(ANS –
Rome – March 9) – The Church's custom is to mark the "heavenly birthday" (dies natalis) of the saint's, i.e., the date on which they passed from this mortal life to the eternal life of heaven. For Dominic Savio, that was March 9, 1857.
Remembering
St. Dominic Savio in this special year that the Church dedicates to young
people is significant. Not only was he a model for his companions at the
Valdocco oratory, but he also knew how to embody the role of a team captain or
leader, a sort of teacher in the ways of God (as Don Bosco also saw him in the
dream of Lanzo in 1876).
The confirmation of this comes from the lives of
various Blesseds, Venerables, and Servants of God who made Dominic’s plan of
life their own: Laura Vicuña, Zeferino Namuncurá, Joseph Kowlaski, Albert
Marvelli, Fr. Joseph Quadrio, Bp. Octavio Ortiz Arrieta.
And not
only in the Salesian world. In recent days, Pope Francis acknowledged the
martyrdom of a young Slovak girl, Anna Kolesarova, called Anka, a young woman
from the archdiocese of Kosice, who lived a calm and peaceful existence until
the Red Army occupied her native village, Vysoka nad Uhom, in the final months
of World War II. She left a shelter where she was with her family to feed a
soldier, who turned on her; she repeatedly rejected his assaults and prepared
to die rather than give herself to him.
She was
shot on November 22, 1944, at the age of 16, pronouncing the names of Jesus,
Mary, and Joseph. Anna’s mortal remains lie in the cemetery of her village,
surmounted by a plaque that shows, in addition to the usual data, the motto of
St. Dominic Savio, which she incarnated decisively: “Death, but not sin.”
The Salesian Family celebrates Dominic's feastday on May 6, in the Easter season rather than during Lent (March 9).
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