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| Saint John Bosco |
John Bosco was the youngest among the sons of Francesco Bosco and Margaret Occhiena who were farmers of the Moglia family in becchi, Italy. His family suffered from great scarcity and famine brought forth by the Napoleonic wars.
Poverty became an obstruction for young Bosco to attend schooling. In addition, his passion to become a priest and serve his fellowmen under the guidance of God was already noticed by his mother by the age of nine. His mother who really supported him to pursue his dreams, also knows a thing, that being a priest is only a profession for those who are privileged. These things did not bother john, rather he continued his schooling, until he was unable to attend school for two more years. In 1830 he met a priest that will help him to continue his desires.
Don Bosco became a chaplain of Refugio, a girls’ boarding school founded in Turin, he also had mission in prisons to teach prisoners the catechism.
He observed that a growing group of boys always came on Sundays to play and to learn catechism. This pushed Bosco to start the “Oratory of St. Francis de Sales”, an organization which aims to take care of street children and educate them about catechism. But it did not last, the neighbors filed a complaint against the priest that his organization will put the children into jeopardy, in the sense that, this recreation will turn into revolution against the government.
In 1854, when the kingdom of Sardinia was about to pass a law suppressing monastic orders and ecclesiastical properties, Bosco admonished King Victor Emmanuel II to stop the said law or else his family will suffer greatly deaths, but the king ignored the priest’s “Blackmailing”, as historians would say. Despite of criticisms, the king did suffer sudden deaths in his family in a short period of time.
John feared that what he started will just turn into nothing due to financial scarcity. For such reason, he researched countries that can support his noble aims in life. One of these countries was Argentina; Basco wrote letters to Argentinian government asking support for his cause. After diligent waiting, his efforts was now answered by the Argentinian consulate, asking him if he can head an Italian parish in Buenos aries and a boys school.
He was greatly known for his preventive system method of teaching. He believed that education is a matter of heart and that boys must be loved and know that they are being loved.
Don Bosco died on January 31, 1888, shortly after his death, many requested that he must be canonized as a saint. He was declared as blessed on 1929 and canonized on Sunday of 1934 and was known to be “The father and teacher of the youth".
