With the Young
By Sr. Lou Ann Fantauzza, FMA
It is so wonderful being a Salesian Sister, a member of our Salesian Family, during this special year of the Bicentennial of the birth of St. John Bosco! Perhaps one of the greatest aspects of this commemoration is that of being “with the young.”
Too often, the words of Don Bosco are quoted and used on banners or to decorate the walls of our schools and youth centers, but sometimes not well celebrated or lived by those of us who are members of his world-wide family.
One of my favorite quotes is: “It is not enough to love the young, they must know that they are loved.” How will the young know that they are loved… loved by God and loved by those around them? Simply through our presence, our being “with the young.”
Much of my life experience as a Salesian Sister has been with the youngest members of our family, and everyday, these young people have a powerful lesson to teach us, if we are willing to understand what they are saying.
Presently, I am serving at our elementary school in Marrero, Louisiana (Immaculate Conception School), where the Salesian Family seems to be alive and well, and remarkably through the lives of our lay collaborators and teachers. Perhaps a short story will illustrate this. At dismissal time every day, six lay teachers and myself are assigned to a particular area of our campus. When most of the children have been dismissed, I tell the teachers that they can leave and offer to stay with those four or five children who are still waiting to go home. On this particular day, one of the teachers was standing there, paying attention to the story of a kindergartener. When the child heard me tell the teachers that they could leave, the child tugged on the teacher’s hand and asked her: “But can’t you just stay with me until I get picked up?” Now, let’s face it, two adults staying with five children is a bit of an overkill in terms of supervision, and during this holiday season, everyone is busy with one thing or another, but that teacher stayed the extra ten minutes with that little girl, and that made all the difference in the world to the child.
That story, to me, is one of the most recent vivid examples of what it means to be “with the young” and to make Don Bosco’s words “…they must know that they are loved” a reality. It is often not the big things, but simply the gift of time and presence that each one of us can share with young people, which makes Don Bosco real and alive in 2014-2015. And it is this reality that we live and celebrate as imitators of Don Bosco and members of the Salesian Family today.
Too often, the words of Don Bosco are quoted and used on banners or to decorate the walls of our schools and youth centers, but sometimes not well celebrated or lived by those of us who are members of his world-wide family.
One of my favorite quotes is: “It is not enough to love the young, they must know that they are loved.” How will the young know that they are loved… loved by God and loved by those around them? Simply through our presence, our being “with the young.”
Much of my life experience as a Salesian Sister has been with the youngest members of our family, and everyday, these young people have a powerful lesson to teach us, if we are willing to understand what they are saying.
Presently, I am serving at our elementary school in Marrero, Louisiana (Immaculate Conception School), where the Salesian Family seems to be alive and well, and remarkably through the lives of our lay collaborators and teachers. Perhaps a short story will illustrate this. At dismissal time every day, six lay teachers and myself are assigned to a particular area of our campus. When most of the children have been dismissed, I tell the teachers that they can leave and offer to stay with those four or five children who are still waiting to go home. On this particular day, one of the teachers was standing there, paying attention to the story of a kindergartener. When the child heard me tell the teachers that they could leave, the child tugged on the teacher’s hand and asked her: “But can’t you just stay with me until I get picked up?” Now, let’s face it, two adults staying with five children is a bit of an overkill in terms of supervision, and during this holiday season, everyone is busy with one thing or another, but that teacher stayed the extra ten minutes with that little girl, and that made all the difference in the world to the child.
That story, to me, is one of the most recent vivid examples of what it means to be “with the young” and to make Don Bosco’s words “…they must know that they are loved” a reality. It is often not the big things, but simply the gift of time and presence that each one of us can share with young people, which makes Don Bosco real and alive in 2014-2015. And it is this reality that we live and celebrate as imitators of Don Bosco and members of the Salesian Family today.