Speaking of Don Bosco

The other day I was invited by Fr Joji to speak to the vocation camp boys about the person of Don Bosco. I was expected to briefly present the life of Don Bosco in a day – which later got shrunk to a couple of hours. However, I focussed on the early part of his life, keeping in mind the group which I was addressing (basically 19-20 year olds, most of whom have never had the opportunity to know about Don Bosco). But as I prepared for this, I found it extremely difficult to select which part of his life to eliminate.  Worse still, instead of encapsulating his whole life, for the boys, I found myself reading and reading.

Another aspect that struck me was that there were several aspects of the life of Don Bosco that we, Salesians take for granted.  Like his place of birth was Becchi and that he was born in that particular house, which we see most often in the painting and pictures. While the fact is that Francis Bosco (Don Bosco's father), had still not moved out of the Biglione farm where the Bosco's were still working in 1815.