The Richness of Don Bosco's Dreams

The Richness of Don Bosco’s Dreams

19th-Century Turin, the Church, the Young

John Bosco's 1st Dream
(Mario Bogani)

(ANS – Rome – Feb. 20, 2024) – Thinking about Don Bosco and detaching him from his dreams means taking away a fundamental aspect of his complex and rich personality. Besides, he himself recounted many of his dreams in his Memoirs of the Oratory, where dreamlike experiences, external psycho-sensations, and spiritual inspirations make whole and define a reality even when not always prophetic.

In Don Bosco’s dreams there is 19th-century Turin, a city still with a population of less than 100,000 inhabitants but rich in industrial and political ferment. There is the Church, with the vicissitudes of an exalted and persecuted Papacy. There is the scenography of an urban landscape still mixed with an ambiance of the countryside and the peasantry. There are the young people, protagonists in spite of a society that had ignored them for so long. And then there is the encounter with the Lord Jesus, the great Mother and Help of Christians, the practice of the sacraments and great processions; the struggles with the devil and his wiles to defeat the apostle of the young. There is the development of his work, which delighted Don Bosco because it was at the service of those young people, all of whom he wanted happy in Paradise and as well as on earth. There are openly clairvoyant dreams, I would dare say, on par with biblical dreams so imbued with supernatural presence.

Don Bosco lived the development of his work, and he also lived with suffering, limitations, and shortcomings. Pope St. Paul VI, who knew the Salesians well and promoted their works as a great friend of the Salesians, used to say that the development of the Salesians in the world reminded him of the Gospel parable of the seed, just as he considered Don Bosco among the great holy Founders in the history of the Church. After all, even today it happens that someone knocks on a Salesian school door and asks to speak to Don Bosco, thinking he is alive.

Scattered in over 130 countries with the most varied activities aimed at education of the youth, the Salesians represent, according to UNESCO data, the largest private association in the world operating in this sector. And certainly, if one looks at the numbers, this is indeed the case: more than 14,000 male religious plus 32 groups adhering to the Salesian Family made up of the same number of consecrated and non-consecrated religious, and laity – are they not the realization of Don Bosco’s dreams?

Undoubtedly there are also difficulties with regard to newer vocations -especially in the old continent of Europe. This dearth of vocations weighs heavily at a time when 48% of Salesians are still in formation. This is why we need to return to Don Bosco the dreamer, to the essence of his asceticism made up of work, prayer, and the fulfilment of one’s duties, and of an interrelationship of reason, religion, and loving kindness.

The dream at the age of 9 to which Don Bosco’s 10th successor, Cardinal Angel Fernandez Artime, dedicated the 2024 Strenna means precisely this. “Don Bosco,” the Rector Major wrote to the Salesian Family, “showed us throughout his life that only authentic relationships transform and save. Pope Francis tells us the same thing: ‘It’s not enough, therefore, to have structures if authentic relationships are not developed in them; it is the quality of these relationships, in fact, that evangelizes.’”

“For this reason,” continues the Rector Major, “I express the desire that every house of our Salesian Family in the world be or become a truly educational space, a space of respectful relationships; a space that helps to grow in a healthy way. In this we can and must make a difference, because authentic relationships are at the origin of our charism, at the origin of the encounter with Bartholomew Garelli, at the origin of Don Bosco’s own vocation.”

Fr. Giuseppe Costa,
Co-spokesman of the Salesian Congregation