January 31. St John Bosco.  Fr Eugene explained“John Bosco was a saintly man, with a great concern for youth and street kids in particular. He founded congregations of Salesian priests, brothers and sisters, the Salesians for boys and Daughters of Mary to care for girls.  He lost his own father at a very young age and found a way of creating a new, community, substitute family for children, especially those who had no family of their own.  The Salesian Green Alliance is one of the movements active in the LAUDATO SI ACTION PLATFORM.   Becoming an eco-friendly family:   Each family can end this month of a focus on Family Beginnings on a note of thankfulness, thanking God for whatever experience of family life we did have in the past, and do have now. Let us also resolve to consider whether we need to begin again or what changes we can make for the good of our families.  Thank God too for those who give themselves to the care of those less privileged, especially the poor, homeless, migrants, abandoned and abused and providing a substitute family for many people young and old.  At the same time we are called to care for the greater family of creation, our common home and all its plants and animals as fellow-creatures in OUR WORLD A FAMILY OF FAMILIES.    

Whatever things are true, honourable, chaste, praiseworthy, think about these things. These you have learned and made your own and have heard and seen in me.   From Phil 4:4-9.   Pope Francis:  The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development for we know that things can change.   The Creator does not abandon us.  He never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us.   Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home. Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of those excluded.   LS 13.