Mamma Margaret:
the first cooperator

by Fr. Steve Whelan, SDB

The Mother of St. John Bosco, Margaret Bosco, née Occhiena, has been proposed as a candidate for beatification. The diocesan process concluded in Turin, Italy, in April 1996. In this day and age the Church is looking for more "ordinary" Christians (in contrast to martyrs, bishops, priests, monks and nuns) to hold up to the faithful as outstanding exemplars of Gospel living.

Affectionately called "Mamma" by her family and all the boys who knew and loved her, Mamma Margaret is an excellent example of the heroic woman who lived a simple married life with its joys and sorrows to the fullest. Born in 1788 in the small hamlet of Capriglio 15 miles east of Turin, she settled down and raised a family less than two miles removed from her birthplace. She came from a farming family of 10 children and at 24 married a widower named Francis Louis Bosco, 27, who had a 7-year-old son (Anthony) from his previous marriage. From Francis' and Margaret's union came two children -- Joseph Louis, born in 1813, and John Melchior (the future St. John Bosco) born on August 16, 1815.

The Bosco family suffered the untimely death of the husband and father, Francis, when he succumbed to pneumonia at the age of 32 in 1817. This loss left Margaret a widow at 29 with three children, Anthony 12, Joseph 4 and John not yet 2. She also had the care of her aged mother-in-law. The Bosco family fortune, such as it was, was wiped out to pay debts. Life be-came precarious due to drought, famine and the economic depression that followed the Napoleonic wars.

Her three sons were quite dissimilar. At an early age John was lively, quick-wit-ted, imaginative, enterprising and possessed of a tremendous desire to discover and learn. Joseph was quiet and more of a follower. Anthony, their half-brother, felt himself a stranger in the home, partly be-cause he seems to have been a "disturbed" child. Yet he had a sense that his task as oldest son was to be the leader, protector and provider for the family. As he grew to adulthood, he had a commitment to the land. It was his understanding that the whole family would work the land with all hands pitching in. Because of John's penchant for learning and the encouragement he received from his mother there was an ongoing tension within the family for some years until Anthony could legally separate himself and set up his own family and farm, which he did nearby. It was then that Joseph took over the management of the family farm.

Today one could say that the Bosco family was "dysfunctional." John grew up in poverty, in a single-parent family wracked with severe sibling rivalry. It was within these circumstances that Mamma Margaret's holiness manifested itself. Overcoming the tensions threatening the family, she offered love and counsel, even to the extent of requiring John to live and work at a neighboring farm. In the midst of these crises Margaret showed the depth of her spirituality and devotion in her simple prayers and practices. She taught her children their faith and adapted her counsels and admonitions to their age and circumstances. She was a determined woman and her actions were thought out and prayed over. Her love of God and service for others manifested themselves in her persevering, unselfish concern.

But it was as Christian mother and educator that she shone most brightly. Her major concern was that her children should grow religiously, know their catechism, attend church and receive the sacraments. She devoted her best efforts to their development as persons. She sought to instill in them a moral character and inner spirituality that would prepare them to deal with life. She developed in them a sense of God's presence and a trust in God's loving providence, honesty and integrity coupled with love of hard work and fidelity to duty, sensibility to other people's needs expressed in concrete acts of service, Christian optimism, and a lively hope for God's ultimate reward.

Margaret realized that God was calling John to something special. She saw this when John gathered his peers for shows of juggling, acrobatics and magic so he could teach them the catechism. She made great sacrifices to get him the schooling he needed to further his vocation. We will never really know what it cost her to get him through elementary and high school.

After Don Bosco began gathering abandoned and poor boys around him, he realized that they still needed a mother's touch and who else but his own mother, Margaret? She was instrumental not only in training John, but in fostering the famous "family spirit" so characteristic of Don Bosco's Oratory and all Salesian institutions.

The question must be asked: Would John Bosco have been "Don Bosco," the father and educator of countless young people, without his mother's teaching, example, inspiration and support? It doesn't seem likely. This is why the Church and the Salesian Family wish to offer her as an example to all mothers not because she was the mother of a saint, but because she herself was a saintly Christian mother.

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