The Bracco household received a regular copy of the Salesian Bulletin. From the issue for August 1933 Teresa cut out the third page where there was an article about Dominic Savio, from a peasant family like herself, just declared Venerable. He had made the challenging resolution: “Death rather than sin.” The little girl – she was only nine years old – was fascinated by it and put the page over her bed. From then on Dominic’s motto became hers. She declared war on sin: “They will have to kill me first,” she wrote. And she kept her resolution. Seized by a German soldier in 1944, at first she tried to escape his evil intentions, but then not being strong enough, she chose to give up her life rather than suffer the loss of the virtue she had so jealously preserved. They found her tortured body on 30 August. Her sacrifice was only the final act of a whole life lived for the Gospel. John Paul II beatified her on 24 May 1998, feast of Mary Help of Christians, in Turin, during his pilgrimage to the Shroud. On that occasion the Pope said: “I hold up this girl to young people […] so that they may learn from her the example of a clear faith lived out in the witness of the daily fulfilment of one’s duties, in uncompromising moral choices, the courage to sacrifice even one’s life if necessary so as not to betray those values that give life its meaning.”

Fernando was born during the second world war in 1941. He never knew his father, nor a welcoming home, nor the love of a family. His mother a young unmarried girl was a domestic servant and spent little time with him. Fernando passed through a number of orphanages. At eight years of age he went to the Salesian Institute at Estoril in Portugal. Every evening he returned to the poor home where his mother was waiting for him. Before going to bed he said his prayers with her. His biggest job in those days was taking his mother to mass on Sundays. In fact she hadn’t been to church for years. When he finished elementary school he went to the Salesian technical school. Fernando was certainly no little saint; he had a lively and rebellious temperament; he soon lost his temper at the least reproach, and he had great difficulty in controlling it; and what’s more the companions he went around with were not the best. Fortunately his confessor got wind of the danger and without beating about the bush put him on his guard. Fernando began his conversion. It was no picnic. He had a reputation as a troublemaker and the Superiors always kept their eye on him. If there was any trouble he was always among the prime suspects. But he put up with it and kept himself under control. The Rector understood him and trusted him even to the extent of suggesting that he should make himself an apostle among his more recalcitrant and difficult companions. Fernando accepted the challenge and got together a group of four of his daredevil friends. «They are not the best behaved, but if there is any problem they will be able to sort it out; the others you have in mind are too good for this sort of lad, » he told the Rector.

He had two great passions: football and the trumpet. Towards the end of 1954 he began to keep a diary, a sign of how determined he was to improve himself as well as his companions, who noticed the slow but steady change in him. Two years later during a retreat he drew up a programme for himself: I want to control my curiosity and mortify my eyes. I want to be an apostle of the Immaculate Virgin. I want to be a priest. On 20 April that same year 1956, during a hectic game of football in the playground he accidentally banged his head hard against a pillar of the covered way. He spent some days in the infirmary and then returned among his companions, but during a recreation he banged his head again. Such was the pain that he was taken off to hospital. One of his friends concerned about his health asked: “Fernando, what if you die?” “I’m ready! They play football in heaven don’t they?!” On 26 July Fernando began his match in heaven. 