FOREWORD
For us Salesians our Rule Book is Don Bosco's living testament. “If you have Ioved me in the past,” he tells us, “continue to love me in the future by the exact observance of our Constitutions.”1
Fr Michael Rua, Don Bosco’s first successor, reminds us: “When Don Bosco sent his first sons to America he had himself photographed in the act of handing Fr John Cagliero, who headed the expedition, the book of the Constitutions as though to say: ‘I would like to go with you myself, but since I cannot do so these Constitutions will take my place. Keep them as you would a precious treasure!’2
1 BM XVII, 232.
2 cf. Don Rua, 1 Dec. 1909.
Constitutions of the Society of St Francis de Sales (2023 renewed translation)