(The following text is from the booklete "Father and Teacher: A Brief Account of the Life of Saint John Bosco".
Printed copies can be obtained from Salesian Missions. Please donate to their ministry.)
Father and Teacher
A Brief Account of the Life of Saint John Bosco
[Also known as Don (or "Father") Bosco]
Introduction
Throughout history, God has sent prophets and saints to warn, teach and lead His people. Modern times are no exception. God has sent saints to found religious orders of men and women for particular needs. He has sent martyrs as witnesses to the Faith, virgins as defenders of chastity, and holy men, such as Don Bosco, the subject of this brief biography, in order to teach virtue and apostleship to a special portion of God's people - namely, youth.
A Troubled City
Political intrigue, assassinations, urban riots, and civil wars wrecked Western Europe as it struggled to establish democratic governments during the 19th century. The continent's Christians, bitterly divided, offered feeble opposition to militant atheists.
Turin, a gracious northern Italian city nestled at the foot of the Alps' snowcapped peaks, had seen better days than those of the winter of 1846. So skillfully had ancient Roman engineers designed the town's main streets and squares that for centuries travelers praised Turin as "the loveliest village in the world." Many aristocratic families traced their ancestry to the days when Roman legions, garrisoned at Turin, had guarded Italy's northern reaches and controlled the Alpine passes through which commerce, and occasionally invading armies, moved into Italy.
With this magnificent scenic setting, cultured population, and commercial importance, the city, very early in its history, developed a distinct aristocratic style. In the times of which we write, the House of Savoy, royal rulers of northern Italy, held court there.
But all was not serene. Nineteenth-century Turin, like so many European and American cities, was changing from 8' quiet provincial center into a busy industrial city. As more and more factories appeared, more and more people flowed from northern Italy's farms and out of the Alpine valleys to seek the employment and excitement offered by Turin.
Turin was changing. Vice and crime flourished. As a young man, Don Bosco worked among criminals and the young people who were imprisoned and confined to live in horrible conditions.
The recently arrived working class crowded into filthy, airless tenements, sometimes six or eight to a room. Vice, disease, and crime flourished; for most slum dwellers God was a dim memory associated with the farms or dairies they had abandoned for the city. Vicious gangs of young toughs formed in the streets and often invaded Turin's better sections, leaving a trail of robberies, muggings and occasionally murders in their wake. City fathers increased the police force and administered justice swiftly. "The loveliest village in the world," now claiming a population of 150,000 people, boasted no less than four good-sized prisons. Many inmates were mere boys, some not yet in their teens.
THE PIED PIPER
A new problem now plagued Turin's harassed citizenry. At its root was, of all things, a slightly offbeat priest. For the past several years this cleric, known as Don Bosco, had been leading a band of singing, shouting slum boys through Turin's stylish streets. The priest, clad in battered biretta, patched cassock, and peasant work shoes, had started with a handful of boys. Now the original pack had swollen into a horde numbering some 400. Although the boys had not yet committed any crime, citizens worried about Bosco's ability to control his small army.
Government authorities, newspaper editors, and enemies feared that Father Bosco was laying the foundations of a future political power base. In Italy's then unstable political climate such an assumption was not unreasonable. The Italy of Father Bosco's time was not the united country we know today. It was divided into seven different states. Austrian and French royal houses ruled a good half of the nation. The papal states, ruled by Pope Pius IX, straddled the nation's central portion. When Pius IX, who had no army, refused to support a war to throw out the Austrian occupiers, many Italians judged the Pontiff a defender of foreign rulers and an opponent of national unity. The vast tide of anti-clericalism, which had been building for years, swept over the land.
Enemies of the Church drove bishops from their dioceses, suppressed religious houses, and exiled priests, Sisters and Brothers. Pope Pius IX and the Italian clergy became the favorite whipping boys of the liberal revolutionary press.
Hatred reached a boiling point when revolutionary gangs, in November 1848, broke into Pope Pius IX's Roman palace, stabbed his prime minister, and fatally shot one of the Pope's staff. Slipping out a secret door, Pope Pius IX fled to the kingdom of Naples, where he remained in exile for six months.
Because of the nature of his work and the success he had already enjoyed with youth, John Bosco became a favorite target. To all charges he calmly replied: "In politics I side with no one. I am a priest. The only kingdom I serve is the Kingdom of God."
FROM THE AGE OF NINE
John had been yearning to serve that kingdom since he was a small boy. "At the age of nine," he wrote, "I knew I wanted to be a priest and to help young people." He had no easy time in making his dream come true.
As a boy, John Bosco would study the skills of traveling magicians and acrobats. He was quick to pick up their entertaining moves. He would later amaze his friends, and once he had their attention, he would led the crowd in a prayer or religious reflection.
His father, a hardworking farmer, died when John was not yet two years old. His mother, Margaret, held her family together, running the small Bosco farm, raising three children, and supporting her own elderly and infirm mother-in-law. Margaret, a woman of sterling character and enormous courage, proved equal to the relentless and often bitter struggle to survive.
But despite their poverty, Margaret encouraged John to build his dream.
Although lacking money and influence, young John Bosco was not without resources. He possessed an amazing array of talents. His physical coordination, even as a youngster, was superb. At country fairs he studied the magician's tricks and the daredevil's acrobatic stunts. Back home he practiced these feats until he could imitate and often excel his mentors. Although suffering many a bruise and sprain in the process, John never lost his enthusiasm for his dangerous recreation. He knew that "magic" tricks and tightrope balancing would attract young people to him.
His physical prowess, however, pales before his mental acumen. Highly intelligent, John possessed a formidable memory. This talent came to light one evening when, during the course of a parish mission, the pastor inquired if John understood the missionary's sermon. The little boy of only nine years repeated without mistake every word the missionary had preached. Remember, this was in the day when no missionary would dare descend the pulpit unless he had spoken for at least an hour!
As John grew to young manhood, he reached medium height. His face, open and frank, was crowned by a rich crop of curly chestnut hair. He was cheerful, disciplined, and had a tremendous capacity for work.
NO SUPERMAN
Young Bosco had his faults, too. Even as a young man, his feelings and emotions ran deep and strong. He could be impetuous; he was not above, on a rare occasion, settling problems with his fists.
He judged himself so full of self-pride that he deeply feared he would use his future position as a parish priest to feed his cravings for prestige. So successfully, how-ever, did John keep all these forces within him under control that calmness and peacefulness characterized his whole life and his relationships with others.
THE ROAD TO THE PRIESTHOOD
Fr. John Bosco would teach many of the boys with the trade skills he had gained in his youth.
John had to work very hard for his seminary education. During the long years of study, he picked up a variety of jobs and learned a host of trades. Before reaching ordination, John could make candy, repair shoes, design and mend suits, manage a restaurant, and put on a one-man circus. His showmanship attracted small youngsters. After he had the little ones suitably awed, he'd slip in a catechism lesson or two.
A PRIEST FOREVER
In 1841 Turin's Archbishop Fransoni ordained John, now twenty-five, a priest for his archdiocese. Shortly after ordination, the Archbishop approved Bosco for an intensive five-year course of postgraduate theology at Turin's Ecclesiastical College.
College authorities, aware that many Italian priests refused to mix with the people because of the anti-clerical hatred, insisted that the young theology scholars mix with the city's population, particularly the poor. Thus John visited and worked in the hospitals, prisons, orphanages, and slum sections. This firsthand experience with cultured Turin's grubby underside shocked his sensitive and gentle heart.
It was, however, the young slum boys' plight that bothered him most. At nine years of age, John had dreamed of becoming a priest. He had accomplished this. Now he had to make real the second part of the dream to serve young people.
Always on Sunday
He started. When still a graduate student, he persuaded a few youngsters to meet with him Sunday afternoons at the College courtyard.
As a young boy, John dreamed that a beautiful woman showed him that his life's work was to turn "wolves" into "lambs" rambunctious youngsters into honest citizens and productive workers.
Patiently he established a relationship with the street kids based on the famous saying of St. Francis de Sales: "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." Catch flies he did. Apprentice brought apprentice; street kid brought street kid; orphan brought orphan. As John moved through Turin's slums, he invited youngsters to his Sunday get-togethers at the College. He called these gatherings his "Oratory." The Oratory featured songs, prayers, and catechism as well as horse-play, contests, long walks, and picnics.
A pioneer disciple remembered those pleasant Sundays. "At the end of each Sunday excursion," he recalled, "Don Bosco always told us to plan for next Sunday. He gave us advice as to our conduct and asked us, if we had any friends, to invite them, too. Joy reigned among us. Those happy days are engraved in our memories and influenced our future lives.
Arriving at some church in the outskirts of town, Don Bosco would ask permission of the parish priest to play. The permission was always granted, and then at a signal the noisy band gathered together. Catechism followed breakfast: The grass and rocks supplied the plates and tables. It is true, bread failed now and then, but cheerfulness, never. "We sang while walking, and at sunset we marched back again into Turin. We were fatigued, but our hearts were content."
Not everyone in Turin was content. Indeed, John, having completed his College residency, could find no place to gather almost 400 boys. Some generous people did try to help. But the noise and sheer presence of this huge, energetic band overwhelmed them and often brought neighbors' wrath down on their heads. No less than ten people within a space of five months had offered John the use of their facilities. Every one of them, after a few experiences, withdrew his promise. Don Bosco simply had no place to gather his ragged flock.
Later, remembering Palm Sunday of 1846, when John felt his work might come to an end, he wrote: "As I looked at the crowd of children, and thought of the rich harvest they promised, I felt my heart was breaking. I was alone, without helpers. My health was shattered, and I could not tell where to gather my poor little ones anymore."
John urged them to pray, and as so often happened, his youngsters' prayers were answered. A certain Mr. Pinardi offered to rent John a piece of property located in Turin's marshy area, called the Valdocco. John, still stinging from his recent defeats, was slow to respond. Pinardi pointed out that his property contained a small hay shed which John could use for a chapel. When John saw the shed, he was bitterly disappointed. It was simply too low for him to enter. "Oh, good Father, do not worry," counseled the irrepressible Pinardi. "We will dig down and lower the shed's floor. You will celebrate here on Easter Sunday."
Pinardi was as good as his word. On Easter Sunday morning John celebrated at a humble altar surrounded by his urchins, who had jammed into the rickety shack. Pinardi's shed was no Sistine Chapel, and the young workers, no Sistine Choir. But that did not stop them from celebrating their Easter with gusto. The Oratory finally had a home. The priest did not yet know he was to pay a fearful price for his success.
"IN MY CHILDREN'S NAME"
The young Fr. Bosco would met every Sunday with an ever growing group of boys. The group, called an oratory, would soon grow into the hundreds.
For five years, even during his graduate studies, John had dedicated his life to his youngsters. Although he met with them as a group only on Sundays, every spare moment he had during the week he gave to meeting their needs. He visited them at their jobs, found work for those laid off, nursed the sick, and assisted those who had run afoul of the law. Using every possible means, John struggled to keep his little ones out of Turin's corrupting reformatories. But all this caught up with him when, three months after purchasing the Pinardi place, John, near exhaustion, suffered a severe pneumonia attack. At the hospital where he was taken, doctors feared for his life. Heartbroken and bewildered boys, on hearing the news, milled about the hospital courtyard, hoping for further information. Many youngsters straggled into a nearby church and prayed for this man who loved them so much.
Leadership sprang up from their ranks, and all-night vigils were organized. In their youthful enthusiasm the boys hurled stern promises heavenward. More than one vowed to reform his life, say extra prayers, and do penance. Some little construction workers, whose jobs demanded they carry bricks and mortar up four or five stories of scaffolding forty or fifty times a day, fasted from solid foods. Although these children suffered pain and came near fainting, they were determined to wrestle John Bosco out of death's grip by their prayers and penances.
All their efforts, however, seemed doomed to failure. As his condition continued to worsen, John prepared to die. At his bedside, Father Borel, a close friend, bent over John and whispered: "John, these children need you. Ask God to let you stay. Please, say this prayer after me, 'Lord, if it be your good pleasure, cure me. I say this prayer in the name of my children.'"
John repeated the prayer. When he finished it, his fever broke. The pneumonia crisis had passed.
WELCOME HOME
Two weeks later, doctors released John from the hospital. In the courtyard outside, his young friends awaited him. When Don Bosco appeared, they rushed to him, picked him up, and carried him on their shoulders through Turin's streets. Filled with joy, they sang, shouted, and cheered.
Even the city's proper citizens were moved to tears. These street kids and gutter children proved their magnificent loyalty and devotion to their father. John's natural physical and athletic abilities helped him enter into the world of the young and earn their trust and confidence. A first step in caring for young people!
MAMA MARGARET ARRIVES
Until a short time before his illness, a wealthy noblewoman, the Marchioness of Barolo, provided John's living quarters in Turin. When the priest, absorbed in his own work, was unable to direct one of her charities, a girls' orphanage, she ordered John out of the apartment. So, when he came from the hospital, he actually had no place to lay his head.
The first stationary oratory was on the property of a Mr. Pinardi. The new chapel, while in a cramped shed, was a welcomed site.
It was no pressing problem, however, for he had decided to go to his mother's home in the farm country some twenty miles outside Turin for a period of recuperation.
When John returned to the city, the indefatigable Mr. Pinardi once more appeared and offered to rent John four rooms in an apartment of his, bordering the Oratory property. Because this particular house and its neighboring dwellings had an unsavory reputation, Bosco hesitated.
Finally, reasoning that his mother's presence would lessen suspicion of his own activities, John asked Margaret to make the painful sacrifice of leaving the farm life she loved to be a house mother in the narrow confines of a city apartment.
"Do you think it is God's will?" she asked her son. "Yes, Mother, I do," responded John. That was all Margaret needed, and in November of 1846 she gathered her poor possessions and set out with her son for the city. The two, mother and son, walked the entire twenty miles from farm to city, because they had no money for transportation.
A World of Young People
Don Bosco's own work-filled childhood provided him with skills as a farmer, carpenter, tailor, and shoemaker. He would pass on these skills to his students, giving them tools for honest and dignified work.
"Mother, some day this whole place will be a playground, with schoolrooms, workshops; there will be helpers and a world of children."
Soon after John's mother arrived at the Oratory, the children dubbed her "Mama Margaret." Bosco would often say to her, "Mother, some day this whole place will be a playground, with schoolrooms, workshops; there will be helpers and a world of children."
Margaret, aware of John's natural exuberance, listened skeptically to her son. All the priest had was a piece of land of dubious value, a half-underground chapel, an apartment in a building that was contributing significantly to Turin's urban blight, and a weekend invasion of some 600 boys. But John was determined to establish a world of children, and he would build that world step by step.
He determined first of all to provide a solid practical education for his boys. Starting at ground zero, he taught the three R's. Since religious instruction was essential to his education program, John selected a simple catechism for his students' reading primer.
He first held classes in his Pinardi apartment. As more and more students came, they overflowed the tiny rooms into the chapel and the sacristy. Even this was not enough and John finally persuaded Mr. Pinardi to rent him the whole house.
The curriculum expanded. To the original three R's, John soon added geography, grammar, and drawing. He also added singing, stating that "an Oratory without singing is like a body without a soul."
To ensure a steady supply of teachers for his ever-expanding school, John worked out an agreement with some of the school's more gifted students. He trained them in secondary studies, Italian, literature, Latin, French and mathematics, with the understanding that they would, in turn, teach for a period of time in the grammar school. The arrangement benefited both John and his teaching staff. Don Bosco had a fine faculty drawn from the ranks of the pupil-teachers of the Oratory itself.
The new teachers now had sufficient education to enter studies that would lead to professional careers. Thus they could break the cycle of poverty into which many of them had been born.
THE HIVE SWARMS
Within a year of settling on the Pinardi property, John had under instruction between six and seven hundred children, ranging anywhere in age from eight to eighteen. These earnest youngsters jammed every available inch of space in the Pinardi house and the chapel. John refused to turn anyone away. Yet there was simply no more room.
Undismayed, John summoned the whole Oratory one night and resolved the crisis. "When a beehive overflows," he explained, "it swarms, and its' surplus goes out to fill another hive. And so it is with us. In playtime we are all upon one another; at chapel we are packed like herrings in a barrel. There is no room to move. Let us copy the bees and go and seek another Oratory."
The fact that he had no money did not disturb him at all. He knew God would provide. As usual, he was right. Not one, but two Oratories soon opened in Turin.
THE BOY WHO CAME TO DINNER
One cold, rainy night in May, 1847, Margaret responded to a tap on the Pinardi house door. A youngster, wet to the bone, stood trembling on the steps. Margaret immediately brought the child in, set him before a roaring fire, dried him, fed him, and then put him to bed. He turned out to be "the boy who came to dinner." He was an orphan and his gentle knock opened a whole new door for Don Bosco. The plight of Turin's orphaned and homeless boys weighed heavily on Don Bosco's heart since his arrival in the city.
With the help and sacrifices of his own mother, Margaret, Don Bosco's work grew faster than ever - schools, trades, food and lodging. A young boy's dream was coming to fruition.
A WORLD OF CHILDREN
After the winter of 1851, when he finally purchased the Pinardi house, John was able to accept some thirty boarders.
Now John felt he could do something about it. It was not long before the new arrival was joined by ten other lads whom John somehow stuffed into the Pinardi house. After the winter of 1851, when he finally purchased the Pinardi house, John was able to accept some thirty boarders.
The house lived by a wondrous routine. In the morning, after a prayer together, they would depart for their workshop or factory, a little snack in their hands. At noon they would return and crowd into the kitchen for their noonday dinner, which John, the cook, had prepared and, now clad in a white apron, served them. The boys would depart for afternoon work, return in the evening for supper; then Professor Bosco would supervise their lessons.
The increased activity, however, took its toll on Mama Margaret, now in her mid 60s. She toiled all day long cleaning house, washing and mending clothes, and nursing the little boys who were ill. Boys being boys, their carelessness often caused poor Margaret much extra work. One day, fed up with her clothesline being knocked down, her vegetable garden trampled, weary from endless washing, mending and cooking, Mama Margaret announced to her son: "I'm going home."
Don Bosco felt his mother's anguish. He said nothing. He simply pointed to a crucifix hanging on the wall. His mother understood and her eyes filled with tears. "You are right, son; you are right," she said softly. Mama Margaret replaced her apron.
PROJECTS AND PLANS
As quickly as John finished one project, he began another. In rapid succession he built a boarding home for 150 boys, a new chapel to accommodate the Oratory's increased enrollment, and pioneered evening education and vocational schools for his future craftsmen. He built shoemaker, tailor, carpenter, bookbinder, printing and ironwork shops. Again he chose his faculty from boys who had come through the Oratory. His schools, considered among Turin's best, took their inspiration and direction from Don Bosco himself, who ranks among modern Europe's finest educators.
A colleague, a distinguished professor, explains why. "His love shone forth from his looks and his words so clearly, and all felt it and could not doubt it... They experienced an immense joy in his presence."
John demanded much from his teachers. At a time when schoolmasters considered whipping an indispensable tool of their trade, Don Bosco forbade any such violence. "Make yourself loved," he counseled them. "If you wish to be obeyed, be fathers, not superiors."
He built shoemaker, tailor, carpenter, bookbinder, printing and ironwork shops.
In John's view, the teacher's responsibility extended not simply beyond the classroom to personal conferences with the student, but to the creation of an environment at the Oratory characterized by Christian love and joy.
Bosco could make no such demands unless he himself led the way. He joined in students' recreation, challenged them in conversation, and joked with them. A superb athlete until his middle 50s, he would often footrace with them. Although plagued with varicose veins at 54, he could still outrun any of them. Bosco respected the boys' freedom and carried that respect into every aspect of the Oratory's program. If he had to punish, he was careful never to demean or embitter a child.
Don Bosco possessed great educator's skill: he combined authority with liberty, discipline with friendliness, and order with room for youthful effervescence. "Without affection, there is no confidence," he often counseled his faculty. "Without confidence, no education." Religion for John was no mere adjunct to education. He saw the relationship with God as the very source and foundation of all human growth and activity. For him it was essential to present God as a loving Father to his children. He most effectively did this by being a loving father to his Oratory. He urged his students to be aware that they lived in the presence of the heavenly Father Who loved them.
Beloved Beggar
During the building of this huge, magnificent Shrine, Bosco was always somehow able to pay his bills. When money did not come from ordinary sources, Don Bosco was quite prepared to beg for it. His begging excursions were almost always marked by humorous incidents. Once when Basilica bills piled high, John visited an extremely wealthy man who had been bedridden for three years. After a few moments of chatting, Don Bosco ordered the man to get his clothes, go to the bank, and with-draw the money necessary to pay the Basilica's latest bills. "I can't go to the bank," complained the sick man; "I haven't been out of bed for three years." "Promise to take your money out of the bank," Don Bosco said, "and Our Lady will take you out of bed." The man made the promise, and left his bed. John, taking no chances, accompanied him to the bank.
Don Bosco was convinced that Mary, whom he had asked to be Protectress of all his works, wished him to build this church in her honor. It is now a center of pilgrimages and Eucharistic devotion.
Many people thought John, because of his ability to raise money, was a financial wizard. He was anything but. A wealthy lady, judging him a great financier, asked him where she could best invest her money. Not saying a word, Bosco simply held out his open hands in front of her.
Although millions of dollars passed through his hands, he never kept a penny for himself. Indeed, he lived poorly, going so far as to save half sheets of letters, dyeing string black to use for his shoelaces, and saving wrapping paper and cord. He wore a cast-off military overcoat and used old army blankets on his bed. Because he considered himself a servant and a working man, he cheerfully waited on his boys at the dining table, mended their clothing, and cut their hair. Because he was a poor man, he felt hard work was his lot. He gravely warned his Salesian sons that if they should ever lose their love of poverty, it would be a sure sign that the Society "had run its course."
THE BLESSED MOTHER
"Don Bosco was convinced that Mary, whom he had asked to be Protectress of all his works..."
Bosco made many a demand on the Blessed Mother. Once a pastor requested him to give a three-day mission to prepare his people for the Feast of the Assumption. The parish, located in a farming area stricken by a terrible and lengthy drought, was suffering bitterly. The farmers were desperate.
In his opening sermon Bosco remarked "Come for these three days, make a good confession, do your best to prepare for a fervent Communion on the Feast of the Assumption, and I promise you, in Mary's name, that rain will come to refresh your parched land." After the sermon, the pastor, accusing Bosco of raising false hopes, was furious. He feared that the people would wreak terrible revenge on both him and John when the promised rain did not materialize.
For the next three days the farm folk jammed the church. On the Feast of the Assumption, the day of the promised event, Bosco awoke and looked into the sky. It was a cloudless blue. The early morning sun was already burning the dusty earth. As John made his way to the church for morning Mass, people crowded around him.
"Will it rain?" they demanded.
Calmly he responded, "Purify your hearts."
The day wore on; the sky remained like a blue ceramic. As evening came and the people gathered for the last devotion for the Feast, there was still no sign of rain. As John entered the church for the final evening devotion, he looked once more to the horizon. It was cloud-less — almost. A miniscule gray cloud hung like a tiny rag on the porcelain sky.
John made his way to the pulpit. Hundreds of faces turned up to him, and all had written on them the same question, "When is it going to rain?" These wondering, questioning faces could, in a short time, turn hard and bitter with disappointment.
Suddenly, yellow lightning stabbed the sky, thunder clapped, and the first heavy raindrops splattered on the roof. The farmers, with a new lease on life, broke into heavy cheers and joyful songs. Although the farmers did not realize it, the most relieved man in the district was their pastor.
Last Years
Don Bosco's work for boys soon expanded and young girls, too, were included. The Salesian Sisters, one of the largest groups of religious women, heartily took up Don Bosco's challenge and dream.
As Don Bosco grew into his 60s, his health became more and more fragile. But he continued his exhausting pace. His days were filled with teaching, counseling, and supervising his endless projects.
By the early 1880s, his Salesians had spread beyond the borders of Italy, establishing themselves in France and Spain. He yearned to visit them. Thus, when Pope Leo XIII in 1883, asked him to journey to France to beg for funds to complete the construction of the Sacred Heart Basilica in Rome, John cheerfully complied. He could beg for the Pope - and visit his spiritual sons.
Bosco's heart was deeply moved by the warm, enthusiastic welcome the French people gave him. They responded generously to his appeal for the Basilica.
"Never had such a crowd gathered in Paris around a priest since the visit of Pius VIII," one eyewitness recalled. Don Rua, remembering this visit to France, said, "If we had seven secretaries, many letters every evening would still have had to be left unanswered." The journey, however, exacted a terrible toll on John's already fragile health.
John's right eye, injured years earlier in a fall, pained constantly. Phlebitis made his walking so unsteady that two Salesians stood on either side of him. Their presence was necessary since Bosco would often fall asleep on his feet as he moved through the crowds, greeting and blessing the people.
"By the early 1880s, his Salesians had spread beyond the borders of Italy, establishing themselves in France and Spain. He yearned to visit them."
Three years later Don Bosco made a similar trip to Spain and was greeted with the same enthusiasm. He preached in the most famous cathedrals in both France and Spain. Although he could speak both French and Spanish, he hardly possessed an orator's tongue." The people, however, under-stood him well, for he spoke to them with the language of the heart.
In the fall of 1853, the first rudimentary shoemaking and tailoring shops were opened. They occupied a corridor in the Pinardi house and made use of the old kitchen. Don Bosco himself taught the boys until someone else could be found for the job.
THE FINAL DAYS
"You have burnt away your life by working to excess. Your whole constitution is like a coat worn threadbare by too much use. There is no remedy except that we hang this coat in a closet for a while. You must completely rest." Don Bosco had heard his doctor's advice before. The reply was always the same: "Doctor, you know that's the only remedy I cannot take. There's too much work yet to be done."
Right up until his very last days, Don Bosco, held up on either side by two Salesian companions, journeyed through Turin, visiting the poor, begging from the rich, cheering the hearts of those who were sad. He knew death was imminent. "I want to go to heaven," he would say, "for there I shall be able to work much better for my children. On earth I can do nothing more for them."
Bosco's doctor now advised Salesian authorities: "He is not dying of any disease; he is like a lamp dying from want of oil."
The famous Bosco humor did not fade. He advised the Salesians who carried him from place to place to "put it on the bill. I'll settle up everything at the end." At one time, gasping for breath, he whispered to a Salesian bending anxiously over him, "Do you know where there is a good bellows maker?" "Why?" the puzzled Salesian asked. "Because I need a new pair of lungs, that's why!"
The illness dragged on. Don Rua took over the government of the Salesian Society. His first command was to request every Salesian who could possibly do so to come to Turin and bid farewell to their father. From all over, these sons came. Don Bosco had taken many of these little street boys and farmers and helped them to grow with a deep love of God. One by one they passed by him to receive his blessing. Next came all the boys who had gone through the Oratory at Turin. Hundreds of them came and passed by his bed, two by two. John blessed them all, his face calm, almost young.
On the night of January 31, 1888, he turned to Don Rua and said: "Tell my children that I am waiting for them all in Paradise." And with those words one of the nineteenth century's most magnificent men breathed forth his strong and valiant spirit.
During his lifetime he often said he wanted to die poor. Die poor he did. On the day of his death, the Turin Oratory, with 800 mouths to feed was penniless. But that did not stop the baker from delivering his bread on schedule. The baker, like everybody else, knew that Don Bosco would find money as he always did, in heaven, to feed his boys on earth.
In 1934, Pope Plus XI canonized St. John Bosco as saint of the Catholic Church. And in 1988 Pope John Paul II called him "Father and Teacher of Youth."
The Missionary Thrust
From his earliest years as a student, Don Bosco dreamed of faraway worlds. He would, before his death, send his men and women Salesians far and wide. With thousands of dedicated collaborators, volunteers, and Cooperators, his work continues today.
As a young priest, Don Bosco had applied to be a missionary; but his seminary professor told him gently: "Don Bosco, you can't even take a coach ride without getting an upset stomach. How will you ever be a missionary? No, you will not go; but you will send out many to preach and teach the word of God."
In 1875, sixteen years after he founded the Salesian Society, he sent his first band of ten to begin mission work in Argentina.
The last quarter of the nineteenth century saw a mighty wave of migration from Europe to Latin America. Immigrants arrived in such great numbers that there were not enough churches and schools to attend to their needs.
It was also a time of Indian wars as the land-hungry newcomers plunged into the interior of the continent, pushing the native Indians off the land, not without bloody warfare. The first ten Salesian missionaries left on the 11th of November, 1875, and reached Buenos Aires, where they established their headquarters. They began to work immediately among the immigrants in the impoverished quarter at the port known as "La Boca" (The Devil's Mouth).
Half the group headed south for Indian territory and were instrumental in helping bring about peace in the war with the Indians.
Plunging southward across the vast Pampas, they finally reached the southern tip of the continent, the "Tierra del Fuego" (The Land of Fire), at that time the haven of escaped convicts, smugglers and international adventurers. A museum in Punta Arenas today houses memories of those early trials and triumphs.
In the space of twenty years, they explored the country, established agricultural schools, cultivated vast tracts of land, and spread the word of God. The missionaries' advance was a succession of conquests, sometimes paid for in their own blood. From Ushuaia, the southernmost city of the continent, on the Straits of Magellan, they advanced north across Patagonia and the Amazon basin. By the turn of the century, the Salesians were working in almost every country in Latin America.
SALESIANS SERVING THE YOUTH AROUND THE WORLD TODAY
There are tens of thousands Salesian Fathers, Brothers and Sisters working around the world in 120 countries.
From Sodertaije in Sweden, just below the Arctic Circle, to Ushuaia, just above the Antarctic Circle, from New York to San Francisco, to Hong Kong and Bangkok, and on to Rangoon, Calcutta, Cairo and around the world, they bring the care and concern of the many Salesian friends and supporters to over two million boys and girls.
Salesians:
"Signs and Bearers of God's love for young people."
St. John Bosco was a genius with young people, especially with those who were poor or in trouble. His one great desire was to spend his whole life working with the young, and he achieved this with amazing generosity, great daring, and inventiveness.
Today's Salesians try to continue his work - in schools, youth clubs, parishes, homes for young people in need, and a great variety of activities, all geared towards helping the young to achieve happiness in this life and the next.
Salesian lifestyle is both practical and academic, with great emphasis on experience of living in community and working with young people.