"Though
a
soldier, I continued to live as a Salesian, helping
everyone,
happily giving out permissions, helping miscreants avoid
punishment.
I was happy to have saved one from the firing squad, a
certain Pietro
Ponzio of Turin, who had assaulted the lieutenant with
his bayonet
while he was inspecting them". Fr Braga was a
sergeant and for
all practical purposes, though never officially, a
military chaplain on
the Front in World War I. This part makes fascinating
reading.
"I arrived in China on 29 September 1919, at 9 in the morning. There were nine of us missionaries. Fr Louis Versiglia, Salesian superior and future proto-martyr, came to fetch us from the boat and greet us. After a warm embrace, he announced that the first Salesian in China, Father Ludovico Olive, had just died of cholera. He had earlier been miraculously cured by Don Bosco and was the son of the great benefactor Olive of Marseilles.This was not encouraging news, since we had arrived full of life only to receive the news of the death of who one who worked for the mission". He spent a further 34 years in China, establishing Salesian presence from north to south, and extending into Indochina (Hanoi...).
"I was asked by the bishops to visit the provinces of Shenxi and Hunan, to found works at Changsha and Hang Haw. The zealous Franciscans requested our help at Tzing Tao, China's Sorrento. The Apostolic Nuncio resident at Nangking, and Archbishop Paolo Yu Pin asked us several times to open works at Kon Moon, Kuei Lin and Nan Ning. Everyone wanted us to open technical schools. This stupendous and promising expansion of our works in China was cut short by the advent of the new direction brought on by Mao Tze Tung". All this promising work (and his description of life under the Japanese, then under Chiang Kai Shek makes riveting reading, was cut short by the advent of Communism.
"In
1952, I was relieved of the weight of the China Province. In
1953, I
was sent to the Philippines. It was a very painful
detachment. In
the Philippines too, I found much work and a truly enticing
future: a
situation which invited work and presented a great future.
It was the
work especially of his Excellency Archbishop Piani,
Apostolic
Delegate for 26 years, who made the names of Mary Help of
Christians
and Don Bosco so loved, known and invoked. Eight houses were
founded
over a period of eight years. Within this period, land was
obtained
for a further three works. We
are here in a Catholic country, with an enormous lack of
clergy and
in a young republic that wants to industrialize. This
requires
maximum effort to find vocations and put up technical
schools".
The final phase of his life. He starts all over again in the
Philippines.