Biographical Memoirs Of Saint John Bosco

TheBiographical Memoirsofsaint John BoscobyGIOVANNI BATTISTA LEMOYNE, S.D.B.AN AMERICAN EDITIONTRANSLATEDFROM THE ORIGINAL ITALIAN48DIEGO BORGATELLO, S.D.B.Editor-in-chiefz r.7pVolume II1841-1846SALESIANA PUBLISHERS, INC.NEW ROCHELLE, NEW YORK1966

1MPRIMI POTEST: Very Rev. Augustus Bosio, S.D.B. ProvincialNmIL OBSTAT:Daniel V. Flynn, J.C.D.Censor LibrorumIMPRIMATUR:0.-14 Francis Cardinal SpellmanArchbishop of New YorkJanuary 25, 1966The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book orpamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is containedtherein that those who have granted the nthil obstat and imprimaturagree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed.Copyright Q 1966 by the Salesian Society, Inc. Library of Congress CatalogCard No. 65-3104revAll Rights ReservedManufactured in the United States of AmericaFIRST EDITION

ebitatebWITH PROFOUND GRATITUDETOTHE LATE, LAMENTED, AND HIGHLY ESTEEMEDVERY REVEREND FELIX J. PENNA, S.D.B.(1904-1962)TO WHOSEWISDOM, FORESIGHT, AND NOBLE SALESIAN HEARTTHE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONOFTHE BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRSOFSAINT JOHN BOSCOISA LASTING MONUMENT

TOThe Very ReverendLUtGI RICCERIRector Majorof the Salesian SocietyandSixth Successor of Saint John Bosco

Editor's Preface to the First Nine VolumesFAINT JOHN BOSCO, the central figure of this vastlyextensive biography, was a towering person in the affairs of both Churchand State during the critical 19th century in Italy. He was the founder oftwo very active religious congregations during a time when other orderswere being suppressed; he was a trusted and key liaison between thePapacy and the emerging Italian nation of the Risorgimento; above all, introubled times, he was the saintly Christian educator who successfullywedded modern pedagogy to Christ's law and Christ's love for the pooryoung, and thereby deserved the proud title of Apostle of youth.He is known familiarly throughout the world simply as Don Bosco.' Hisnow famous system of education, which he called the Preventive System,was based on reason, religion and kindness, and indicated by its descriptivename that, also in education, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound ofcure. He always sought to place pupils in the moral impossibility ofcommitting sin, the moral disorder from which all evils flow.To ensure the continuation of his educational mission in behalf of youthhe founded two worldwide religious congregations, the Society of St.Francis de Sales (Salesian Society) and the Institute of the Daughters ofMary Help of Christians (Salesian Sisters) which today number more than40,000 members conducting 2800 educational institutions throughout theworld.To help in the difficult art of educating the young, Don Bosco planned toexpound his method of education in a book but, absorbed as he was in thetask of firmly establishing his two religious congregations and inunceasing other labors, he had to content'Don is an abbreviation of the Latin dominos, master. It is used in Italy as a title forpriests; it stands for Father.vii

viiiEDITOR'S PREFACEhimself with a simple outline of his ideas in a golden little treatise entitledThe Preventive System in the Education of Youth.Fortunately, the Biographical Memoirs of St. John Bosco are amplecompensation for a book which, if written, might have given us onlytheories. These memoirs, a monumental work in nineteen volumes, untilrecently reserved exclusively to Salesians and published only in theoriginal Italian, are now available, unabridged, in this American edition notonly to his spiritual children, devotees and admirers, but also to all who areinterested in education.In these volumes Don Bosco is shown in action: not theorizing, buteducating. What he said and did in countless circumstances was faithfullyrecorded by several of his spiritual sons, chief among them. FatherGiovanni Battista Lemoyne. From the day he first met Don Bosco in 1864to his own death in 1916, Father Lemoyne spent his life recording wordsand deeds of Don Bosco, gathering documents,2 interviewing witnesses,and arranging raw material for the present nineteen volumes of the life ofDon Bosco, eight of which he himself authored beside readying anothervolume for the press before his death.In the compilation of the Biographical Memoirs of St. John Bosco,Father Lemoyne's primary sources were the Memorie dell'Oratorio dal1835 al 1855 (Memoirs of the Oratory from 1835 to 1855) written by DonBosco himself, the diaries and chronicles of various fellow Salesians whodaily recorded what Don Bosco said or did, numerous letters of the Saint,the Cinque lustri di storia dell'Oratorio di S. Francesco di Sales (TheHistory of the First Twenty-five Years of the Oratory of St. Francis deSales) written by Father John Bonetti, S.D.B., and personally checked byDon Bosco, the proceedings of the diocesan process of beatification andother unimpeachable contemporary documents and testimonies. Aboveall, Father Lemoyne, intelligent, conscientious and well-informed, notonly used reliable sources, but was himself an eye witness. He recordedwhat he personally saw and heard from Don Bosco. This enabled him towrite a true history, even though not according to modem criticalmethods. He concerned himselfAll the documents in the archives at the Salesian Motherhouse in Turin, Italy are nowbeing microfilmed and stored in the Don Bosco College Library in Newton, New Jersey.

EDITOR'S PREFACEIXprincipally with presenting chronologically his vast selected material andtherefore his narrative is somewhat fragmentary and may lack scientificmethod. It is nevertheless true history, even Volume I which deals mainlywith Don Bosco's youth and the training he received from MammaMargaret, his mother.5 When gifted writers and scholars of the future willproduce a critical biography of Don Bosco, the Biographical Memoirs willstill not be surpassed because Father Lemoyne lived at Don Bosco's side,wrote what he saw and heard, and eminently succeeded in giving us a livingportrait of Don Bosco.In editing the translation of the Biographical Memoirs accuracy andreadability were the goals we set. This was not easy and occasionally, asregards the latter, we may have fallen short of the mark. Nineteenthcentury Italian does not readily lend itself to an agile version that strivesto be an accurate translation and not a paraphrase.We have departed from the original in only one minor point: the lengthytitles or series of subtitles in each chapter. Father Lemoyne's method ofchronological sequence in his narration necessarily made the contents ofeach chapter fragmentary. As it was not possible, under thesecircumstances, to give them a meaningful title and the volumes were notindexed, Father Lemoyne prefaced each chapter with many subtitles. Insome volumes such subtitles fill a whole page. Since we have indexed eachvolume and subtitles become unnecessary, we selected in each chapter themost outstanding episode and gave it a title.May the reading of these Memoirs portraying the life of a man whomPope Pius XI called "a giant of sanctity" inspire his spiritual children, towhom this work is primarily directed, and all men and women of good willto walk their own path of life in a spirit of service to God and man.FR. DIEGO BORGATELLO, S.D.B. Editorin-ChiefNew Rochelle, N.Y.June 5 , 1965124th Anniversary of Don Bosco's Ordinations Cf. Francis Desramaut, S.D.B., Les Memorie I de Giovanni Battista Lemoyne, Etude d'unouvrage fondamental sur la jeunesse de saint Jean Bosco, Lyon, 1962, p. 411ff.

AcknowledgmentsFor the publication of The Biographical Memoirs of Saint JohnBosco we owe a debt of gratitude to the Very Reverend Augustus Bosio,S.D.B., Provincial of the Salesians in the .eastern United States, whosponsored this project.In the preparation of this volume we are indebted to Genevieve M.Camera, Ph.D., John Chapin, Rev. Paul Aronica, S.D.B., and Rev.Joseph Bajorek. S.D.B., for editorial assistance; to Rev. HenrySarnowski, S.D.B., for indexing; to the Editorial Board for advice andsuggestions; and to the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine forpermission to use the Confraternity translation of the Scriptures.THE EDITOREDITORIAL BOARDRev. Diego Borgatello, S.D.B., Editor-in-chiefRev. Henry Sarnowski, S.D.B., Secretary & IndexerRev. Paul Aronica,Rev. Joseph Bajorek, S.D.B.Rev. Emil Fardellone, S.D.B.Rev. William Kelley, S.D.B.Rev. Peter Lappin, S.D.B.Rev. Hugh McGlinchey, S.D.B.Rev. Joseph Perozzi, S.D.B.Rev. Chester Wisniewski, S.D.B.

Author's Prefaceff-S a token of my respectful affection, I offer to my confreresthe second volume of the Biographical Memoirs of the beloved Founderand Father of our Pious Society of St. Francis de Sales. I trust that they willwelcome this new labor of mine and that they will pray that I may be ableto complete if.In my narration, I have followed the method described in my preface tothe first volume, and used the same sources. Furthermore, the attentivereading of the published works of our dear Don Bosco greatly helped metowards a deeper understanding of his spirit, trust [in God], love of hisfellowmen and his aims. No less informative were some of his unpublishedwritings such as:1. Memorie dell'Oratorio dal 1835 al 1855; esclusivamente perSoci Salesiani [Memoirs of the Oratory from 1835 to 1855 for theExclusive use of Members of the Salesian Congregation], in which hedescribes the early beginnings of his providential institution. Theunforgettable Father John Bonetti found in it a mine of information whencompiling his Cinque lustri di Storia dell'Oratorio Salesian [History of theFirst Twenty-Five Years of the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales], a work ofunquestionable authority, substantiated by the testimony of a great numberof past pupils who were diligently interviewed by the conscientious author.2. Memorie ai miei figli i Salesiani [Reminiscences for my SpiritualSons, the Salesians] in which Don Bosco gives norms derived fromexperience. They were intended to be a legacy for his successor in thedifficult task of governing the Salesian Society.3. Biografia del Sacerdote Giuseppe Cafasso esposta in dueragionamenti funebri [Biography of Father Joseph Cafasso as Presented inTwo Funeral Eulogies]. They portray the heroic virtues of his teacher andspiritual guide, as well as the close and holyxi

xiiAUTHOR'S PREFACEfriendship that bound Don Bosco to him. Indirectly, they tell us about DonBosco during those years.I have written this volume solely for the Salesians. In accordance withour Superiors' directives and until the Holy See will have pronounced itsdefinitive judgment, I will not permit it to be made public, nor will Iauthorize any translation, reprint, imitation, abridgment or extracts for anyreason whatsoever. Likewise, it should not be put in the hands of any onewho is not a member of our Pious Society as source material to bepublished in praise of Don Bosco. Hence, I duly place this book under theprotection of existing copyright laws.The frontispiece shows our highly esteemed Rector Major, FatherMichael Rua. I mean this to be a token of my profound veneration andaffection for him because, in addition to many other reasons, these pagesportray his first meeting as a little boy with our dear Don Bosco.May Our Lord and Mary Help of Christians bless the reader of thesepages, as well as the writer,FR. GIOVANNI BATTISTA LEMOYNEof thePious Society of St. Francis de SalesTurin, February 2, 1901Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin