St. John Melchoir Bosco - Don Bosco

St. John Melchoir Bosco - Don Bosco

The �Salesians’ being the second largest Catholic order in the world exists for only one reason,

�for the youth.’ Its sole purpose is to continue practicing Don Bosco’s living practices and

teachings; to continue to teach and treat the youth of the world with love, kindness and goodness

rather than with curse and anger. Don Bosco was an educational practitioner rather than

an educational theorist, and so his way of teaching the young was completely different to that

of his era. Because of his different stance in the system, his way of

teaching the children was often misunderstood and he was critcised

and opposed by the civil and church authorities for some time. Despite

these circumstances, Don continued to work with the youth in a

loving manner rather than the repressive way, which was approved

and acknowledged by the society in general as the correct method of dealing with the young

during the time. His early childhood experiences and with his mother’s in his life were said to

be the biggest influences upon the development of his work with the youth and the Salesian

education legacy.

Don Bosco was born in northern Italy on 16 August 1815 in a religious Catholic family. He grew up without a fatherly

figure and was bought up in a highly dysfunctional family that lived in dire poverty. Because of these experiences in his

early years, Don later as a priest felt the sorrow of so many orphans in his country and the world. Despite dire poverty

and severe family dysfunction, Don’s early life is characterised by great vivacity, deep religiosity and a willingness and

ability to do almost anything. He demonstrated a great aptitude for study. He entertained both the young and old with

his acrobatic abilities and held them spellbound with his talent for story telling. At such an early age, Don began to work

with the youth, and continued this work to the very day he died. Don Bosco’s work however did not end with his death,

rather it continued to lived on today and forever.

Like it says in the many history texts available today, Don was destined to live his life for God. His destiny in becoming a

priest was first recognised by his mother, Margaret when he was only nine years old. As Margaret heard the recount of

his prophetic dream of �wild animals transforming into lambs under the guidance of two mysterious personages,’ she

recognised Don’s future as being a priest. Don’s dream of the transformation of wild animals into lambs is said to be his

first immediate religious experience with God.

As a child, Don was a very religious Catholic boy. A religious matter that existed and found was a deep concern for Don.

When Don saw that Catholic priests were not fulfilling their role, he immediately reported it back to his mother. He

commented to his mother, on the fact that priests were cold and distant as they never bothered to speak to Don whenever

they met him on the road. He also said to his mother, “If I am ever a priest, I won’t be like that. I shall devote my life

to young people. Children shall never see me pass by them looking grave and distant.” From Don’s way of thinking and

living as a religious child, he not only wanted to become a priest for the salvation of the youth but he was destined to.

Young Don Bosco knew he was sent down by God to become a friend of the young after he had his second prophetic

dream. In Don’s second prophetic dream, he saw himself in the middle of a crowd of children at play, some of whom

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Do n Bo s c o , A F r i e nd o f Yout h

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were cursing. Suddenly, the young Don threw himself at these, cursing, hitting and kicking them to

make them quiet. But a man identified as Jesus appeared before him and said, “Don’t hit them, but with

kindness and love you must win over these friends… I shall give you a teacher under whose guidance

you will be able to become wise, and without whom, all wisdom becomes nonsense.” The teacher that

Jesus sent down to Don was the Virgin Mary. The virgin Mary taught Don that being repressive to children

was not an effective way rather using his kindness and goodness to teach them would be more

efficient. Later in Don’s life, he created the �preventive system’, which involves teaching kids with love, kindness and

goodness.

The �repressive system consists’ in making the law known to children, and

afterwards watching to discover the transgressors of these laws, and inflicting,

when necessary, the punishment deserved. The repressive system

is a harsh, mean, threatening and cold method of dealing with children.

This system was completely in practice during the era Don lived in. However,

the loving and caring Don Bosco detested and opposed this system.

Rather than using the repressive system,