(ANS – Turin) – On the afternoon of Saturday 8 November, just a few days before the 150th anniversary of the first Salesian missionary expedition (11 November 1875), the ‘Shine like stars in the world ’ exhibition was opened at the Casa Don Bosco Museum at Valdocco, Turin. The travelling exhibition is the fruit of a combined effort that involved the Salesian INE and ILE Provinces and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians ITV and ILO Provinces.

The ceremony was attended by the Rector Major of the Salesians, Fr Fabio Attard, the Mother General of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Mother Chiara Cazzuola, the curator of the exhibition and the person in charge of the exhibits on loan from the Missionary Ethnological Museum at Colle Don Bosco, flanked by numerous Salesian missionaries, missiony animators, volunteers and representatives of the Salesian and cultural world. Numerous visitors crowded the various rooms of the museum.

Opening the ceremony, the director of the Casa Don Bosco Museum, Dr Ana Martín García, thanked the guests and illustrated the dual purpose of the initiative: to celebrate the anniversary of the first missionary expedition and to rediscover the relevance of the missionary charism today. She also emphasised how the exhibition had been made possible thanks to the valuable collaboration with the Missionary Ethnological Museum at Colle Don Bosco, which had selected and loaned important artefacts from its collections.

Dr Letizia Pecetto, curator of the Colle Don Bosco Missionary Ethnological Museum, then took the floor to illustrate the choice of ethnographic exhibits, emphasising the common desire to enhance the Salesian heritage as a bridge between cultures and peoples. She also emphasised the special value of the exhibition, which presents for the first time at the Casa Don Bosco Museum a significant selection of ethnographic artefacts, divided into three major thematic nuclei:

  • The first Salesian mission in Patagonia, with original materials and testimonies;
  • The Salesian missionaries, represented by personal items such as Monsignor Vincent Cimatti’s pullover, the feather headgear that belonged to Fr Luigi Bolla and Cardinal John Cagliero’s sleeping bag;
  • The missions in the four continents, through a selection of objects that speak of the worldwide development of the Salesian work.

The curator of the exhibition, Fr. Fabio Maistro, then illustrated the fifteen-panel exhibition, which is divided into three sections: a historical part, dedicated to the origins and the first expeditions; a hagiographic part, presenting ten shining figures of missionaries (two for each continent); and a contemporary part, which revives the missionary theme in today’s daily life. The exhibition is also proposed as a significant tool to sensitise and form children, young people and adults to the theme of mission.

The Mother General then shared a reflection inspired by various historical stories, underlining the fundamental role of Mary’s presence in the first missions and in today’s missionary life, and recalling how the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians were born, from the beginning, with a profound missionary charism.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, the Rector Major thanked all the organisers and collaborators of the project, dwelling on the meaning of the title ‘Shine like stars in the world’. ‘Already the title speaks to us with the power of the gospel and takes us to the heart of the experience of the first Christian community condensed in that invitation of St Paul to the Philippians: Be blameless and pure, children of God in the midst of a lost generation, in the midst of which you shine like stars in the world,’ Fr Attard said.

He particularly encouraged the young people present to continue to shine in daily life as signs of hope, just as the first Salesian missionaries did. ‘It is not a matter of shining alone,’ he stressed, “but of forming constellations of light, communities, living communities where faith becomes culture, where joy becomes service, where the Gospel becomes shared life.’

The ceremony ended with the official ribbon-cutting ceremony, entrusted jointly to the Mother General and the Rector Major, amid the applause and emotion of the participants.

The exhibition at the Casa Don Bosco Museum will remain open until 18 January 2026.

For further information and materials, please consult the dedicated page on the website of the Salesian Youth Movement Italy

https://mgsitalia.it/150-anniversario-dalla-prima-spedizione-missionaria-salesiana.

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