What do these words make you think of: young people, youth center, preventive education? Yes, him: Don Bosco, the saint who devoted his entire life to young people, helping them grow in love and with love, and rescuing lives destined to be lost. His vocation took shape among young people in difficulty, a vocation he had sensed since childhood. How? Let’s discover it together!

The boy of dreams

At the age of nine, Giovanni had a dream: he was surrounded by restless children who were laughing and blaspheming. Shaken by their blasphemy, he confronted them until a man dressed in white with a radiant face appeared. When the child asked who he was, he heard these words: “I am the Son of the One whom your mother taught you to greet three times a day.” That mysterious man revealed to him that one day he would care for others: “Not with blows, but with gentleness and charity you will win these friends of yours.” In the same dream, he saw a beautiful woman surrounded by many animals. As she pointed to them, she said: “Here is your field; this is where you must work. Grow humble, strong, and robust, and what you now see happening to these animals, you must do for my children.” And as she spoke, all the animals became gentle lambs.

The preventive educational method

Just as his childhood dream had suggested, Don Bosco became an educator who guided young people with reason, love, and knowledge of Jesus. In this way, he laid the foundations for what is still remembered today as the preventive educational method. A method that does not humiliate, despise, punish, or accuse… but encourages, supports, and teaches. A method that enabled countless children and young people to escape miserable living conditions and have an honest and dignified future ahead of them.

In Turin, a turning point

After becoming a priest, Giovanni Bosco discovered his true vocation in Turin. As he walked through the streets, he saw many disadvantaged children: from struggling families, orphaned, forced into crime from an early age, or made to perform inhumane work. Don Bosco decided to dedicate himself to them. He and Father Cafasso, his most devoted collaborator, visited the prisons and invited young offenders to join them at the Church of Saint Francis de Sales in Valdocco once they had served their sentences. Many brought friends and brothers with them. Together, they gathered in what would become the Oratory of Don Bosco.

Social commitment

Don Bosco also worked to guarantee greater rights for those who work. Thanks to him, employment contracts for minors, healthcare protections, and even a Salesian mutual aid society began to be introduced. In 1859 he founded the Salesian Society, and from the very beginning the Salesians devoted themselves to the education and instruction of young people through schools, youth centers, and training centers. The Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, built in 1868 next to the Church of Saint Francis de Sales in Turin, became the center of the mission.

Even today, Saint John Bosco inspires, teaches, and shows young people, parents, educators... the way forward. May his ability to redeem “lost” lives through love be an example and guide for us all, bringing loving rays of light into our daily lives.