Reading: St. John Bosco

The Man and the Saint  3
A Reading on St John Bosco

People often said of Don Bosco: “Really, he is quite an ordinary person.”
There was nothing about him that revealed his mission, his profound spirituality or
his sanctity…Only his expression showed the fire that burnt in his heart. His clear
eyes looked right through you, and their brightness was disturbing.

His confidence in God was extreme. He had the faith that moves mountains.
He never doubted as to the outcome of any undertaking. If he were only sure of his
usefulness, he was certain of its success. Obstacles might arise; he laughed at them,
while fighting against them or getting round them. Financial or other means might
be lacking; if they did not come in today, he expected them tomorrow. “The main
thing,” he said, relying upon a long experience, “is to take the burden on one’s
shoulders. As you go forward, the load finds its balance and shakes down.” The
hardest humiliations, the bitterest disillusions, the strongest opposition all left him
smiling. Whence came his serenity?… He abandoned himself in the arms of God
with the uttermost love.

To him, the love of God was one with the love of souls. The second
commandment was like the first and greatest. Not only did this love of souls make
him relish all the miseries of the way, but it also inspired him to pray with an almost
wild boldness. At the beginning of his work he asked his heavenly Benefactress for
a thousand places in Paradise, and he tells us he was given them. Later on,
confronted with the unexpected growth of his enterprise, he went further and asked
for ten thousand places. At last, seeing his Houses all over the world, he was still
more pressing, and asked for a hundred thousand reserved seats for his Sons. And
this time, too, he was certain of having been granted them…His simple and calm
audacity in expressing the deepest of his desires, the salvation of souls, enables us to
surmise the degree of intimacy he had reached in prayer. In truth, such prayer was
the very life of his soul. One of those who knew him best said: “He seemed to live in
a state of permanent contemplation. He worked, indeed, upon the earth, but his
spirit was up yonder, in heaven.”

…Many, we know, have thought that prayer held but a small place in his
timetable. They are mistaken…Don Bosco was incessantly in union with Christ and
His Mother. There was no ecstasy, no irradiation of countenance, no uplifting from
the ground; but more certainly, he used all forms of prayer, vocal or mental, and
especially, that which suddenly elevates the soul till it confronts some divine truth,
embracing it in a single view and possessing it with rejoicing.

This humble and diffident priest never made any claim to be the founder of a
mystical school; but had he started any system of asceticism, he would probably
have based it on the old saying, in its fullest and truest sense: “To work is to pray.”
His own work never was apart from God. It was done under God’s eyes and for Him
only. And the manifold occupations of his hustled days, far from destroying his
serenity, only bound his heart more closely to its source of light and strength and
love – Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, and their servant never ceased feeling
them at his side.

…By the contrast between his humble appearance and the splendour of his
soul, we are driven to acknowledge that this man makes a great figure in the train of
sanctity. There are some Saints more impressive, greater wonder-workers, more
worldwide in their sphere of influence, to be found throughout the twenty centuries
of Christianity; but there are few more striking and more taking personalities to be
met with in the history of the Church.

3 A. Auffray, S.D.B. Saint John Bosco. North Arcot – South India: Salesian House, Tirupattur, 1959. 370-371, 380-382, 388.