Educational System

Religion

Religion: Formation of the believer

 

The second term, "religion", indicates that Don Bosco's pedagogy is of a transcendent kind in that the ultimate aim of education proposed is the formation of the believer. For him, the formed and mature person is the citizen who has faith, who places at the centre of his or her life the ideal new human being proclaimed by Jesus Christ and who becomes a courageous witness to his or her own religious convictions.

As we can see, we are not talking about a speculative and abstract kind of religion but of a living faith rooted in reality, involving presence and communion, obediently heeding grace. As Don Bosco loved to say, "the pillars of the educational building" are the Eucharist, Penance,  devotion to Our Lady, love for the Church and its pastors. His education is a "journey" involving prayer,  liturgy, sacramental life, spiritual direction: for some it is a response to a special vocation of consecration (as Priests and/or Religious  formed in the house of the Saint!); for everyone, it is the pursuit of holiness.

Don Bosco was the zealous priest who always referred everything he had received, experienced and given to the foundations of revealed faith.  This aspect of religious transcendence, the cornerstone of Don Bosco's pedagogical approach, is not only applicable to all cultures, but can be fruitfully adapted even to non-Christian religions. (John Paul II,  Letter, Juvenum Patris, 11)