Fr. Luigi Bolla: All Things to All

Courtesy: Caliero 11, May 2017

Cochabamba (Bolivia), March end 2017:  The Rector Major presided over          the Team Visit to Interamerica Region. At the heart of all these events          and meetings there shown the appealing face of Fr. Luigi Bolla, all painted          up in the bright colors of his beloved Achuar, with the added dignity of a         long white beard. In this month of May, the Provincial of Peru will lead a         pilgrimage in the traditional style. He will be carrying with him the mortal          remains of Fr. Bolla over land and rivers. The revered missionary will           return from Lima to Kuyuntza, to the beloved land and people where Don     Bosco's son had been “all things to all" (1 Cor 9: 22).            "We are burying our dear missionary brother, Don Luigi, once       again," I would like to tell the Salesians during this Bolivian Visit,          "but we are careful not to bury also the missionary spirit of our         communities and our provinces!" This is the ardent and         confident prayer that we place this Marian month in the hands of the Help of Christians at          Valdocco: Help us, dear Mother, “let us not allow ourselves  to be robbed of missionary vigour" (see Evangelii Gaudium 109).

The Missionary Spirit of Don Bosco

Don Bosco was in love with the missions from his early years. In his young age, he felt an interior voice calling him to preach the Gospel in mission lands. But Fr. Cafasso guided him to fulfill God’s plan for another mission. Though Don Bosco never went to the missions, he never abandoned his missionary ideal; rather, he nurtured it in his heart. It was this zeal that inspired him to send his sons as missionaries all over the world. One of his last recommendations was: “Save many souls in the missions.”(Don Bosco nel mondo 157)          

The ideal of the missions was always alive in Don Bosco. In 1861 in the “dream” of the magic lantern the Lord disclosed to him the future of the Salesian Congregation. He showed him “an immense crowd of youth, from different countries, speaking various languages… ‘They are all your sons’.”[VI 897-916].Eleven years later the Lord revealed to him the mission field for his sons: Patagonia. The dream was rich in hope because Don Bosco saw that his sons, with the help of the Blessed Virgin, were reaping abundant fruit where others had failed. (X: 54—55). After this dream “he felt his zeal for the missions burning bright, but he could not understand where the crowd of young people belonged. (X 1267).