Hajja Salesjana April June 2018

9 all jumping and bleating as if to welcome that man and lady. At that point, still dreaming, I began crying. I begged the lady to speak so that I could understand her, because I did not know what all this could mean. She then placed her hand on my head and said, ‘In good time you will understand everything.’ The memory of the man and the lady, and the things said and heard, so occupied my mind that I could not get any more sleep that night. I wasted no time in telling all about my dream. My mother commented, ‘Who knows, but you may become a priest.’ But my grandmother, though she could not read or write, knew enough theology and made the final judgement, saying, ‘Pay no attention to dreams.’ [John Bosco, Memoirs of the Oratory , trans., D. Lyons, ed. 2 (New Rochelle NY: Don Bosco Pub., 1989), 18-20.] A Childhood Dream put to paper Forty-Nine years later The exact historical influence of the dream on young John is hard to define. In the Memoirs John Bosco appears to accept the revelatory character of the dream, but with a lot of uncertainty. This renders it more difficult to determine the exact import this dream exerted at the time on the young boy’s thinking, and ultimately on his vocational choices. He agrees with his grandmother that one should pay no attention to dreams, but he could never subsequently put it out of his mind. Later he narrates that the dream had remained deeply impressed on his mind and had repeated itself at other times in much clearer terms, proposing the priestly vocation, but again he was hesitant to put any faith in it. In 1844, Don Bosco had another dream which was like an appendix to the first dream. Similar to his narration of his first dream, Don Bosco expresses in the Memoirs similar reservations to this dream. In 1875, writing to the Salesian Fr Julius Barberis, (1847-1927) Don Bosco states that, “At the time I understood little of its meaning, since I put little faith in it.” As years went by, Don Bosco eventually realized the importance of the dream and states that “later, together with another dream, it served as a blueprint for my decisions.” [Giulio Barberis, Appunti di Pedagogia Sacra. Esposti agli Ascritti della Pia Società di S. Francesco di Sales dal sac. (Torino: Litografia Salesiana 1897), 8.] What remains a mystery is the fact that it took Don Bosco a long time to eventually speak of these dreams. Michael Mendl affirms that Don Bosco first spoke of the dream to Fr Joseph Cafasso around the year 1846. [Michael Mendl, “The Dreams of Don Bosco: An Introduction to their Study,” in Journal of Salesian Studies vol. XII, 2 (Berkeley CA: 2004), 323-324.] Cafasso advised Don Bosco, “Go ahead. You may quite safely give special significance to these dreams. I am convinced they are for God’s greater glory and the welfare of souls.” [EBM II, 322.] On the other hand, Arthur Lenti asserts that Don Bosco first spoke of the dream in 1858 when he recounted it to Pope Pius IX and to some Salesians. [Arthur Lenti, Don Bosco, History and Spirit I (Rome: LAS, 2010), 177.147-148.] He bases himself on the biographical memoirs and cites the following testimony: Looking fixedly at Don Bosco, he [Pope Pius IX] asked if he ever had any supernatural revelation about his undertakings. Then, seeing that Don Bosco was apparently ill at ease, Pius IX insisted that he be told of any event, no matter how slight, which might have even the appearance of the supernatural. In filial trust, Don Bosco told himeverything he had seen in his extraordinary dream (…) The Pope listened with great attention and emotion (...) He then said to him more or less these words: ‘Write down these dreams and everything else you have told me, minutely and in their natural sense. Save all this legacy for your congregation, so that it may serve as an encouragement and norm for your sons.’ [EBM V, 577.]