What's with the picture on top of this blog

You may wonder.

It's St. John Bosco, and in case you don't know who he is, you should google search learn about this marvelous man.

John Bosco is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church who lived in Italy in the 19th century. The Church honors him as a holy man who could find and provide examples for others the holiness in an apostolic Christian life. The world honors him as a great educator whose approaches and methods are still so much relevant to today's youth and to the current education situations. His spirit and his works are still very very much alive and vibrant all over the world today, especially in and through the great network of Salesian family that includes a religious congregation for priests and brothers, another one for the sisters, an association for lay people, and numerous other religious groups and orders and associations, who, though were not founded by JB himself but, were founded on the foundation of his spirituality and his apostolic approaches and spirit. Needless to say, youth themselves, yes, I said youth, take a great part in this network. Maybe not too strong in the US, but look for those Salesian Youth Movement groups all over the world and you see what I mean.

So how is he personal to me except for the fact that my middle name is actually John-Bosco? It's God's providence that my father picked him as my patron at my baptism when I was a baby myself. My Salesian life started before I enter the Salesian Congregation (the SDB's) and continues after I left them.

Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing or will be doing, I'm a Salesian, and that is not just something I am emotionally attached to. The memory of my adolescent years confirms it, my paths in life, whether educational path, professional path or spiritual path, confirms it. My temperament and my personality confirm it. The great peace and joy from my prayer and sacramental life confirms it. My associations confirm it. To tell you the truth, I've been waiting to see whether there is something that doesn't confirm this vocation of mine ... So far the good God has not sent that sign over yet.

So how do I sum up what it is about this man and his spirituality that I am attached to? I'm afraid I can't summarize them within the "unlimited capacities" of blogs. It's his approach to holiness, it's his lively faith in God and the Blessed Lady, it's his humanism, it's his ministry approach, it's his love for young people and for others he lived with, it's his spirit so much alive in his contemporaries and my own contemporaries, ... I remember there is a comment for the Constitutions he wrote for his Congregation of men. It goes something like, and I am paraphrasing, the Preventive System (the name of his educational pastoral system) is not a system of kindness, but it is kindness being lived out in any system. I shared that thought with my community almost ten years ago. I've been living with that wisdom ever since, and continue living it now.