By Father Tyler Tenbarge, Reflection
It was probably in 2014 when I first met St. John Bosco. If you have a devotion to the saints, you might have found that while you pursue one of them for their ability to help you find things or find faith, you also find that, just like real people, they also sometimes try to find you.
St. John Bosco found me through a book someone named Mother Forbes wrote about him. It was called “St. John Bosco,” and from the moment I read the first short chapter, I couldn’t put it down.
For a few days on a break from seminary, I retreated to my childhood bedroom in my parents’ farmhouse in Haubstadt to let St. John Bosco tell me more about himself. I learned that he was a farm kid, that his father died when he was just a boy, that he was multi-talented, and that after decades of working with young men, he became the patron saint of youth.
In short, as I pored through the simply-written story of the life and ministry of this 19th-century Italian priest, each page turned nearly as fast as my eyes could follow. I saw in this saint a priest who was deeply in Communion with Jesus Christ, who had a tangible relationship with our Blessed Mother, and who built the Kingdom of God in his part of the world. And I wanted all of that, too.
Let’s fast forward four years to 2018. I was now a priest of not quite two years of ministry, and I found great meaning and joy in the joys and discomforts of sacerdotal life. So, while finishing up a year of studies in Rome that May, a classmate and I traveled to Turin, Italy, to visit the Shroud of Turin, St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, and to climb one of the Italian Alps, but we also went to visit Valdocco where St. John Bosco lived, worked and where he is buried. I wanted to visit this man who had since become my preferred patron saint, but I didn’t expect that, just as we pursue people in our lives, the Saint also had a plan. St. John Bosco wasn’t waiting for me to visit him, but he was also waiting to introduce me to someone else buried in an adjacent altar at the same basilica. That saint was the teenager, St. Dominic Savio.
The next month, I flew back to Evansville. The Diocese had already started renovations on the former rectory at Sacred Heart Church in Evansville, and the “Father Deydier House of Discernment” was opened in August. Laity and clergy alike poured support upon this new ministry for young adult men, and yet I was sensing a problem down the road. Sure, we had a few young adult men interested in discerning the will of Christ for their lives at the House now, but how would we find and help more young men discern their vocations?
During adoration at the House one morning, the hints gave way to the answer. The Holy Spirit pointed me to the young saint I had met through St. John Bosco in Turin that May. It was simple: Young men will only be open to the will of God if and when they become holy, and they will only become holy if they have a path, community and mentors to show them the way. Thus, “Savio” — our diocesan apostolate for young men — was born.
Over the past eight years of ministry at the House of Discernment and now also the House of Formation, along with accompanying young men in Savio, I have been poring over the history, writings and stories of St. Dominic Savio’s mentor and my model, St. John Bosco. However, as much as you can learn from a book, there is something you can only learn from a true encounter.
As my 10th anniversary of priestly ordination would be approaching this past June, I asked Bishop Siegel if I might have a sabbatical, not because I needed a break, but because I wanted to spend more intentional time understanding the life and approach that made St. John Bosco so effective. He graciously agreed, and my plane lifted off just after the diaconate ordinations of our two seminarians in April.
I landed in Turin, Italy, with great plans. I actually made a list. I had more than a dozen locations around Piemonte where Bosco and Savio’s lives still had traces and things to teach. I had made a schedule for praying and eating with the Salesian community with whom I would be living. I had plans to write every day, to meet with individual Salesian brothers and priests, and I even brought along 31 pounds of books from my library.
I had a chance to study — deeply — the patron saint of those who work with young people, and I was going to be living in the heart of their worldwide mission. I didn’t want to waste it.
And I did stay busy. I traveled around Italy, and even just around the city of Turin. There were traces of St. John Bosco everywhere, once others showed me where to look. I concelebrated Mass in the basilica on the biggest annual Salesian feast day in May, met many Salesians from all over the world, and when I was ever bored, I could simply walk through the expertly curated museum of Don Bosco one more time. I read. I listened. I prayed.
After three months living among Italians who call St. John Bosco their spiritual father, and after learning so much, though, I packed up and headed back home.
Since this time of sabbatical, I have been patiently looking for “the fruit.” In other words, while I had a plan for what I wanted to do, to learn and to experience, what did the Lord have in store for me? I have only been back about two weeks, and I haven’t been able to process all three months yet. However, I think the fruit is already beginning to appear.
I left for Turin hoping to learn how St. John Bosco did what he did there. But, when I look around here at home in southwest Indiana, it seems the Lord is already doing here what had been done there. Countless faithful laity and clergy are already seeking to serve the young. Christ is building up the Church in our 12 counties, and it took leaving it behind in order to see it.