Vigils Reading – St John Bosco

GIVE ME SOULS, AND TAKE ALL THE REST AWAY

A reading on St Don Bosco4

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Don Bosco has struck the imagination of all who have known him and his

work. There is no doubt that he was one of the most wonderful of men, and even

in that galaxy of great names which is the catalogue of Saints, he occupies a

place apart.

[Paul Claudel said that “In the Church there are some who made a

profession of sanctity…; who, from the very first, had the Calendar of Saints as

a goal. Don Bosco had no time for this, and we can readily believe that if he

became a saint it was not his fault.”]

Genius as well as Saint, it is often difficult to see where the one ends and

the other begins. Simple as a child and mostly to be found in the dust and clamor

of a playground crowded with children, he plays also with miracles and

prophecies, which he seems to make for fun. His speech is simple: so simple

that children listen fascinated to his new kind of eloquence — an eloquence very

different from that of the pulpit orators of the time. And his mind is so wise,

that ministers, kings and popes listen to his advice.

A poor man, of poor parents, more millions passed through his hands

than through those of many a banker. He spent them with the prodigality of an

American playboy, when it was a question of the salvation of souls; but he was

as tight with each cent as the peasants he came from, when it was a question of

his person, or his comfort. He had the shrewdness of a captain of industry and

a trust in God that made him undertake even the impossible when he saw it was

for God’s glory.

Above all, he was the most lovable of men. To know him was to love him,

and often to be so fascinated as to be physically unable to leave him.

His chosen, or better, his God-given mission was education, and he is the

educator of modern times. A man who could do with children what no man has

ever done; he could attach to himself the little ruffians that roam the streets and

make of them lovable, ideal young men.

Indeed, Don Bosco as a man, as a Saint, as an Educator occupies a place

apart. [He had a tremendous love for God and for souls, and not much for

anything else.] His motto was “Give me souls, and take all the rest

away.”

4 From the Preface to Saint John Bosco, by A. Auffray; Salesian House: Tirpattur, India, 1959.9