(continuation from previous article)

1. The exercise for a happy death in Salesian institutions and the centuries-old tradition of the Praeparationes ad mortem

            From the very beginnings of the Oratory established in Valdocco (1846-47), Don Bosco proposed the monthly exercise for a happy death to his boys as an ascetic tool aimed at encouraging – through a Christian perspective on death – a constant attitude of conversion and overcoming personal limitations and ensuring, through a proper confession and receiving communion, the favourable spiritual and psychological conditions for a fruitful journey of Christian life and the building up of virtues, in docile cooperation with the action of God’s grace. The practice at that time was in use in most parishes, religious and educational institutions. For the people it was the equivalent of the monthly recollection. In the Salesian Oratories it was held on the last Sunday of each month, and consisted, as we used read in the Rule, “in a careful preparation, in order to make a good confession and communion, and to finalise spiritual and temporal things, as if we were at the end of our life.”[1]
            The exercise became common practice in all Salesian educational institutions. In the colleges and boarding schools it was held on the last day of the month, with teachers and boys together.[2] The Salesian Constitutions themselves, from the very first draft, established how it would be done: “The last day of each month will be a day of spiritual retreat, in which, leaving temporal affairs aside as far as possible, each one will recollect, will make the exercise for a happy death, arranging spiritual and temporal things, as if he were to leave the world and set out for eternity.”[3]
            The procedure was simple. The boys, gathered in the chapel, read the words together that were in the Companion of Youth, which provided the essential spiritual and theological meaning of the practice. First of all, the prayer of Pope Benedict XIII was said “to ask from God the grace not to die a sudden death” and to obtain, through the merits of Christ’s passion, not to be taken “out of this world so much”, so as to still have an appropriate “time for penance” and to prepare oneself for “a happy and graceful passage […], so that I may love you [Lord Jesus] with all my heart, praise you, and bless you for ever.” Then the prayer to St Joseph was read to beg “complete forgiveness” for one’s sins, the grace to imitate his virtues, to “always walk on the way that leads to Heaven” and to be defended “from the enemies of my soul at the end of my life; so that comforted by the hope of flying […] to possess eternal glory in heaven I might breathe my last pronouncing the holy names of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” Finally, a reader read out the litany for a happy death, each element of which was answered with “Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.”[4] The devotional exercise was followed by personal confession and “general” communion. “Extraordinary” confessors were invited for the occasion, so that everyone had the opportunity and full freedom to settle matters of conscience.
            Salesian religious, in addition to the prayers said in common with the pupils, made a more detailed examination of conscience. On 18 September 1876, Don Bosco explained to his disciples how to make it fruitful:

             It will be useful to compare month to month: did I benefit from this month, or dd I go backwards? Then come to the details: how did I behave in this virtue, in that virtue?
            And especially let us review what regards the vows and the practices of piety: with regard to obedience, how have I behaved? Have I progressed? For example, did I do the assistance I was given to do? How did I do it? In that class, how did I commit myself? Regarding poverty, whether in clothes, food, cells, do I have anything that is not poor? have I been greedy? Have I complained when I lacked something? Then come to chastity: have I given rise to evil thoughts? Have I detached myself more and more from the love of relatives? Have I mortified myself in gluttony, looks, etc.?
            And so pass on the practices of piety and note especially if there was ordinary lukewarmness, if the practices were done without motivation.
            This examination, whether longer or shorter, should always be done. Since there are several who have occupations from which they cannot exempt themselves on any day of the month, it will be lawful to keep these occupations, but let each one on the said day make it his own [duty] to carry out these considerations and to make special good resolutions.[5]

            The aim, therefore, was to encourage regular monitoring of one’s life to improve oneself. This primary role of encouraging and supporting virtuous growth explains why Don Bosco, in the introduction to the Constitutions, said that the monthly practice for a happy death, together with the annual retreat, is “the fundamental part of the practices of piety, the one that in a certain way embraces them all”, and concluded by saying, “I believe that the salvation of a religious can be said to be assured if every month he approaches the Holy Sacraments, and examines his conscience, as if he had to depart from this life for eternity.”[6]
            Over time, the monthly exercise was further refined, as we read in a note inserted in the Constitutions promulgated by Fr Michael Rua after the 10th General Chapter:

             a. The exercise for a happy death is to be made in common, and in addition to what our Constitutions prescribe, these rules are to be kept in mind: 1) In addition to the usual meditation in the morning, a half hour of meditation is to be done again in the evening, and this meditation is to reflect on the novissimi [the last things]; 2) It is to be done as a monthly review of the conscience, and the confession on that day is to be more accurate than usual, as if in fact it were the last one of your life, and Holy Communion is to be received. 3) After Mass and the usual prayers, the prayers indicated in the manual of piety are to be recited; 4) One should think for at least half an hour about the progress or regression that one has made in virtue during the past month, especially with regard to the intentions made in the retreat, the observance of the Rules, and make firm resolutions for a better life; 5) All, or at least part, of the Constitutions of the Pious Society should be reread on that day; 6) It will also be good to choose a patron saint for the month that is about to begin.
            b. If anyone is unable, because of his occupations, to make the exercise for a happy death in common, or to perform all the aforementioned works of piety, he shall, with the permission of the Rector, perform only those works that are compatible with his role, postponing the others to a more convenient day.[7]

            These indications reveal substantial continuity and harmony with the centuries-old tradition of the preparatio ad mortem widely documented by books since the beginning of the 16th century. The evangelical calls for vigilant and real expectation (cf. Mt 24:44; Lk 12:40), to keep oneself prepared for the judgement that will determine one’s eternal fate among the “blessed” or the “cursed” (Mt 25:31-46), together with the Lenten admonition “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris”, have, over the centuries, constantly nourished the considerations of spiritual teachers and preachers, inspired artistic representations, been translated into rituals, devout and penitential practices, suggested intentions and loving longings for eternal communion with God. They have also aroused fears, anxieties, sometimes anguish, according to the spiritual sensibilities and theological perspectives of the various times.
            The learned reflections of Erasmus’ De praeparatione ad mortem and other humanists,[8] imbued with a genuine evangelical spirit but so erudite as to feel like rhetorical exercises, had gradually given way between the 17th and early 18th century to the moral exhortations of preachers and the meditative considerations of spiritualists. A pamphlet by Cardinal Giovanni Bona stated that the best preparation for death is the remote one, carried out through a virtuous life in which one daily practises dying to oneself and avoiding all forms of sin, to live according to God’s law in prayerful communion with him.[9] He urged constant prayer to obtain the grace of a happy death; he suggested devoting one day a month to preparing close to death in silence and meditation, purifying the soul with a “most diligent and sorrowful confession”, after an accurate examination of one’s state, and approaching Communion per modum Viatici, with intense devotion;[10] he then invited people to end the day by imagining themselves on their deathbed, at the moment of their last moment:

             You will renew more intense acts of love, thanksgiving and desire to see God; you will ask forgiveness for everything; you will say: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, in this hour of my death, place your passion and death between your judgement and my soul. Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. Help me, O saints of God, hasten, O angels, to sustain my soul and offer it up before the Most High.’ […]. Then you will imagine that your soul is being led to the dreadful judgement of God and that, by the prayers of the saints, your life will be prolonged so that you can do penance: therefore strongly proposing to live more holily, in future you will consider yourself and behave as dead to the world and living only for God and for penance.[11]

            John Bona closed his Praeparatio ad mortem with a devout aspiration focused on the longing for heaven permeated with intense mystical inspiration.[12] The Cistercian cardinal had been a student of the Jesuits. It was from them that he had drawn the idea of the monthly day of preparation for death.
            Meditation on death was an integral part of retreats and popular missions: death is certain, the moment of its arrival is uncertain, we must be ready because when it comes, Satan will multiply his assaults to ruin us eternally: “What consequence then? […] Get good habits now in life. Do not be content merely to live in the grace of God, nor to remain a single moment in sin; but habitually live such a life, by the continual exercise of good works, that at the last moment the Devil will not have the temptation to make me lose myself for all Eternity.[13]
            From the 17th century onwards and throughout the 18th century, preachers emphasised the importance of the theme, adapting their reflections according to the sensibilities of the Baroque taste, with a strong emphasis on the dramatic aspects, without however distracting the listeners’ attention from the substance: the serene acceptance of death, the call to conversion of the heart, constant vigilance, fervour in virtuous works, self-offering to God and the yearning for eternal communion of love with him. Gradually, the exercise for a happy death took on an ever-increasing importance, until it became one of the main ascetic practices in Catholicism. A model of how it should be carried out is offered, for example, in a 17th-century pamphlet by an anonymous Jesuit:

             Choose one day of each month which is the most free from all other business, on which you must with particular diligence engage in Prayer, Confession, Communion and Visitation of the Blessed Sacrament.
            The Prayer of this day will need to be two hours over two sessions: and the subject of it may be the one we will mention. In the first hour, conceive as vividly as you can the state in which you find yourself already dying […]. Consider what you would like to have done when you are dying, first with regard to God, secondly with regard to yourself, thirdly with regard to your neighbour, mixing in this meditation various fervent affections of repentance, intentions, and requests to the Lord, in order to implore from him the virtue of amending yourself. The second Prayer session will have as its subject the strongest motives that can be found for willingly accepting death from God […]. The affections of this Meditation will be an offering of one’s life to the Lord, a protest that if we could prolong it, beyond His most divine blessing, we would not do so; a request, to offer this sacrifice with the spirit of love which requires the respect due to His most loving Providence, and disposition.
            You must make your Confession with more particular diligence, as if it were the last time that you have gone to wash yourself in the most precious blood of Jesus Christ […].
            Communion, too, must be done with more extraordinary preparation, and as if you were taking Communion for Viaticum, adoring the Lord whom you hope to have to adore for all Eternity; thanking Him for the life He has granted you, asking forgiveness for having spent it so badly; offering yourself ready to end it, because He wants it so, and finally asking Him for grace to assist you in this great step, so that your soul, leaning on its Beloved, may pass safely from this Desert to the Kingdom.[14]

            The commitment to spreading the practice of the happy death did not limit the considerations of preachers and spiritual directors to the subject of the novissimi (the last things), as if they wanted to base the spiritual edifice solely on the fear of damned eternity. These authors knew the psychological and spiritual damage that the anxiety and anguish over one’s salvation had on the most sensitive souls. The collections of meditations produced between the end of the 17th century and the middle of the 18th century not only insisted on God’s mercy and abandonment to him, to lead the faithful to the permanent state of spiritual serenity that is proper to those who have integrated the awareness of their own temporal finitude within a solid vision of faith, but they ranged over all the themes of Christian doctrine and practice, of private and public morality: truth of the faith and evangelical subjects, vices and virtues, sacraments and prayer, spiritual and material works of charity, asceticism and mysticism. The consideration of man’s eternal destiny expanded to the proposal of an exemplary and ardent Christian living, which translated into spiritual paths oriented towards personal sanctification and the refinement of daily and social life, against the backdrop of a substantial theology and a refined Christian anthropology.
            One of the most eloquent examples is provided by the three volumes by Jesuit Giuseppe Antonio Bordoni, which collect the meditations offered every week for over twenty years to the confreres of the Compagnia della buona morte, which he established in the church of the Holy Martyrs in Turin (1719). The work was much appreciated for its theological substance, its lack of rhetorical frills, and its wealth of concrete examples, and was reprinted dozens of times up to the threshold of the 20th century.[15] Also linked to the Turin religious environment are the Discorsi sacri e morali per l’esercizio della buona morte – more marked by the sensitivity of the time but just as solid – preached in the second half of the 18th century by Fr Giorgio Maria Rulfo, spiritual director of the Compagnia dell’Umiltà formed by ladies of the Savoy nobility.[16]
            The practice proposed by St John Bosco to the students of the Oratory and Salesian educational institutions had, therefore, a solid spiritual tradition of reference.

(continued)

[1] John Bosco, Regolamento dell’Oratorio di S. Francesco di Sales per gli esterni, Turin, Tipografia Salesiana, 1877, 44.

[2] Cf. John Bosco, Regolamento per le case della Società di S. Francesco di Sales, Turin, Tipografia Salesiana, 1877, 63 (part II, chapter II, art. 4): “[…] Once a month the exercise for a happy death will be done by all, preparing for it with some sermon or other exercise of piety.”

[3] [John Bosco], Regole o Costituzioni della Società di S. Francesco di Sales secondo il Decreto di approvazione del 3 aprile 1874, Torino, Tipografia Salesiana, 1877, 81 (cap. XIII, art. 6). The same was established in the Constitutions of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, with a very similar wording: “The first Sunday or the first Thursday of the month will be a day of spiritual retreat, in which, leaving temporal affairs as far as possible, each one will collect herself, make the exercise for a happy death, arranging her spiritual and temporal things, as if she had to leave the world and go to Eternity. Let some reading be done according to the need, and where possible the Superior shall procure from the Director a sermon or a conference on the subject”, Regole o Costituzioni per le Figlie di Maria SS. Ausiliatrice aggregate alla Società salesiana (ed. 1885), Title XVII, art. 5, in John Bosco, Constitutions for the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (1872-1885). Critical texts edited by Cecilia Romero, Rome, LAS, 1983, 325.

[4] Giovanni Bosco, Il giovane provveduto per la pratica de’ suoi obblighi degli esercizi di cristiana pietà per la recita dell’uffizio della Beata Vergine e de principali vespri dell’anno coll aggiunta di una scelta di laudi sacre ecc., Torino, Tipografia Paravia e Comp. 1847, 138-142.

[5] Central Salesian Archives, A0000409 Prediche di don Bosco – Esercizi Lanzo 1876, notebook XX, ms by Giulio Barberis, pp. 10-11.

[6] John Bosco, Ai Soci Salesiani, in Rules or Constitutions of the Society of St Francis de Sales (ed. 1877), 38.

[7] Constitutions of the Society of St. Francis de Sales preceded by an introduction written by the Founder St. John Bosco, Turin, Tipografia Salesiana, 1907, 227- 231.

[8] Des. Erasmi Roterodami liber cum primis pius, de praeparatione ad mortem, nunc primum et conscriptus et aeditus…, Basileae, in officina Frobeniana per Hieronymum Frobenium & Nicolaum Episcopium 1533, 3-80 (Quomodo se quisque debeat praeparare ad mortem). Cf. also Pro salutari hominis ad felicem mortem praeparatione, hinc inde ex Scriptura sacra, et sanctis, doctis, et christianissimis doctoribus, ad cujusdam petitionem, et aliorum etiam utilitatem, a Sacrarum literarum professor Ludovico Bero conscripta et nunc primum edita, Basileae, per Joan. Oporinum, 1549.

[9] Giovanni Bona, De praeparatione ad mortem…, Roma, in Typographia S. Michaelis ad Ripam per Hieronimum Maynardi, 1736, 11-13.

[10] Ibid., 67-73.

[11] Ibid., 74-75.

[12] Ibid., 126-132: “Affectus animae suspirantis ad Paradisum”.

[13] Carlo Ambrogio Cattaneo, Esercizi spirituali di sant’Ignazio, Trent, by Gianbatista Monauni, 1744, 74.

[14] Esercizio di preparazione alla morte proposto da un religioso della Compagnia di Gesù per indirizzo di chi desidera far bene un tale passo, Roma, per gl’Eredi del Corbelletti [1650], ff. 3v-6v.

[15] Giuseppe Antonio Bordoni, Discorsi per l’esercizio della buona morte, Venice, in the printing house of Andrea Poletti, 1749-1751, 3 vols.; the latest edition is the Turin edition by Pietro Marietti in 6 volumes (1904-1905).

[16] Giorgio Maria Rulfo, Discorsi sacri, e morali per l’esercizio della buona morte, Turin, presso i librai B.A. Re e G. Rameletti, 1783-1784, 5 vols.

The annual All Souls Day commemoration presents us with reality that no one can deny: the end of our earthly life. For many, talking about death seems a macabre thing, to be avoided at all costs. But this was not so for St John Bosco; throughout his life he had cultivated the exercise for a happy death, setting the last day of the month for this purpose. Who knows if this is not the reason why the Lord took him to be with him on the last day of January 1888, finding him prepared…

            Jean Delumeau, in the introduction to his work on LaPaura in Occidente (Fear in the West), recounts the anguish he felt at the age of twelve when, as a new pupil at a Salesian boarding school, he first heard the “disquieting sequences” of the litany for a happy death, followed by an Our Father and Hail Mary “for the one among us who will be the first to die”. Starting from that experience, from his early fears, his difficult efforts to become accustomed to this fear, his teenage reflections on the last things, his personal patient search for serenity and joy in acceptance, the French historian drew up a project of historical investigation focused on the role of “guilt” and the “pastoral use of fear” in the history of the West and came to an interpretation “of a very broad historical panorama: for the Church, suffering and the (temporary) annihilation of the body are less to be feared than sin and hell. Man can do nothing against death, but – with God’s help – it is possible for him to avoid eternal punishment. From that moment on, a new type of fear – a theological one – replaced what came before and was visceral and spontaneous: it was an heroic remedy, but still a remedy since it introduced an exit where there was nothing but emptiness; this was the kind of lesson that the religious responsible for my education tried to teach me.”[1]
            Even Umberto Eco recalled with ironic sympathy the exercise for a happy death that he was presented with at the Nizza Monferrato Oratory:

             Ancient religions, myths, rituals made death, though always fearful, familiar to us. We were accustomed to accepting it by the great funeral celebrations, the wailing women, the great Requiem Masses. We were prepared for death by sermons on hell, and even during my childhood I was invited to read the pages on death by Don Bosco’s Companion of Youth. Hewas not just the cheerful priest who made children play, but had a visionary and flamboyant imagination. He reminded us that we don’t know where death will surprise us – whether in our bed, at work, or in the street, from the bursting of a vein, a bad cold, a haemorrhage, a fever, a plague, an earthquake, a lightning strike, ‘perhaps as soon as we have finished reading these thoughts.’ At that moment we will feel our head grow dull, our eyes hurt, our tongue parched, our jaw closed, our chest heavy, our blood frozen, our flesh consumed, our heart pierced. Hence the need to practise the Exercise for a Happy Death […]. Pure sadism, one might say. But what do we teach our contemporaries today? That death takes place far from us in hospital, that we no longer usually follow the coffin to the cemetery, that we no longer see the dead. […] Thus, the disappearance of death from our immediate horizon of experience will make us much more terrified when the moment approaches, when faced with this event that also belongs to us from birth – and with which the wise man comes to terms throughout life.”[2]

            In Salesian houses the monthly practice of the exercise for a happy death, with the recitation of the litany included by Don Bosco in the Companion of Youth remained in use from 1847 until the threshold of the Council.[3] Delumeau recounts that every time he happened to read the litany to his students at the Collège de France he noticed how astonished they were: “It is proof” he writes, “of a rapid and profound change in mentality from one generation to the next. Having rapidly become out of date after being relevant for so long, this prayer for a happy death has become a document of history insofar as it reflects a long tradition of religious pedagogy.”[4] The scholar of mentalities, in fact, teaches us how historical phenomena, in order to avoid misleading anachronisms, must always be approached in relation to their internal coherence and with respect for cultural otherness, to which every collective mental representation, every belief and cultural or cultic practice of ancient societies must be traced. Outside those anthropological frameworks, that set of knowledge and values, ways of thinking and feeling, habits and models of behaviour prevalent in a given cultural context, which shape the collective mindset, it is impossible to adopt a correct critical approach.
            As far as we are concerned, Delumeau’s account is a document of how anachronism not only undermines the historian. Even the pastor and educator run the risk of perpetuating practices and formulas outside the cultural and spiritual worlds that generated them: thus, at the very least, besides appearing strange to the younger generations, they may even be counterproductive, having lost the overall horizon of meaning and the “mental and spiritual tools” that made them meaningful. This was the fate of the prayer for a happy death that was used for over a century, for students in Salesian works all over the world, then – around 1965 – completely abandoned, without any replacement that would safeguard its positive aspects. The abandonment was not only due to its obsolescence. It was also a symptom of the ongoing process of the eclipse of death in Western culture, a sort of “interdiction” and “prohibition” now strongly denounced by scholars and pastors.[5]
            Our contribution aims at investigating the meaning and educational value of the exercise for a happy death in Don Bosco’s and the first Salesian generations’ practice, relating it to a fruitful secular tradition, and then identifying its spiritual features through the narrative testimonies left by the Saint.

(continued)

[1] Jean Delumeau, La Paura in Occidente (14th-18th centuries). La città assediata, Turin, SEI, 1979, 42-44.

[2] Umberto Eco, “La bustina di Minerva: Dov’è andata la morte?”, in L’Espresso, 29 November 2012.

[3] The “Prayers for a Happy Death” are still to be found, with a few substantial variations, in the revised Manual of Prayer for Salesian Educational Institutions in Italy, which ultimately replaced The Companion of Youth, used until then: Centro Compagnie Gioventù Salesiana, In preghiera. Manuale di pietà ispirato al Giovane Provveduto di san Giovanni Bosco, Torino, Opere Don Bosco, 1959, 360-362.

[4] Delumeau, La Paura in Occidente, 43.

[5] Cf. Philippe Ariés, Storia della morte in Occidente Milan, BUR, 2009; Jean-Marie R. Tillard, La morte: Enigma o Mysterio? Magnano (BI), Edizioni Qiqajon, 1998.

In a circular letter Don Bosco wrote in July 1885: “The good book even enters homes where the priest cannot enter… Sometimes it remains covered in dust on a table or in a library. No one thinks of it. But the hour of loneliness, or sadness, or pain, or boredom, or the need for recreation, or anxiety about the future comes, and this faithful friend dusts himself off, opens his pages and…”

“Without books there is no reading and without reading there is no knowledge; without knowledge there is no freedom”, I read on the internet, not sure whether written by some nostalgic or a book lover or by a good connoisseur of Cicero.
Don Bosco for his part, as soon as he finished his studies, immediately became a writer and some of his books became genuine best sellers with dozens and dozens of editions and reprints. Once the Congregation was founded, he invited his young collaborators to do the same, using his own print shop set up in the same house in Valdocco. At a time when three quarters of Italians were illiterate, he wrote in the above-mentioned circular: “A book in a family, if not read by the one for whom it is intended or given, is read by the son or daughter, friend or neighbour. A book in a town sometimes passes into the hands of a hundred people. God alone knows the good that a book produces in a town, in a mobile library, in a workers’ society, in a hospital, donated as a pledge of friendship.” And he added: “In less than thirty years, the number of pamphlets or volumes we have distributed among the people adds up to some twenty million. While some books may have remained neglected, others will each have had a hundred readers, and thus the number of those to whom our books have done some good can be believed with certainty to be far greater than the number of volumes published.”
With a bit of imagination, we could say that in some way Don Bosco’s publishing network heralded both today’s online book, which is there for everyone to read, walking alone, almost wandering, and the ebook, the only one that in the continuing crisis of reading in Italy in recent years is attracting new buyers and new readers thanks also to its low cost.

Competition
The competition involved in reading a book is strong: today people spend hours and hours with their eyes fixed on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, blogs and platforms of all kinds to send and receive messages, to see and send photos, to watch films and listen to music. In themselves they might all be wonderful, good and correct, but can they replace reading a good book?
Some doubt is legitimate. For the most part, social media are promoters of a sort of culture of the ephemeral, the transitory, the fragmentary – even without immediately thinking of the flood of fake news – where each new communication eliminates the previous one. The names themselves say it: SMS “short message service” or Twitter, a bird tweeting, Instagram, i.e., quick picture posted on the spot. They convey quick information, very brief sharing of experiences and moods with people you are already in touch with. Books, good books on the other hand, the ones that are thought through and pondered, are able to provoke questions, help us deeply perceive the beauty that is found in nature and art in all its forms, in the solidarity between people, in the passion and heart that we put into everything we do. And not only that, because it is precisely a broad general culture, provided by history books in particular, that offers the ruling classes the flexibility, the ability to orientate, the breadth of horizons that when combined with competence are needed to make the choices of a general and comprehensive nature that are theirs to make. We are becoming aware of the deficit of such a culture in these very days.

Don Bosco’s library
Don Bosco helped thousands of young people grow up as “good Christians and upright citizens” through the dissemination of his books, with his library at Valdocco containing 15,000 books, his print shop, the libraries in individual Salesian houses, with a host of Salesians who wrote books for youth. How melancholic sad it is today to learn that around half a million children in Italy attend schools without a library! Of course, it is easier and more immediately profitable to build new supermarkets, new shopping centres, state-of-the-art cinemas, multinational chains dealing in technology and innovation.
Paper books or online books – today’’s libraries, thanks to technology, offer interesting remote services of various kinds – it makes no difference: as long as they make people grow in humanity. On one condition, however: that they are readable and available to everyone, even to non-digital natives, even to those who do not have the latest generation of tools, even to those who live in disadvantaged situations. Don Bosco wrote in the aforementioned letter: “Remember that St Augustine, who became a bishop, though an exalted master of fine letters and an eloquent orator, preferred inaccuracies in language and no elegance of style to the risk of not being understood by the people.” This is what the sons of Don Bosco continue to do today with books, with popular pamphlets, with videos and materials posted on the web which continue to circulate, today as yesterday, in all languages everywhere, to the ends of the earth.

            In 1849, the printer G. B. Paravia published Il sistema metrico decimale ridotto a semplicità preceded by quattro operazioni dell’aritmetica ad uso degli artigiani e della gente di campagna edited by the priest Bosco Gioanni. The manual included an appendix on the most widely used currencies in Piedmont and the main foreign currencies.
            Yet only a few years earlier Don Bosco knew so little about the noble coins in use in the Kingdom of Sardinia that he confused a doppio di Savoia with a marengo. He was at the beginning of his oratory activity and must have seen very few gold coins until then. Receiving one one day, he ran to spend it on his young urchins, ordering various goods to the value of one marengo. The shopkeeper, both practical and honest, handed over the goods he had ordered and gave him the change of about nine lire.
            “Why so much change” Don Bosco asked, “Wasn’t that a marengo I gave you?”
            “No,”replied the shopkeeper, “it was a coin worth 28 and a ½ lire!” (BM II, 73)
            From the outset Don Bosco was not greedy for money, but only eager to do good!

Doppie di Savoia (Savoy doubles) and marenghi
            In May 1814, when King Victor Emmanuel I returned to possession of his States, he wanted to restore the old monetary system based on the Piedmontese Lira, worth twenty soldi, twelve denari each, a system that had been replaced by the decimal system during the French occupation. Before then, six lire made a silver escudo and 24 a gold Savoy double. There were of course no shortage of smaller coins, including the copper coin known as the Mauriziotto worth 5 soldi, so called because it bore the image of St Maurice on the reverse side.
            But counting in francs had by then become so widespread that the King in 1816 decided to adopt the decimal monetary system as well, creating the New Piedmontese Lira with a value equal to the franc, and its related smaller coins, from the 100 lire gold piece to the 1 cent copper coin.
            The Savoy double, however, continued in use for many more years. Created in 1755 by an edict of Charles Emmanuel III, it was called, after the creation of the new lira, the twenty-nine or twenty-eight-and-a-half lira piece, precisely because it corresponded to 28.45 new lire. It was more commonly called Galin-a (hen) because, while the obverse bore the image of the Sovereign with a pigtail, the reverse showed a bird with spread wings, which the artist had intended to represent an eagle, but, pot-bellied as it was, it looked more like a hen.
            The twenty-franc piece, called a marengo because it was minted by Napoleon in Turin in 1800 after the victory at Marengo, also remained in circulation for quite a while along with the Savoy gold coins. It bore on the obverse the bust of Minerva and on the reverse the motto: Libertà – Egalité – Eridania. It corresponded to the French coin called the gold Napoleon. The term “Eridania” stood for the land where the Po, the legendary Eridano, flows.
            The name marengo was also applied to the 20 lire new gold coin of Victor Emmanuel I, while marenghino was the 10 lire gold coin, therefore with half the value of the marengo, minted later by Charles Albert. Marengo and marenghino were terms often used interchangeably, like franc and lira. Don Bosco also used them in this way. We find an example in the preface to the “Galantuomo” in 1860 (the almanac-strenna for subscribers of the Letture Cattoliche). Don Bosco plays the part of a soft drink salesman following the Sardinian army in the ’59 war. At the battle of Magenta, he recounts, he loses his bag of money and the captain of the company compensates him with a handful of “fifteen glittering marenghini”.
            Writing on 22 May 1866 to Cav. Federico Oreglia, whom he sent to Rome to collect offerings for the new church of Mary Help of Christians, he tells him:
            “As for your stay in Rome, stay for an unlimited time, that is, until you have ten thousand francs to take home for the church and to pay the baker […].
            God bless you, Sir, and bless your labours and may your every word save a soul and earn a marengo. Amen” (E 459).
            Meaningful wish of Don Bosco to a generous collaborator!

Napoleons with and without hats
            From 1 May 1866, in addition to the gold coin, corresponding to the gold napoleon bearing the image of Napoleon with hat on the obverse, a paper currency of the same nominal value, but with a much lower real value, was forcibly issued in the now constituted Kingdom of Italy. The people immediately called it Napoleon with a bare head because it bore the effigy of Victor Emmanuel II without a hat.
            Don Bosco also knew this well when he had to repay Count Federico Calieri a loan of 1,000 francs he had made to him in 50 gold napoleons. He did not miss the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, taking advantage of the confidence he was granted. Countess Carlotta had in fact already promised him an offering for the new church. He therefore wrote to the Countess on 29 June 1866: “I will tell her that after tomorrow my debt to the Count expires and I must take care to pay the debt in order to acquire the credit. When you were in the Casa Collegno, you told me that at this time you would make a donation for the church and for St Joseph’s altar, but you did not fix the sum precisely. Therefore, have the goodness to tell me:
1) whether your charity involves making donations at this time for us and which ones;
2) where should I direct the money for Mr Conte?
3) if the Count has any payments that he can make with notes, or, as is reasonable, he should change the notes into napoleons according to what I have received” (E 477).
            As one can easily understand, Don Bosco relies on the Countess’s offer and proposes the settlement of his debt to the Count, if it will not be to anyone’s disadvantage, in paper napoleons. The answer came and was consoling. The money was to be sent to Cesare, the son of Count Callori, and could be in paper money. In fact Don Bosco wrote to Caesar on 23 July:
            “Before the end of this month I will bring the thousand francs to your house as you write to me and I will see to it that I bring as many napoleons but all with the head uncovered. For if I were to bring fifty napoleons with the hat on, perhaps they would burn down Jupiter, Saturn and Mars” (E 489).
            And shortly afterwards he would make the very convenient settlement, while the Countess at the same time gave him 1,000 francs for the pulpit of the new church (E 495). If there is a debt to be paid, there is Providence to be had!

Money and mortgages
            But Don Bosco did not only handle marenghi and napoleons. More often than not he found various items of small change, copper coins, in his pocket which he used for ordinary expenses such as taking a carraige when he left Turin, making small purchases and alms and perhaps making some gesture that we would call charismatic ones today, like when he poured the first eight soldi into the hands of the master builder Bozzetti for the construction of the new church of Mary Help of Christians.
            Eight soldi, equal to 4 coins of 10 cents or 8 coins of 5, corresponded to a mutta in the ancient system, a coin struck in copper with some silver, with an initial value of 20 Piedmontese soldi, soon reduced to eight soldi. It was the ancient Piedmontese lira that came into the world through Victor Amadeus III in 1794 and was only abolished in 1865. The word mutta – mota in Piedmontese (read: muta) – in itself means “clod” or “tile”. Mote was the name given to tiles made from oak bark, used for tanning leather, and, after use, still used for burning or keeping a fire burning. These tiles, which used to be as big as a loaf of bread, had been reduced by the avarice of the manufacturers to such minute proportions that the populace ended up calling Vittorio Amedeo’s lirette mote.
            According to the Biographical Memoirs certain Protestant zealots, in order to keep the boys away from Don Bosco’s Oratory, lured them by saying: ‘What are you going to do at the Oratory? Come with us, you will have as much fun as you like and you will get two mutte and a good book as a gift” (MB III, 402) Two mutte were enough to have a good snack.
            But Don Bosco also won people over with his mutte. One day he found himself sitting in the box next to the coachman who was swearing loudly to get the horses to run, and he promised him a mutta if he would refrain from swearing all the way to Turin, and he succeeded in his intention (MB VII, 189). After all, with a mutta the poor coachman could buy himself at least a litre of wine to drink with his colleagues, and at the same time treasure the words he had heard against the vice of blasphemy.

The saint of millions
            Don Bosco handled large sums of money in his life, collected at the price of enormous sacrifices, humiliating quests, laborious lotteries, incessant wanderings. With this money he gave bread, clothing, lodging and work to many poor boys, bought houses, opened hospices and colleges, built churches, launched not indifferent printing and publishing initiatives, launched the Salesian missions in America and, finally, already weakened by the aches and pains of old age, he erected the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Rome, in obedience to the Pope, a work that was not the least cause of his premature death.
            Not everyone understood the spirit that animated him, not everyone appreciated his multifarious activities and the anticlerical press indulged in ridiculous insinuations.
            On 4 April 1872 the Turin satirical periodical “Il Fischietto”, which nicknamed Don Bosco “Dominus Lignus”, said he was endowed with “fabulous funds” On 31 October 1886 the Roman newspaper “La Riforma”, the Crispini political paper, published an article on his missionary expeditions, ironically presenting the priest of Valdocco as “a true industrialist”, as the man who had understood “that the good market is the key to the success of all the greatest modern enterprises”, and went on to say, “Don Bosco has in him something of that industry that now wants to be nicknamed the Bocconi brothers”. These were the brothers Ferdinando and Luigi Bocconi, creators of the large retail stores opened in Milan in those years and later called “La Rinascente”. Luigi Pietracqua, novelist and dialectal playwright, a few days after Don Bosco’s death signed a satirical sonnet in the Turin newspaper “’L Birichin”, which began as follows:
            “Don Bòsch l’é mòrt – L’era na testa fin-a, Capace ‘d gavé ‘d sangh d’ant un-a rava, Perché a palà ij milion chiel a contava, E… sensa guadagneje con la schin-a!“.
            (Don Bosco is dead – He was an astute man, Capable of drawing blood from a turnip, Because he counted the millions by the handful, And… without earning them by his own sweat).
            And it went on extolling the miracle of Don Bosco who took money from everyone by filling his bag that had become as big as a vat (E as fasìa 7 borsòt gròss com na tina). Enriched in this way, he no longer needed to work, he merely gulled the gulls with prayers, crosses and holy masses. The blasphemous sonneteer concluded by calling Don Bosco “San Milion”.
            Those who know the style of poverty in which the saint lived and died can easily understand what kind of low-class humour Pietracqua was. Don Bosco was indeed a very skilful steward of the money that the charity of the good brought him, but he never kept anything for himself. The furniture in his little room at Valdocco consisted of an iron bed, a small table, a chair and, later, a sofa, with no curtains at the window, no carpets, not even a bedside table. In his last illness, tormented by thirst, when they provided him with a bottle of water seltzer to give him relief, but he did not want to drink it, believing it to be an expensive drink. It was necessary to assure him that it only cost seven cents a bottle. “He once more told Fr Viglietti: ‘Let me also have the pleasure of looking in the pockets of my clothes; there is my wallet and purse. I think there is nothing left; but if there is money, give it to Fr Rua. I want to die so that it will be said: Don Bosco died without a penny in his pocket” (MB XVIII, 493).
            Thus died the Saint of the Millions!

Don Bosco wrote at night by candlelight, after a day spent in prayer, talks, meetings, study, courtesy visits. Always practical, tenacious, with a prodigious vision of the future.

“Da mihi animas, cetera tolle” is the motto that inspired all of Don Bosco’s life and action from time of the wandering Oratory in Turin (1844) to his final initiatives on his deathbed (January 1888) for the Salesians to go to England and Ecuador. But for him souls were not separated from bodies, so much so that since the 1950s he had proposed to dedicate his life so that young people would be “happy on earth and then in heaven.” Earthly happiness for his “poor and abandoned” young people consisted in having a roof, a family, a school, a playground, friendships and pleasant activities (games, music, theatre, outings…) and above all a profession that would guarantee them a serene future.
This explains the “arts and trades” workshops at Valdocco – the future vocational schools – that Don Bosco created from nothing: an authentic start-up, to put it in today’s terms. He had initially offered himself as the first instructor for tailoring, bookbinding, shoemaking… but progress did not stop and Don Bosco wanted to be at the forefront.

The availability of engines
Starting in 1868, at the initiative of the mayor of Turin, Giovanni Filippo Galvagno, some of the Ceronda stream, which had its source at an altitude of 1,350 m, were captured by the Ceronda Canal to be distributed to various industries that were springing up in the northern area of the Piedmontese capital, Valdocco to be precise. The canal was then divided into two branches at the height of the Lucento district, the one on the right, completed in 1873, after crossing the Dora Riparia with a canal, continued to run parallel to what is now Corso Regina Margherita and Via San Donato to then discharge into the Po. Don Bosco, ever vigilant to what was happening in the city, immediately asked the City Hall for “the concession of at least 20 horsepower of water power” from the canal that would pass alongside Valdocco. Once the request was granted, he had the two inlets built at his own expense, arranged the machines in the workshops so that they could easily receive the motive power, and had an engineer study the engines needed for the purpose. When everything was ready, he asked the authorities on 4 July 1874 to proceed with the connection at his own expense. For several months he received no answer, so on 7 November he renewed his request. The response this time came fairly quickly. It seemed positive, but he asked for some clarifications first. Don Bosco replied in the following terms:

“Your Excellency the Mayor,
I hasten to convey to Your Excellency, the clarifications that I was pleased to ask you for in your letter of the 19th of this month, and I have the honour of notifying you that the industries to which the horsepower from the Ceronda water will be applied are:
1st Printing works for which no fewer than 100 workers are employed.
2nd Pulp factory with no fewer than 26 workers.
3rd Typeface foundry, copper engraving with no fewer than 30 workers.
4th Iron workshop with no fewer than 30 workers.
5th Carpenters, cabinet-makers, turners with hydraulic saw: no fewer than 40 workers.
Total workers more than 220.”

This number included instructors and young students. Given the situation, besides being subjected to unnecessary physical exertion, they would not have been able to withstand the competition. In fact, Don Bosco added: “These works are now done at the expense of a steam engine for the printing works, but for the other workshops they are done by manpower, in such a way that they could not withstand the competition of those who use water power.”
And in order to avoid possible delays and fears on the part of the public authorities, he immediately offered a warning: “We do not object to depositing a bill of public debt as security, as soon as it can be known what it should be.”

He always thought big… but was content with the possible
He had to think about the future, about new laboratories, new machines and so the demand for electricity would necessarily increase. Don Bosco then raised the demand and cited existential and contextual reasons:
“But while I accept the theoretical strength of ten horsepower, I find myself needing to note that this is totally insufficient for my needs, since the project which is being carried out was based on 30 [?] as I had the honour of expounding in my letter of November last. For this reason, I would ask you to take into consideration the construction work already underway, the nature of this institute, which lives on charity alone, the number of workers involved, the fact that we were among the first to subscribe and therefore be willing to grant us, if not the 30 horsepower promised, at least the largest amount available…”
“Word to the wise, one might say.

A successful entrepreneur
The amount of water granted to the Oratory on that occasion has not come down to us. The fact remains that Don Bosco once again demonstrates the qualities of a capable entrepreneur that everyone at the time recognised and still recognises in him today: a story of moral integrity, the right mix of humility and self-confidence, determination and courage, communication skills and an eye to the future. Obviously, the fuel for all his ambitions and aspirations was a single passion: souls. He had many collaborators, but somehow everything fell on his shoulders. Tangible proof of this are the thousands of letters, just one of which we have published here, corrected and re-corrected several times: letters he usually wrote in the evening or at night by candlelight, after a day spent in prayer, talks, meetings, study, courtesy calls. While drawing up his plans by day, by night he was then able to dream up how they would develop. And these would come in the following decades, with the hundreds of Salesian vocational schools scattered around the world, with tens of thousands of boys (and then girls) who would find a springboard to a future full of hope in them.

The archives speak of 16 August: but there is a curious and affectionate interpretation.

The archive data
The Register of Baptisms at the Parish of Sant’Andrea in Castelnuovo d’Asti puts it clearly in the parish priest Fr Sismondo’s Latin. Here is the English translation:
“17 August 1815. – Bosco Giovanni Melchiorre, son of Francesco Luigi and Margherita Occhiena Bosco, born yesterday evening and this evening solemnly baptised by the Very Reverend Fr Giuseppe Festa, assistant parish priest. The godparents were Occhiena Melchiorre of Capriglio and Bosco Maddalena, widow of the late Secondo Occhiena, of Castelnuovo.
Giuseppe Sismondo, Parish Priest and Vicar Forane.”

So, according to the official Baptismal Act, Don Bosco was born on the evening of 16 August 1815. Yet Don Bosco states in his “Memoirs”.
“I was born on the day dedicated to Mary Assumed into Heaven in 1815 in Murialdo, near Castelnuovo d’Asti.”
The difference seems obvious, even though Don Bosco did not write that he was born on 15 August, but simply “on the day dedicated to Mary Assumed into Heaven”.
Until Don Bosco’s death, the “day dedicated to Mary Assumed into Heaven” was always interpreted according to its most obvious meaning, namely, “15 August”, without Don Bosco making any remark about it.
This is what we read in the Salesian Bulletin, January 1879, as well as in Don Bosco and the Salesian Society published by Du Boys in Paris in 1884, and indeed on the parchment placed in Don Bosco’s casket on 2 February 1888 and also signed by Fr Rua.
Soon after Don Bosco’s death, however, the Salesians felt the urgency to gather all possible evidence about him in view of the Process of Beatification and Canonisation. It was in this climate of research that a Salesian from Castelnuovo d’Asti, Fr Secondo Marchisio, went to Castelnuovo d’Asti, with the intention of questioning the older people from Becchi, Castelnuovo and Moncucco on what they remembered of Don Bosco’s youth. After about three months of work, Fr Marchisio returned to Turin in October 1888 with a wealth of testimonies. Among other things, he had also made a point of consulting the parish archives at Castelnuovo where he had seen the baptismal record that indicated 16 August, and not 15, as Don Bosco’s date of birth.
It is therefore natural to wonder whether Don Bosco or his parish priest made a mistake, or whether the relatives had swapped dates, as sometimes happened, or whether, as some speculate, Don Bosco deliberately adjusted the date to make his birth fall on Assumption Day. To answer these questions, we should first recall the folk understanding of the time.

The Madonna of August in the people’s calendar
In our Piedmontese villages, and elsewhere, people used to indicate public holidays with the name of a saint, a feast, a festival, an event, rather than a date.
The first day of January was simply called “the day of the strenna” (él dì dla strena), the last days of that month “the days of the blackbird” (ij dì dla merla), and so on. 3 February was the day of the blessing of the throat; 6 June, in Turin, the day of the miracle; 23-24, the feast of St John; 8 September, Our Lady of September, and so on.
There was not as much concern then as there is today about calendar dates. Dates of birth, baptism and death could only be found in the parish registers, which, until 1866, were the only existing registers of births, and, moreover, until 1838, written only in Latin.
In this situation, one can understand how the three days of the August bank holiday, 14-15-16, were simply referred to as “the Madonna of August” (La Madòna d’agost).
The Feast of the Assumption was one of the most important and most heartfelt festivities of the year, and devotion to the Madonna of August was among the most deeply rooted and celebrated throughout Piedmont. Suffice it to think that the cathedrals in Asti, Ivrea, Novara, Saluzzo and Tortona are all dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption and that, even today, throughout the Piedmontese dioceses, no fewer than 201 parish churches are dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. To name but a few, we mention the parish of Arignano, Lauriano, Marentino, Riva presso Chieri and Villafranca d’Asti among the villages closest to Castelnuovo. And it is worth mentioning that the diocese of Acqui has 9 parishes dedicated to the Assumption: Alba has 10, Alessandria 9, Aosta 5, Asti 4, Biella 9, Casale 9, Cuneo 4, Fossano 3, Ivrea 12, Mondovì 18, Novara 34, Pinerolo 6, Saluzzo 12, Susa 7, Turin 16, Vercelli 18, Tortona 28, 16 of which are in Piedmontese territory.
As one can therefore imagine, the feast of Our Lady in August was celebrated solemnly everywhere with processions and festivals lasting a minimum of three days. Even today in Castelnuovo Don Bosco, the Feast of the Assumption (èl dì dla Madòna – note the similarity with Don Bosco’s words, the day dedicated to Mary Assumed into Heaven) is celebrated with great solemnity. After a devout novena of prayer, everyone flocks to Our Lady of the Castle for the procession, authorities and townspeople alike. Eight days of merriment follow with jousts and floats in the square. Needless to say, the feast of St Roch, on 16 August, is not considered a feast in itself, but practically merged with that of the Assumption.

The date of Don Bosco’s birth

It is only by considering these customs and devotions that one can come to understand the date of Don Bosco’s birth. Mamma Margaret must have always told her son John: “You were born on Our Lady of August.” We obviously have no written record of this, but those who know the environment and the language cannot really imagine any other expression on her lips. And when in 1873, on the orders of Pius IX, Don Bosco was finally about to compile his “Memoirs”, Italianising his mother’s Piedmontese expression (a la Madòna d’agost) with one of the many snippets of dialect so frequent in his writing, he wrote: “I was born on the day dedicated to Mary Assumed into Heaven in 1815.”
Fr Eugenio Ceria, Don Bosco’s biographer, as a good Piedmontese, gives the phrase the interpretation we have made our own: “It is worth remembering that in Piedmont, regarding something that happened a little before or a little after 15 August, it is often said, without too much detail, that it happened on The Madonna of August, and everyone easily sees how it was.”

Fr Michele Molineris, an attentive collector of local customs, is of the same opinion, while Fr Teresio Bosco puts forward a new possible interpretation: “His mother had told him many times:  ‘You were born on Our Lady’s day’, and Don Bosco, throughout his life , said that he was born on 15 August 1815, the feast of the Assumption. Did he never go and consult the parish register where it is written that he was born on 16 August? A mistake by his mother? A distraction by the parish priest? Probably neither. In those days, parish priests demanded of the faithful that they bring newborns for baptism within the first twenty-four hours. Many fathers, in order not to risk the life of the child, would bring the child to him a few days later, and in order not to provoke the parish priest’s wrath, they would postpone the day of the birth. This is what happened to Giuseppe Verdi, a contemporary of Don Bosco, and to many others. And the children believed the mothers more than the registers.”
The writer of this article knows that he was born on 27 August; yet the registry documents assign him the 28th as his day of birth. So he will not be the first to deny the possibility of Fr Teresio’s hypothesis that Don Bosco may really have been born on the 15th.
What is unacceptable, however, is the hypothesis that it was a trick by Don Bosco, so that by manipulating the date of his birth, he could construct a legend for himself, a sort of exemplary biography that would have the hero’s birth on the 15th of August, the exact day of the Assumption, as the first act of Providence in his regard.
Don Bosco was undoubtedly a very skilful storyteller who knew how to colour and amplify details to arouse interest, amazement or hilarity in his young listeners, or round up the figures to open purse strings and make people reflect on the unstoppable development of his work, but he was not an inveterate liar, nor was he naive. Who can imagine him so clueless as to be unaware that sooner or later the true date of his birth would be known?
It should rather be clear to those who know the Saint of the Becchi that he was not fixated on the chronological meaning of dates but on their religious one. For him, human history, even his personal history, was sacred history, providential history of salvation. He saw a divine plan in his own life, and he wanted his people to remember it for their encouragement.

To sum up
We can therefore summarise and conclude by saying that the date of 16 August provided by the parish register is, most probably, the correct one; but it cannot be completely excluded that Don Bosco was in fact born on the 15th.
Be that as it may, Don Bosco knew he was born “on the Madonna of August” and was happy about it.
The two dates of the 15th and 16th were not, in the popular understanding of the time, substantially separate. They were a single festivity, the Assumption. One could therefore speak in both cases of a “day dedicated to Mary Assumed into Heaven”.
We are not aware of Don Bosco expressly speaking of “15 August”, but it is possible, all the more so since it cannot be excluded, that he believed that date to be correct.
Certainly this is what his followers believed before his death, interpreting statements: “I was born on the Madonna of August” in its narrowest sense (not forgetting that most people spoke with Don Bosco, in private conversation, in Piedmontese).
His saintly mother Margaret had also told him when he entered the seminary: “When you came into the world, I consecrated you to the Blessed Virgin Mary; when you began your studies, I recommended to you devotion to this Mother of ours. Now I say to you, be completely hers: love those of your companions who have devotion to Mary; and, if you become a priest, always preach and promote devotion to Mary.” And so Don Bosco did throughout his life.
On a cold winter morning, 31 January 1888, Don Bosco closed his earthly pilgrimage at Valdocco to the sounds of the Hail Mary. It would be the end of a long and tiring journey he had embarked on on a hot summer evening of the “Madonna of August” at the Colle dei Becchi.

Who would have thought it? Don Bosco as an early ecologist? Don Bosco pioneering door-to-door waste collection 140 years ago?

We could say so, at least according to one of the letters we have recovered in recent years and which can be found in the 9th volume of the Epistolary (no. 4144). It is a printed circular from 1885 that in its own small way – the city of Turin at the time – anticipates and, obviously in its own way, “solves” the major problems facing our society, the so-called “consumer” and “throwaway” society.

The addressee
Since it is a circular letter, the addressee is generic, someone who may or may not be known. Don Bosco cunningly “captures” the reader’s attention immediately by calling him “well-deserving and charitable”. Having said this, Don Bosco points out to his correspondent a fact that is there for all to see:

“Your Excellency will know that the bones, left over from the canteen and generally thrown in the rubbish bin by families as waste, when collected in large quantities are then useful to human industry, and are therefore sought after by men of art [= industry] who are paid a few pence per myriagram. A company in Turin, with whom I am in contact, would buy them in any quantity.” So, what would be a nuisance, both at home and away from home, perhaps in the streets around the city, can be wisely used to the advantage of many.

A high purpose
At this point Don Bosco launches his proposal: “In view of this and in conformity with what is already being practised in some countries on behalf of other charitable institutes, I have come up with the idea of appealing to the well-to-do and benevolent families in this illustrious city, and begging them that instead of letting the leftovers from their table go to waste and become useless, they give it freely for the benefit of the poor orphans gathered in my Institutes, and especially for the benefit of the Missions in Patagonia where the Salesians, at great expense and at the risk of their own lives, are teaching and civilising the savage tribes, so that they may enjoy the fruits of Redemption and true progress. Similar recourse and such a prayer I therefore make to Your Excellency, convinced that you will take them into benign consideration and grant them.”

The project seemed appealing to several parties: families would get rid of some of the table waste, the company would be interested in collecting it to reuse it in other ways (food for animals, fertilisers for the countryside, etc.); Don Bosco would get money from it for the missions… and the city would remain cleaner.

A perfect organisation
The situation was clear, the goal was high, the benefits were there for all, but it may not be enough. It was necessary to collect bones “door to door” throughout the city. Don Bosco did not flinch. Seventy years old, he now had deep insights, long experience but also great managerial skills. So, he organised this “enterprise”, taking care to avoid the ever-potential abuses in the various phases of the collection operation: “Those families who are good enough to accept this humble request of mine will be given a special bag where they will put the bones mentioned, which will often be collected and weighed by a person appointed by the purchasing company, and issued a receipt, which in the event of a check with the company itself will be collected from time to time in my name. In this way, Your Excellency will have no other choice but to issue the appropriate orders so that these useless leftovers from your canteen, which would otherwise be lost, may be placed in the same bag, to be delivered to the collector and then sold and used by charity. The bag will bear the initials O. S. (Salesian Oratory), and the person who comes to empty it will also present some sign to make himself known to Your Excellency or to the family.”
What can we say other than that the project seems valid in all its parts, even better than some similar projects in our third-millennium cities!

The incentives
Obviously, the proposal had to be supported with some incentive, certainly not economic or promotional, but moral and spiritual. Which? Here it is: “Your Excellency will be well-deserving of the above-mentioned works, you will have the gratitude of thousands of poor youngsters, and what is more important, you will receive the reward promised by God to all those who strive for the moral and material well-being of their fellow men.”

A precise approach
As a practical person, he devised what we might call a very modern approach to succeed in his undertaking: he asked his recipients to send him back the coupon, placed at the foot of the letter, bearing his address: “I would ask you again to assure me of this, for my sake and for the completion of the procedures to be carried out, by detaching and sending me back the part of this printed matter which bears my address. As soon as I have your acceptance, I will give the order that the aforementioned bag be delivered to you.”
Don Bosco closed his letter with the usual formula of thanks and good wishes, which was so much appreciated by his correspondents.
Don Bosco, besides being a great educator, a far-sighted founder, a man of God, was also a genius of Christian charity.

But who would believe it? Don Bosco’s ‘vision’ was such that he… saw so many things!
An elderly priest, a former pupil at Valdocco, wrote in 1889: “What stood out most in Don Bosco was his gaze. It was gentle but penetrated to the depths of the heart, and one could hardly resist gazing at him. So, it can be said that his eye attracted, terrified, arrived on purpose. In my travels around the world, I have never met a person whose gaze was more impressive than his. Portraits and paintings do not generally represent this feature.”
Another former pupil from the 1970s, Pietro Pons, reveals in his recollections: “Don Bosco had two eyes that pierced and penetrated the mind… He used to walk around talking and looking at everyone with those two eyes roving every which way, electrifying hearts with joy.”
Salesian Fr Pietro Fracchia, a pupil of Don Bosco, recalled an encounter he had with the saint sitting at his desk. The young man dared to ask him why he wrote like that with his head down and turned to the right, as he wrote. Don Bosco, smiling, answered him: “The reason is this, you see! From this eye Don Bosco can no longer see, and from this other very little!” “You see very little? But then how is it that the other day in the courtyard, while I was far away from you, you looked at me as vividly, brightly, as penetrating as a ray of sunlight?”  “Well…! You people immediately think and see who knows what…!”
And yet that’s how it was. And the examples could be multiplied. With his scrutinising eye, Don Bosco penetrated and guessed everything in the youngsters: their character, intelligence, heart. Some of them purposely tried to escape his presence because they could not bear his gaze. Fr Dominic Belmonte assured us that he had personally witnessed this: “Many times Don Bosco looked at a young man in such a special way that his eyes said what his lips did not say at that moment, and made him understand what he wanted from him.”
Often, he would follow a young man with his gaze in the courtyard, while he was conversing with others. Suddenly the young man’s gaze would meet Don Bosco’s and he would understand. He would approach him to ask what he wanted from him and Don Bosco would whisper it in his ear. Perhaps it was an invitation to confession.
One night a pupil could not get to sleep. He sighed, he bit the sheets, he cried. The classmate sleeping next to him, woken up by this agitation, asked him: “What’s the matter? What’s the matter with you?” “What’s wrong with me? Last night Don Bosco looked at me!” “Oh, wonderful! That’s nothing new. There’s no need to disturb the whole dormitory for that!” In the morning he told Don Bosco and Don Bosco replied: “Ask him what his conscience says!” One can imagine the rest.

More testimonies from Italy, Spain and France

Fr Michele Molineris, in his Vita episodica di don Bosco published posthumously at Colle in 1974, gives another series of testimonies on Don Bosco’s gaze. We refer to just three of them, also as a way of remembering this scholar of the Saint who, in addition to the rest, had a unique knowledge of the places and people of John Bosco’s childhood. But let us come to the testimonies he collected.
Bishop Felice Guerra personally recalled the vividness of Don Bosco’s gaze, declaring that it penetrated like a double-edged sword to the point of plumbing hearts and moving consciences. And yet “he could not see out of one eye and even the other was of little use to him!”
Fr John Ferrés, parish priest at Gerona in Spain, who saw Don Bosco in 1886, wrote that “he had very lively eyes, a penetrating gaze…. Looking at him I felt forced to look within and examine my soul.”
Mr Accio Lupo, an usher for Minister Francesco Crispi, who had introduced Don Bosco to the statesman’s office, remembered him as “an emaciated priest… with penetrating eyes!”.

And finally, we recall impressions gathered from his travels in France. Cardinal John Cagliero reported the following fact he noticed personally when accompanying Don Bosco. After a conference held in Nice, Don Bosco left the presbytery of the church to go to the door, surrounded by the crowd that would not let him walk. A grim-looking individual stood motionless, watching him as if he were up to no good. Fr Cagliero, who was keeping an eye on him, uneasy about what might happen, saw the man approaching. Don Bosco addressed him: “What do you want?”  “Me? Nothing!” “Yet you seem to have something to tell me!” “I have nothing to tell you” “Do you want to go to confession?” “Hear my confession? Not by a long shot!” “Then what are you doing here?”  “I am here because … I cannot leave!” “I understand … Gentlemen, leave me alone for a moment”, Don Bosco said to those around him. The neighbours drew back, Don Bosco whispered a few words in man’s ear and he fell to his knees, and went to confession there in the middle of the church.
More curious was the event in Toulon, which happened during Don Bosco’s trip to France in 1881.
After a conference in St Mary’s parish church, Don Bosco, with a silver plate in his hand, went around the church begging. Don Bosco presented him with the plate a worker turned his face away, shrugging his shoulders rudely. Don Bosco gave him a loving look as he passed by and said: “God bless you!”  The worker then put his hand in his pocket and placed a penny on the plate. Don Bosco, staring him in the face, said: “May God reward you.” The other, making the gesture again, offered two pennies. And Don Bosco said: “May God reward you more and more!” The man, hearing this, took out his purse and gave a franc. Don Bosco gave him a look filled with emotion and went off. But the man, as if drawn by some magical force, followed him through the church, went after him into the sacristy, followed him into the city and stayed behind him until he saw him disappear. The power of Don Bosco’s gaze!
Jesus said: “The eyes are like the lamp for the body; if your eyes are good you will be totally in the light.”
Don Bosco’s eyes were totally in the Light!

On 21 February 1875 some Salesians decided to set up an “historical commission” to “collect memories of Don Bosco’s life”, committing themselves to “write down and together read what we write in order to ensure the greatest possible accuracy” (so we read in the minutes written by Fr Michael Rua). Among them was a young 28-year-old priest who had recently been appointed by Don Bosco to organise and direct the Salesian Congregation’s novitiate, in accordance with the Constitutions officially approved the previous year. His name was Fr Giulio Barberis, best known for being the first novice master of Don Bosco’s Salesians, a role he held for twenty-five years. He was later Provincial and then Spiritual Director of the Congregation from 1910 until his death in 1927.
He was more involved than the others in the “historical commission”, preserving memories and testimonies of Don Bosco’s activities and life at the Valdocco Oratory from May 1875 to June 1879, when he left Turin to move to the new novitiate site in San Benigno Canavese. He left us copious documentation that is still preserved in the Central Salesian Archives, among which the fifteen handwritten notebooks he entitled Cronichetta stand out for their significance. Many scholars and biographers of St John Bosco have drawn from them (starting with Fr Lemoyne for his Biographical Memoirs), but until now they have remained unpublished. A critical edition was published last year, making this important and direct testimony on Don Bosco and the beginnings of the Congregation he founded available to everyone.

Fr Giulio Barberis, a graduate of the University of Turin, was an attentive and precise man in his work, and reading the pages of his Cronichetta one can see how passionately and carefully he tried to complete this work as well. Unfortunately, with regret and sorrow, he repeatedly points out that either for health reasons or because of his numerous other commitments, he had to suspend the drafting of the notebooks or limit himself to summarising or merely hinting at certain facts. At one point he finds himself having to write: “What a painful suspension. Forgive me, my dear Cronichetta: if I suspend you so many times and with such long suspensions, it is not that I do not love you above all other work, but it is out of necessity, that is, to complete my duties first, at least in the main” (Notebook XI, p. 36). Therefore, we are not surprised if the form of his entries is not always neat, with some ill-constructed sentences or some spelling inaccuracies; this in no way detracts from what he has passed on to us.

The notebooks are a mine of information with the advantage of immediacy compared to other later narratives, which are more literary, but necessarily reworked and reinterpreted. We find evidence of important events, such as the first missionary expedition of 1875, the preparation, departure and effects of which are recounted in detail.

The most important feasts are described (e.g. Mary Help of Christians or the birth of St John the Baptist, Don Bosco’s name day) and how they were celebrated. We can learn about the ordinary and extraordinary activities at Valdocco (the school, the theatre, music, visits from various personalities…): how they were prepared and managed, what worked well and what needed to be improved, how the Salesians under Don Bosco’s guidance organised themselves and worked together, without hiding some critical aspects. There are also small aspects of everyday life: health, food, the economy and many other details. From these chronicles, however, the spirit that animated the whole work also emerges: the passion that sustained the often overwhelming commitment, the affection for Don Bosco by both Salesians and boys, the style and educational choices, the care for the growth of vocations and the formation of young Salesians. At a certain point the author notes: “Oh, that we might consume our whole life to the last breath in working in the Congregation for the greater glory of God, but in such a way that not a single breath in our life might have any other purpose” (Notebook VII, pg. 9).

The Cronichetta also presents a precise portrait of Don Bosco in his mature years. On 15 August 1878 Fr Barberis wrote: “Don Bosco’s birthday. Born as he was in 1815, he turned 63. A celebration was held. He made use of this occasion to distribute prizes to the artisans. Poems were printed as usual and many were read out” (Notebook XIII, p. 82). Many records dwell on the personality characteristics of the father and teacher of boys, including certain aspects that have been lost in later biographical narratives, such as his interest in the archaeological and scientific discoveries of his time. But above all, the total dedication to his work appears, in those years in particular the commitment to consolidate the Salesian Congregation and to expand its range of activity more and more with the foundation of new houses in Italy and abroad.

It is, however, difficult to summarise the very rich content of these notebooks. An attempt has been made in the introduction to the volume to identify some core ideas that range from the history of the Salesian Congregation and the life of Don Bosco (there are several passages in which Barberis mentions “former matters at the oratory”) to the formation model at Valdocco and management and organisational aspects. The introduction also deals with other issues related to the document: the use made of it, with special reference to the Biographical Memoirs, the historical value to be given to the information, the purpose for which it was written, and the language and style used. Regarding this last point, we note how the author, according to what he learned from Don Bosco himself, has enriched his chronicle with dialogues, amusing episodes, “good nights” and dreams of Don Bosco, thus making the reading also interesting and pleasant.

The volume also bears more general witness to the historical time in which it was written, in particular the troubled period following Italian unification. In March 1876 there was a change of government for the first time led by the party of the historical Left. In the eighth notebook of the Cronichetta on 6 August 1876 we find a record of the reception held at the Salesian boarding school in Lanzo on the occasion of the inauguration of the new railway, at which various ministers took part. Don Bosco’s interaction with politicians and his interest in the affairs of Italy and other states is well documented and the historical notes at the end of each notebook provide essential information. Even more mundane news items find a place in the various entries, such as the laying of submarine cables for the electric telegraph or some health and medical beliefs of the time.

This publication is a critical edition, therefore mainly aimed at scholars of Salesian history, but also those who wish to delve deeper into certain aspects of the person of the holy founder of the Salesians and his work will find great benefit from reading it. Once one overcomes the obstacle of reading 19th century Italian, it is often enjoyable.

Fr. Massimo SCHWARZEL, sdb

Saint Louis Orione: “My most beautiful years were those spent in the Salesian Oratory.”

An emotional recollection of the saintly Father Orione.
Who does not know the song Giù dai colli, un dì lontano con la sola madre accanto (Down from the hills, one day a long time ago, with just his mother beside him)? Very few, I would say, since it is still sung in dozens of languages in over 100 countries around the world. But I would think that very few would know the comment made by the elderly Fr (St) Louis Orione during the (sung!) mass on 31 January 1940 by the Orionians from Tortona at 4.45 a.m. (exactly the time when Don Bosco had died 52 years earlier). Here are his precise words (taken from Orione sources):
“The hymn to Don Bosco that begins with the words Giù dai colli was composed and set to music for Don Bosco’s Beatification. The explanation of the first stanza is this. On the death of the saint, the government of the time, despite the fact that all the young people wanted it and all Turin wanted it, did not allow Don Bosco’s body to be buried at Mary Help of Christians, and it seemed to be a great favour that his beloved body be buried at Valsalice… a beautiful house! So, the body was taken to Valsalice and there, every year until the Beatification, the Salesian pupils went to visit their Father on the day of Don Bosco’s death, to pray. After Don Bosco was beatified, his body was taken to Mary Help of Christians. And the verse you sang Oggi, o Padre, torni ancora (Today, Father, you return once more) also recalls this. It celebrates Don Bosco returning among the young again, from Valsalice – which is on a hill beyond the Po – to Turin, which is on the plain.”

His memories of that day

Fr Orione continued: “The Lord gave me the grace to be present, in 1929, at that glorious moment, which was a triumph in Turin in celebration, amidst unspeakable joy and enthusiasm, I too was close to the triumphal float. The whole journey was made on foot from Valsalice to the Oratory. And with me, immediately behind it, was a man in a red shirt, a Garibaldino; we were close together, side by side. He was one of the oldest of Don Bosco’s first pupils; when he heard that it was Don Bosco’s body that was being transported, he too was behind the carriage. And they all sang: ‘Don Bosco returns among the young once more.’ It was a moment of joy; the young people sang and the people of Turin waved handkerchiefs and threw flowers. We also passed in front of the Royal Palace. I remember that the Prince of Piedmont stood on the balcony, surrounded by generals; the carriage stopped for a moment and he nodded his approval; the Salesian superiors bowed their heads, as if to thank him for that act of homage to Don Bosco. Then the carriage reached Mary Help of Christians. And a few minutes later the Prince also came, surrounded by members of the Royal Household, to pay an act of devotion to the new Blessed.”

“My best years”
As a boy, Louis Orione had lived with Don Bosco for three years, from 1886 to 1889. He recalled them forty years later in these moving terms: “My best years were those spent in the Salesian Oratory. Oh, if only I could relive even a few of those days spent at the Oratory when Don Bosco was alive!” He had loved Don Bosco so much that he had been granted, by way of exception, to go to confession to him even when his physical strength was at its lowest. In the last of these conversations (17 December 1887) the holy educator had confided to him: “We will always be friends.”

A total friendship, theirs, which is why it is not surprising that shortly afterwards 15-year-old Louis immediately joined the list of boys at Valdocco who offered their lives to the Lord so that their beloved Father’s life may be preserved. The Lord did not accept his heroic request, but “reciprocated” his generosity with Don Bosco’s first miracle after his death: on contact with his corpse, the index finger of Louis’ right hand was reattached and healed. The boy, who was left-handed, had cut it while he was preparing small pieces of bread to be placed on Don Bosco’s body which was displayed in the church of St Francis de Sales, to distribute as relics to the many devotees.
Nonetheless, the young man did not become a Salesian: on the contrary, he had the certainty that the Lord was calling him to another vocation, precisely after having “consulted” with Don Bosco before his tomb at Valsalice. And so Providence wanted there to be one less Salesian, but one more religious Family, the Orione Family, which would radiate, in new and original ways, the “imprint” received from Don Bosco: love for the Blessed Sacrament and the sacraments of confession and communion, devotion to Our Lady and love for the Pope and the Church, the preventive system, apostolic charity towards “poor and abandoned” young people, etc.

And Fr Rua?
Fr Orione’s sincere and deep friendship with Don Bosco then became an equally sincere and deep friendship with Fr Rua, which continued until the latter’s death in 1910. In fact, as soon as he heard of the worsening of his health, Fr Orione immediately ordered a novena and rushed to his bedside. He would later recall this last visit with particular emotion: “When he fell ill, as I was in Messina. I telegraphed Turin to ask if I would still be able to see him alive if I left immediately. I was told yes; I took the train and left for Turin. Fr Rua welcomed me, smiling, and gave me his very special blessing for me and for all those who would come to our House. I assure you it was the blessing of a saint.”
When the news of his death reached him, he sent a telegram to Fr (Blessed) Philip Rinaldi: “a past pupil pupil of the venerable Don Bosco, I join with the Salesians in mourning the death of Fr Rua who was an unforgettable spiritual father to me. We are all praying here. Fr Orione.” The Salesians wanted to bury Fr Rua at Valsalice, next to Don Bosco, but there were difficulties from the city authorities. Immediately with another telegram, on 9 April, Fr Orione offered Fr Rinaldi his help: “If difficulties arise for burying Fr Rua at Valsalice, please telegraph me, I could easily help them.”
It was a great sacrifice for him not to be able to cross Italy from Messina to Turin to attend Fr Rua’s funeral. But now Bosco, Rua, Orione, Rinaldi are all in heaven, side by side in God’s one big family.