"In this great Salesians School, every place is taken up by a unique person."
Place of being
In Salesians of Lisbon, there is the certainty that a good part of the passion and inspiration that can be found here arises from the warmth of the hands and hearts that are united with a common objective: to help each person look for and find themselves, uncover and discover themselves, build and rebuild themselves so they can be what they should be.
School aches and pains are not absent because they form part of the challenges that are faced, but as we well know they also strengthen and develop us.
Each person, each student, has within themselves an immensity of possibilities that await attentive stares that can awaken them, and confront them with their potential and their limits.
At Salesians School, we work so everyone becomes what they should be, while always being what they are. This is the focus that moves us because when someone decides to live with us, they have a name and a face, and not a student number.
At a time when everyone is too full of themselves with little space for another, it is urgent that we summon the hospitality that makes us open to the unique wealth of each human being.
There is an urgent need for knowledge that illuminates the importance of the daily conjugation of the verb to be, which is so often muzzled by the mastery of the conjugation of to have.
"'It is not enough to love the young;
they must know they are loved'.
Don Bosco
Founder of the Salesians
"...help each person look for and find themselves, uncover and discover themselves... "
Place of loving
St. João Bosco, the Founder of Salesians left us a powerful message: “It is important that we love young people but above all it is important that they feel loved”. We remember this phrase over and over again because we believe that a good part of the secret to educational success lies here: feeling loved in this place.
“All those who work with children or young people, all those who have seen or heard many teachers who clearly “love” their work and the children and young people they teach, will recognize that the vocation of teaching is perhaps related, above all, to love.”
Day, 2004
In this, as in other moments when we try to “see beyond the mountain”, we always come across the verb to love and the urgency of its daily conjugation in and outside the “classroom”. Rather than removing the focus from the school's main mission - to teach -, the awareness of this need wisely contributes to the realization of that mission.
Benedict XVI goes further and tells us that knowledge is sterile without love.
“Action is blind without knowledge, and this (knowledge) is sterile without love [...] Intelligence does not appear and then love there is love that is rich in intelligence and intelligence that is full of love”
