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for that moment.
The other deaths Saint John Bosco would
encounter would be no less important, but a detailed
investigation of these moments and their impact would
be, in themselves, the content of a thorough study. We
know from his own writings that there are at least four
more significant deaths to mention: the death of his
dear mother, Mama Margaret, and the deaths of three
students he would immortalize in writing: Dominic
Savio, Michael Magone, and Francis Besucco. These
are mentioned here to introduce the elements of death
in Saint John Bosco’s teaching, catechesis, and piety.
Writing about these significant persons in his life, long
after his mission is fully engaged, shows us the focus
of his teaching about death.
Teaching Others to Prepare for Death
Fr. Lenti gives a detailed description of Saint
John Bosco’s catechesis regarding death and the last
things. His survey is insightful and worth mentioning
to highlight various elements. Often, Saint John Bosco
would predict the deaths of others, especially boys at
his Oratory. He offered these predictions by way of
premonitions and dreams. He admitted that often times
the details were not clear until the events unfolded, but
he clung to the belief that it was beneficial for the boys
to know the reality and prepare for it. “He certainly
believed that confronting the youngsters with the
thought of death was both educational and spiritually
10
helpful.”
What is useful in this study, however, is
uncovering exactly what Saint John Bosco wanted to
teach his young charges with these warnings. The
biography Saint John Bosco penned for his friend
Comollo was primarily a catechetical tool to teach his
students the value of “the Last Things.” He developed
a pious tradition of conducting “an exercise for a happy
death” once every month for this purpose beginning in
1847. Fr. Lenti, in his review of Fr. Stella’s
examination of Saint John Bosco on the topic of death
predictions, points out that
10 Lenti, p. 693.
these practices were not meant to terrify the students.
They were intended to teach important lessons. Fr.
Lenti quotes Fr. Lemoyne from The Biographical
Memoirs of Saint John Bosco:
The Exercise for a Happy Death was
another powerful factor in his educational
system. When boys began boarding at the
Oratory, they made the exercise for a Happy
DECWEIMNTBEERR22001611
Death with the day pupils; later on he
scheduled it on the last Sunday of the month
for the former, and on the first Sunday for the
latter. To make it truly effective, he exhorted
them to put all their spiritual and temporal
things in order as though they were to appear
before God's tribunal on that day and to be
mindful that they could be suddenly called into
eternity. [...] The worldly-minded might think
that mentioning death to young boys would fill
their minds with gloomy thoughts, but that was
not so at all. On the contrary, it filled their
hearts with peace and joy. Spiritual unrest
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comes from not being in God's grace.
An important part of the catechesis of Saint
John Bosco, then, centered on death and its
inevitability. However, the focus had its context and
points to important components in Saint John Bosco’s
ministry of education. The most obvious context was,
of course, the mortality rate in that part of the world in
the mid nineteenth century. In an age before anti-
biotics and treatments for common recurring illnesses,
sickness and disease often claimed many young lives.
The cholera epidemics of 1831 and 1854 were
experiences close to Saint John Bosco. In the first, he
had been a seminarian and witnessed the exodus of
many students under the direction of the protective
Jesuits. In the latter, the students of Saint John
Bosco’s Oratory would bravely assist the sick and
dying in the ravaged city of Turin, winning for the
boys and for Saint John Bosco the reputation of
holiness and courage. The possibility of a sudden and
unexpected death, at any age, then, was not far-fetched.
This had considerable bearing on the piety of the times.
There was a sense of urgency in living life.
Fidelity to one’s duty and faithfulness to God was not
something to postpone. At first glance, especially with
twenty-first century filters, this focus upon death may
seem morbid or suggest a catechesis reduced to scare-
tactics. And while fear was not an uncommon tool for
evangelization in Saint John Bosco’s era, the evidence
suggests that the predictions, the dreams, and the
practices of preparation for death had positive
consequences for the students in Saint John Bosco’s
care. Fr. Lenti’s survey of such death predictions and
the practice of the Exercise for a Happy Death comes
with a caution; he is well aware that fear by itself could
be psychologically damaging. He concludes this
survey, with appeals for caution, but concludes that
Saint John Bosco’s approach had to be much more than
fear to produce such peaceful and positive results in his
students. In fact, he mentions that many of the
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