Jean Bosco

Biography

Childhood

Jean Bosco was born into 1815 with the Becchi , group of small farms of the hamlet of Castelnuovo d' Asti (now Castelnuovo Don Bosco), close to Turin in the Italian Piedmont. His/her parents are the country poor, and his/her mother becomes widowed with three children.

Its character and its good mannerss, its Dexterity and its exceptional intelligence give him a great influence on the children of its age, which it involves with him towards the entertainments and the Prière. Equipped with an extraordinary memory, he has fun to repeat with his friends the Sermon S which he heard with the church. They are there the first signs of its vocation Apostolique. Its sacerdotal career was extraordinarily fertile.

Formation and ordination

It cannot make studies, its family being too poor, that with the assistance of benefactors or the money which it gains while working. It is ordered priest in June 1841 and is devoted to the young people of the poor and given up districts of Turin, in particular with the young workmen. It is called “Don Bosco”.

Jean Bosco, moved by body and spiritual miseries by given up youth, decides to join together, every Sunday, some vagrants whom it informs, moralise, makes request, all in their getting distractions. But this work is not enough to maintain the Christian and body life these children. Without another resource that its burning Charity, it decides with the assistance of his/her mother, Marguerite Occhienna which had accepted to accompany it in Turin, to open a Refuge, offering the roof and cover for most disinherited.

Oratory

For the young people, it opens with its expenses, with Turin, the Oratory Saint-François-of-Dirty, a kind of hearth whose activities unceasingly will widen (course of the evening in 1844, a hearth of apprentices in 1847, a secondary school and holiday camps (1848), courses professional and a collection of catholic readings (1853), organization of the leisures,…)

Salésiens and Salésiennes

To face the development of this action, it is surrounded educational priests with whom it founds the January 26th 1854 the Company of Saint François Dirty (of which the members are usually called “Salésien S”), responsible for the education of the children poor, thus named in homage to François de Sales. It will be approved in 1869 by Pie IX. In 1872, with Marie-Dominique Mazzarello, Jean Bosco founds the Institute of the Filles of Marie-Auxiliatrice (or Salésien born).

In 1876, it makes approve a manner of Third-order, the Pieuse Union of the co-operators salésiens.

He is founder of houses of reception for students, hearths for young workmen and seminars for late vocations. Its activity with the service of the youth of popular environments, the results which it obtains from it in the various general training areas, professional, religious and its educational researches, are soon known through Europe, where the foundations of institutes multiply.

Its radiation

Jean Bosco works in the north of the Italy, area deeply anticlerical at the time where Victor-Emmanuel II dream to create the Italian unit, which will put an end to the Papal States. However, Jean Bosco succeeds in maintaining his relations at the same time near the pope Pie IX, of the political directors, inter alia Cavour, Victor-Emmanuel, and the Prime Minister for Piedmont, Urbain Rattazzi, destroyer of the Congrégation S nuns.

It is even Rattazzi which recommends to found the Order of Salésiens, to continue its work, and provides him the legal formula of the statute of the members of his congregation so that the governments anticlericals do not oppose it: “an association of free citizens pursuing a common goal in the interest of the company”.

Jean Bosco knew to be surrounded qualified and devoted people, coming from all the layers of the company. He was the first to design work contracts for the young people of which he occupied himself and who were often exploited by industries and the world of construction. Turin is then a city under development full, at the beginning of the Industrial revolution.

All the population of this area dedicates respect and veneration, grateful to him accomplished work. One allotted to him Miracle S, the gift of reading in the hearts and predicting the future, which would partly explain its immense popularity and the triumphs that it gains in its searches in France (1883) and Spain (1886).

But one, since then, insisted on his exceptional qualities of teacher. Except for a Traité on the preventive method in education writes in 1876 and published for the first time on March 12th, 1877 during the solemn inauguration of the new seat of work: “To point out the event, Don Bosco made publish a bilingual booklet, where for the first time its `small treaty appears' on the preventive system”, it did not leave talks Didactique S, its Pédagogie including itself/understanding starting from its action: it made education a business of confidence affectionate and vigilant which was to be expressed in the joy and it in its groupings a so astonishing freedom for the time admitted that one often overlooked it. One of its maxims was: “To prevent and not repress”.

At January 1st, 2004, one counted: 16692 Salésien S and 523 beginners divided in: 1871 houses, like: 15855 Salésien born and 414 beginners in: 1564 houses.

Campobosco is a catholic camp organized with young people, by Salésiens de Don Bosco. These meetings train young people, who learn the life such as the salésiens there see it. This meeting is organized in various countries (France, Spain, etc)

Homages

Jean Bosco is Béatifié in 1929 then Canonisé by Pie XI on April 1st 1934, day of fence of the Holy year. In 1958, Pie XII proclaims it owner of the apprentices.

Its festival is fixed at January 31st.

Secondary schools bear its name to Europe, but Belgium is the only one to organize an sporting event: InterBosco

See too

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