Intimacy

Intimacy! What a beautiful word to say a few words about. Just hearing the word fills my heart with joy. That joy that Don Bosco wanted in the heart of each Salesian and in each community.

Years ago when I first met The Servant of God, Don Vincenzo Cimatti, he seemed so happy to see me, to see a young Salesian missionary heading for So. Korea. It was that feeling of being loved, wanted, and in a way admired. There seemed to be that continuation of Don Bosco's love for his confreres, his boys, his Salesian family. As the years passed so quickly, I came to realize how lucky I was to have encountered Don Cimatti on various occasions. Every time we met it was as if he was so interested in our work in Korea. He was listening to every word I said and I was speaking in Italian, a very poor Italian and yet I could feel that deep love, that intimate love that springs from that closeness, that intimacy with the Good Lord. That intimacy that springs from our hearts, from the heart of God.
Intimacy is this experience of closeness or union or attachment between two hearts. Our Salesian way or spirituality's goal is to make the gentle and humble Jesus live in the hearts of the young. Perhaps we could say that "amorevolezza" is that intimate friendship between two hearts - Don Bosco's heart and the heart of a young boy - Don Cimatti's heart and my young missionary heart, and so on in our Salesian encounter with the young.

What a wonderful world of deep intimacy between two hearts - this spirituality of intimate union, of a profund and deep friendship. This spriitualy of the heart.

I would like to sum up these few words with Don Bosco's words when he was dying: " Il mio unico dolore sara, figli miei, quello di abbandonarvi". What a beautiful tradition we have like Don Bosco and Don Cimatti to share our hearts, Don Bosco Heart with the young.

Fr Bob Falk