Saint John Bosco

Don Bosco was born on August 16, 1815, on a farmstead at I Becchi, in the hills of Castelnuovo d’Asti, the son of farmers. When he was two his father died of pneumonia, at thirty-three, leaving his wife Margaret a widow with three children and an elderly, ailing mother-in-law. Those were very hard years, and he was always the one telling about them. At nine he had a dream that he called prophetic and later told dozens of times to the boys of his Oratory. Because of that dream he decided he would become a priest. But to study he had to go to school, and the school in Capriglio didn’t want him: he was from another town. It took an aunt — Marianna Occhiena, his mother’s sister, who had gone into service with the parish priest — who begged Father Lacqua to take him in. The priest agreed reluctantly and then ended up growing fond of the boy, defending him from the classmates who mistreated him because he came from outside. And then there’s the thing that paints him better than any biography: to bring the village boys closer to prayer and to Mass, **he learned magic tricks**. He played the street performer, drew a crowd, and when he had everyone’s attention he said what he had to say. He never stopped working that way. From that method came the Salesians and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, and a way of educating that has spread throughout the world. He died in Turin on January 31, 1888, and is one of Turin’s “social saints”; Pius XI proclaimed him a saint in 1934. If your name is John or Joan, today is one of your days — there are quite a few, but this is the one that belongs to the young. A priest who learned magic tricks to get people to listen. There’s an idea of respect in that: if you want something from someone, first earn their attention.