direct way, because he is asking us to remain with the young on the outskirts, far away from almost everything, excluded, almost without opportunity. At the same time, I want to say that this periphery is typically ours as Salesian Family.  Valdocco and Mornese with their particulars were the periphery.  Today, the ?periphery? means individuating the ?north star of navigation?, insofar as the last and the poorest are the ?particulars of our DNA as Salesian charism?

The Rector Major concluded by saying that ?Grace and the Lord?s blessing cannot be lacking, with the maternal intervention of Mary, ?the most outstanding collaborator of the Holy Spirit?.

The complete text of the presentation of Strenna 2015 is available on www.sdb.org