210 years after the birth of San Juan Bosco, and on the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first Salesian missionaries to Argentina, the inspector of the South Argentine Region, P. Darío Perera, greeted the community.
“Today we celebrate the 150 years of the first expedition here, in our land: the beginning of that extraordinary deed that led to the children of Don Bosco to these lands so far from their place of origin. And we celebrate this anniversary precisely at the feast of Our Father Don Bosco,” he says in a VIDEOMANSAJE.
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Within that framework, he reflected on the figure of the founder Don Bosco. In the words of the priest Eduardo Meana said: “His dreams of father crossed borders.”
“We are here, children of those dreams that crossed the borders,” he said, and taking as reference the missionary dream of Don Bosco – the most important for him – recalled that in those visions that helped him to discern the road, “he saw many congregations approach the original peoples and, finally, he saw the Salesians establish links with them.”
In that dream, the saint recognized many missionaries who were familiar to him, and also others he did not know. “Those who, like us, follow their dreams that crossed borders,” he said.
“I think our father Don Bosco saw us in those dreams. We are here because we are continuators of them; because, 150 years later, we continue to hold their mission in Patagonia, throughout the country and, from here, in so many corners of the world where the Salesians have arrived,” he said.
In that sense, he stressed that “the most beautiful thing about this deed is perseverance”, remain and sustain those dreams “with the same passion as at first”, because the work born 150 years ago “continues to have an immense future ahead.”
Finally, he suggested that a gift for the young people of our time is to “keep our dreams of our father Don Bosco alive,” and thanked the Salesian brothers who day by day they hold those dreams in border places, native peoples and poor neighborhoods, as well as the laity who are part of the mission and “continue in love with Don Bosco’s dreams.”
A documentary revives the arrival of the first Salesians
The documentary Here we stay. The missionary dream comes to Patagoniaa production of the Salesian Bulletin of Argentina, about the arrival of the first Salesian missionaries to the country, opens this Saturday, August 16, and will be available since that day on YouTube.
Through the Salesian Néstor Zubeldía story, production reflects the first contact of Don Bosco’s missionaries with the Patagonian region, combining fiction scenes with documentary material.
It will be available for free on the YouTube channel of the Salesian Bulletin of Argentina: https://youtube.com/boletinsalesiano.
The first documentary short of this series, entitled We are all. The missionary dream comes to America And released in December 2024, is available in this link: https://youtu.be/n8iqfk_4DCI.
Julieta Villar
I am a journalist, a graduate in Communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non -governmental organizations. Since 2016 I dedicate myself to Catholic journalism, first in the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as a correspondent for ACI Press for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.