SAINT JOHN BOSCO, Priest
FEAST DAY: JANUARY 31ST
CANONIZED: 1934 by Pope Pius XI – Patriarchal Basilica of Saint Peter – Vatican City
PATRONAGE: Apprentices and Laborers
PRAYER:
Lord,
you called Saint John Bosco
to be a teacher and father to the young.
Fill us with love like his:
May we give ourselves completely to your service
and to the salvation of mankind.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
SCRIPTURE READING:
A Reading from the Gospel of Saint Matthew
“Jesus said: ‘Let the little children come to Me,
and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom
of heaven.’ He laid His hands on them and departed
from there.”
~Matthew 19: 14-15
OUTLINE OF TEACHING:
Saint John was born in Italy in 1815. His early life was very hard,
and so, when he became a priest he dedicated himself to the education
of the young. He founded schools to teach young boys both how to make
a living and how to be good Christians. He also composed books and
pamphlets for the support and defense of religion. Saint John died on
January 31, 1888 and was canonized a saint in 1934.
SAINT JOHN BOSCO
Introduction into the life of Turin, Italy
The city of Turin in Northern Italy was beautiful, nestled up against the Alps’ snowcapped peaks. Many travelers praised Turin as “the loveliest village in the world.” There was a certain serenity to accompany the beauty. Added to the serenity and natural beauty of Turin was the sophisticated culture and commercial importance. Many aristocratic families traced their ancestry back many generations. By the mid-19th century, this serenity and even natural beauty would be altered for the worse. Like so many European cities the quite provincial center that was Turin was transformed into an industrial town with more and more factories springing forth. As the factories transformed the landscape, so did the dramatic shift in population. Many farmers fled the Alpine valleys to seek not only employment in Turin but a new sense of excitement as well. The industrial overlords, the “new aristocrats” of Turin, not the least bit concerned with the societal norms of the past, overworked and underpaid their illiterate and unsophisticated workers. The once beautiful city of Turin, aside from all of the factories added one new feature to its landscape, slums. The newly arrived workers were forced to move into filthy, crowded tenements, sometimes as many as six or seven to a room. Crime, disease and vice were the order of the day as God became a distant memory for those who abandoned the farms for the city. Turin’s better sections of town were often invaded by vicious gangs of young boys formed in the streets. The bill of fare of the day, at the hands of these ruffians were robberies, muggings and occasionally, murder. Due to the tremendous poverty that arose in Turin during this period, hopelessness reigned supreme. A city that was once known as the “loveliest village in the world,” now claimed a population of 150,000 people and boasted no fewer than four good sized-prisons. Many inmates were mere boys, some not yet in their teens. This was the state of affairs in Turin that awaited Saint John Bosco.
Early Life
John Melchior Bosco was born in 1815 in a Piedmontese village. He was the youngest son of a peasant farmer, who died when John was only two years of age. His mother, Margaret, a very saintly and industrious woman, had a hard struggle in keeping her family together after the death of her husband, raising three children, running the small farm as well as caring for her own elderly and infirm mother. John, throughout his entire life would experience many powerful dreams. These dreams would often serve as a guide in his life and provide him the needed insight as to what he was to do next in his life. At the age of nine, John had a powerful dream as he was shown his vocation to which he held fast for the remainder of his life. In this first of many dreams, John seemed to be surrounded by a crowd of fighting and blaspheming children whom he strove in vain to pacify, at first by argument and then with his fists. Suddenly there appeared a mysterious lady who said to him: “Softly, softly…if you wish to win them! Take your shepherd’s staff and lead them to pasture.” Still in the dream, he spoke of how the children were transformed into wild beasts and then into lambs (I told you these were powerful dreams). From that moment on, John knew that he wanted to be a priest and help poor boys. Although lacking money and influence, young John Bosco was not without resources. John possessed an amazing array of talents. The young John Bosco had a tremendous mind in his ability to remember information. His physical abilities afforded him the ability to dazzle everyone with his acrobatic feats. At country fairs, he studied the tricks of magicians, developing his own amazing skills. All of these talents would serve John Bosco well in his mission of serving poor, often times abandoned boys.
Life as a Seminarian
At the age of sixteen, John, with the encouragement of his mother, entered the seminary. Upon his entrance, he was in such dire straights financially that many of the moneyed people close to the seminary came to his rescue for his daily needs. The mayor gave John his hat, while the parish priest provided a cassock and cloak and another, a pair of shoes. John had to work very hard for his seminary education. During his long years of study, he had to pick up a variety of jobs and thus learned a great deal about many trades, including shoe repair, tailoring, restaurant management, the making of candy as well as putting on a one-man circus, of which he loved to do the most. John’s abilities to perform attracted boys of all ages, after which he would always slip in a catechism lesson or two. By the time John was ordained a deacon, he began to devote his time to poor boys, to which he devoted each Sunday to recreation and catechism lessons.
Ordination to the Priesthood
John Bosco was ordained to the priesthood in 1841 at the age of 25, for the Archdiocese of Turin. At the time of his ordination, Italy was not a unified nation as it was divided into seven different states. When Pope Blessed Pius IX refused to support a war to throw out the Austrian occupiers, many Italians judged him a defender of foreign rulers and an opponent of national unity. The vast tide of anticlericalism which had been building for years came to fruition. Enemies of the Church drove bishops from their dioceses, suppressed religious houses and exiled priests, sisters and brothers. Hatred reached a boiling point when revolutionary gangs broke into Pope Pius IX’s Roman palace, stabbing the prime minister and fatally shooting one of the Pope’s staff. Pope Pius slipped out a secret door and fled to Naples where he remained in exile for six months.
Further Theological and Real Life Studies
The archbishop of Turin ordered Father Bosco to further his education through an intensive five-year course of postgraduate theology at Turin’s Ecclesiastical College. Because of the anticlerical hatred in Italy, many priests refused to mix with the people of Turin. However, the College authorities mandated that the young priests spend time with the city’s population, especially the poor and abandoned. Father Bosco would visit and work in the hospitals, prisons and orphanages as well as the areas of Turin considered to be slums. These difficult experiences deeply touched the tender-hearted priest and renewed his resolve to serve the poorest of the poor, the boys of the slums.
His Slum Boys
It all started while still a theological student. Father John Bosco persuaded a few boys to meet with him Sunday afternoons at the College courtyard. Over time extending a great deal of patience, Father Bosco began to build a rapport with the boys. As Father Bosco would move through the streets and slums of Turin, he would invite youth to his Sunday gatherings at the College. He called these gatherings his “oratory.” The oratory featured singing, prayer, games, a magic trick or two, competition, long walks and sometimes even picnics. By the time Father Bosco completed his extended theological studies, he found himself with no place to gather his nearly 400 boys. There were those generous people who attempted to help out by providing places for the Sunday gatherings, yet the noise and the sheer size of the group would ultimately bring an end to the use of a particular spot. He urged his little ones to pray that God would provide a place of their own. Apparently they prayed hard, for God did indeed answer their prayers.
“Valley of the Ducks”
Still stinging from recent defeats, Father Bosco was a bit slow in responding to a certain Mr. Pinardi who was willing to rent a piece of property located in a marshy area of Turin, known as Valdocco or “Valley of the Ducks.” The owner pointed out that the property contained a small barn that could be used as a chapel. Well, there wasn’t much to any of the property, but Father Bosco agreed nonetheless. The barn was no Sistine Chapel, yet he and the boys finally had a home and were able to celebrate Easter Mass together as a group. Although Father Bosco and the boys met as a group only on Sundays (most of the boys worked in very hard conditions six days a week), he spent every spare moment he had during the week meeting the needs of his boys. He visited them at their jobs, found work for those unemployed, nursed the sick and did everything in his power to help those who found themselves in trouble with the law.
A heavy price to be paid
Lest you think Father John Bosco to be Superman, which his boys certainly did, there was a heavy toll to be paid for his relentless care over his boys. Three months after purchasing and striving to improve upon the “Valley of the Ducks,” Father Bosco, collapsed in exhaustion, suffering from severe pneumonia. Doctors feared for his life. The boys, heartbroken and fearful gathered in the courtyard of the hospital and began to bargain with God for the life of their beloved Father. Many boys vowed to reform their lives, while many said extra prayers added extra penances to their lives of difficulty. Some of the boys who were construction workers carried bricks and mortar up four or five stories of scaffolding 40 to 50 times a day, fasted from food. They were determined to pray Father John Bosco out of death’s grip by their prayers and penances. All the efforts of the children seemed doomed to fail, as Father Bosco’s health continued to worsen. Father Borel, a close friend of Father Bosco came to give him the last rites. At his bedside, Father Borel bent over and whispered: “John, these children need you. Ask God to let you stay.” Soon after, his fever broke and slowly began to recover from the pneumonia. Two weeks later the doctors released Father Bosco from the hospital, where he was greeted in the courtyard outside by his urchins, who rushed him, picked him up and carried him on their shoulders through Turin’s streets. The boys shouted and cheered as they carried him through the streets. Even the citizens of Turin were moved to tears.
Mother Margaret
As time went by, Father John not only rented four rooms in an apartment next to the land where his oratory met, he eventually bought the entire building. Father Bosco asked his mother to make a painful sacrifice and move from the farm to the city in order to help with the care of boys. By the time “Mama Margaret,” as the boys dubbed her, arrived at that oratory, Father Bosco had 600 boys descend upon the oratory on any given Sunday. She would help her son through cooking and cleaning, mending clothes and providing extra love and attention. By 1851, Father Bosco set up a small orphanage near the oratory. The thirty orphaned boys who lived in the house lived by a joyful routine. In the morning, after Mass, the boys would depart for their workshop or factory with a little snack in their hands. At noon they would return and crowd into the kitchen for their noonday dinner, which Father Bosco would cook, clad in a white apron.
Education for his boys
Father Bosco was constantly on the march for his boys. He taught them to play musical instruments, heard their confessions and went from one building project to the next. He built a boarding home for 150 boys, a new chapel to accommodate the oratory’s increased numbers, established evening education and vocational schools for his boys. He built workshops so the boys could learn how to be shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, bookbinders, printers and ironworkers. Some of his boys would eventually study for the priesthood and later serve by the side of their beloved Father, who established a new religious order in honor of his favorite saint, Francis De Sales. The new order, known as the Salesians, was formed at the height of anticlerical sentiment; a miracle in and of itself. On more than one occasion, several to be exact, Father Bosco suffered many physical attacks against him, by political enemies of the church. At times a huge, gray mastiff dog would appear out of no where and attack his would be assailants and then disappear. He always believed that his guardian angel appeared in the form of the mastiff. Father Bosco demanded a great deal from his teachers. At a time when schoolmasters considered hitting and whipping as indispensable tools of their trade, Father Bosco encouraged his teachers to teach in such a way that they would be loved by the boys.