Don Bosco: "Father of the Fatherless"

Don Bosco's earliest family recollection was the death of his father, Francesco, which occurred when the boy was only two. In a poignant reminiscence in his autobiography he wrote:

As the members of my family were leaving the room where father lay dead, I insisted on staying behind. My grieving mother called out to me:

"Come along, John, come with me."

"If papa's not coming, I'm not coming either," I had answered.

"My dear son," mother replied, "you don't have a father anymore." And she broke down in tears.

Without a father figure in his life, John formed a special bond with his mother, Margaret, who took on the role of both father and mother in the Bosco household. In his adult years Don Bosco rarely referred to his father either in his writings or conversations. But he always cherished his memory.

In 1884, at the age 68, Don Bosco, against his doctor's warning, had made preparations for a fund-raising trip to France. Just before leaving he had called Michael Rua, his future successor, and John Cagliero, soon to become the first Salesian bishop, into his room. "I have made my will, and you two shall be the beneficiaries of my estate if something should happen to me." As the two were leaving, Don Bosco signaled Cagliero to remain behind for a moment. When the two were alone, Don Bosco gave him a small packet. "It contains my will," he said. "I want you to hold on to it in case I do not return." Those were his parting words and shortly after, he entrained for France, where he was hailed as a saint and a great educator. Six months after Don Bosco's return, Cagliero, who had forgotten about the packet that had been entrusted to him, came upon it one day. It did indeed contain Don Bosco's will. But it also held something else, something Don Bosco had never revealed to anyone-his father's gold wedding band.

Throughout his adult life, especially in the early years of his Oratory experiences, Don Bosco became the vicarious father of the thousands of homeless and orphan children whom he sheltered in Valdocco. It all started when he began to lodge and feed and care for about 310 children who had neither home nor parents. Most of them worked as young apprentices in Turin, Piedmont's now bustling capital in northwestern Italy. When his young boarders would return from their workplace for their noonday meal, Don Bosco was ready for them. He also ladled out a hearty nourishing minestrone which he himself had prepared.

Like any father in those days, Don Bosco was the master of his own household. But in his case he was also the paymaster. Every evening his boys would line up with hand outstretched, and their beloved father would dole out their allowance of 25 centesimi, just enough to buy bread for breakfast after leaving for work the next morning.

They say a mother's work is never done. And, often, neither is a father's. When Don Bosco's boys were sound asleep, he and his mother would quietly inspect the clothes that had been laid out at the foot of each bed. Pants, jackets, and shirts that needed attention would be patched and mended by the glow of a candle as mother and son sewed late into the night. Even the young priest's skill as a cobbler, a trade he had learned in his youth, stood him in good stead. A boy whose shoes were one step from disintegration would find them miraculously resoled the next morning.

Pope Pius XI, commenting on how Don Bosco lodged and fed and cared for and loved the boys whom he sheltered in his Oratory, called him a "father to the fatherless." He was indeed that-and more. And the word "father" always had a cherished ring to it.