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In order to mark the bicentenary of the foundational dream that Saint John Bosco experienced when only nine years of age (1824), this book offers readers reflections on a number of biblical and theological themes that emerge from the simplicity yet depth of that dream. In the first place, certain elements from the life and person of Jesus are presented as the model for a so-called ‘Salesian’ spirituality and life-style. Those elements are outlined as an awareness that Jesus never abandons his fragile disciples, and that a genuinely Christian education writes on the hearts of the young. They are never abandoned in the challenging all-pervasive secularity of contemporary society. It closes with a summons to a deeper awareness of the universal possibility of ‘the perfection of love’ as Saint Francis de Sales (1567–1622) taught, well before his fellow Savoyard, John Bosco (1815–1888.
Francis J Moloney, SDB, AM, FAHA, was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in 1940. He joined the Salesians of Don Bosco in 1959 and was ordained a Priest in 1970. He has studied at Melbourne University, the Salesian Pontifical University, the Pontifical Biblical Institute, both in Rome, and at the University of Oxford (D Phil: 1976). Foundation Professor of Theology at Australian Catholic University (1994–1999), Dean and Professor of New Testament at the Catholic University of America (1999–2005), he is a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA). Internationally acclaimed author of many books and shorter studies, he is a Senior Professorial Fellow at the Catholic Theological College in Melbourne, Australia, part of the ecumenical University of Divinity. Currently he is the Rector of Salesian College at ‘Rupertswood’, Sunbury, Victoria, Australia.
