Sunday 15 June 1876, Corpus Christi

I seemed to find myself in the midst of the courtyard heading towards the exit surrounded by my boys, some greeting me, others telling me something, as usual. Then from the trade school boys' side I heard: “Help! Help!”; and I saw them running full pelt from there, many going through the gate at the back of the courtyard. Then the students too began shouting out, thronging around me. I wanted to go and see what had so scared my boys but they kept telling me not come any further forward, that there was a monster that would devour me, and they held me fast in their midst.

While I was wondering what to do, behold this awful monster appeared and came right up to us. That animal or devil or whatever it was, was so ugly, disgusting, terrible, enormous that there wasn't anything else like it on earth. It was something like a bear, but with a small rump compared with its other parts; it had enormous shoulders and a huge stomach, with an enormous head and grotesquely disproportionate mouth with two large tusks like swords sticking out.

All the boys, terrified as they were, crowded around me for advice; but I was also afraid and not a little embarrassed. I told them all to stay together under the porticoes and kneel down and pray to the Blessed Virgin. We were all on our knees quickly, praying with more than the usual fervour to Mary Help of Christians, asking her to free us from the monster, who meanwhile was slowly advancing towards us as if it was going to attack us.

We were there for some minutes when, I don't know how, but we all found ourselves in the clerics' dining hall which had recently been extended and seemed all lit up. And in the middle we could see Mary, similar to the statue above the porticoes or like the one on the cupola, or the church, I can't remember; however, there were rays of light coming from it, and it was surrounded by the Saints and the Blessed so that the dining hall looked like Heaven itself. Wonder replaced fear, and we were all attentive to and focused on Mary who seemed to want to say something to us; she reassured us: “Do not fear, have faith; my Divine Son is only testing you”.

I then carefully noted those who were around the Virgin and I recognised Fr Alasonatti, Fr Ruffino and Bro Michael of the Christian Schools, my brother, and others who used belong to the Congregation but were now in Heaven. Then one of them said in a loud voice: “Surgamus”.⁴We were already standing and we did not know what to say. And then the same voice said, but louder: “Surgamus”; and since we were already standing we wanted to see how things were going to finish. I was about to ask for an explanation when Our lady began to speak, her voice wonderfully strong: “But you, as a priest, should understand surgamus: when you celebrate Mass and say: Sursum corda, what are you saying? Do you mean stand up, or do you mean raise your minds and hearts to God?”.

So then I said to my boys: “As best as we possibly can, let's make an act of love and repentance before God”. And all kneeling again, we began quietly praying. A moment later again we heard “Surgite”, and we all stood up. Then we heard Mary singing St Paul's hymn with such harmony: “Sumite scutum fidei”,⁵ so clear, full and melodious that we were in ecstasy because in just the one voice we could hear all the notes from the lowest to the highest; it sounded like a choir of a hundred voices all united in one voice.

While we were there in ecstasy listening to that concert, we all found ourselves raised off the ground by some supernatural force, one holding onto a spike, another to a frame. I was holding on to a window frame, and was amazed we had not fallen to the floor where I could see countless beasts of all kinds and all of them wild running around the dining hall eyeing us suspiciously, and it seemed that they might leap on us at any moment, but had not yet done so.

While we were listening to that heavenly singing, many graceful boys came down from around Mary; they had wings, and and approaching us they placed a shield on everyone's heart. It had a steel centre, a ring of silver near the steel centre, another on the outside of diamonds then one of gold. When we all had a shield and the singing had finished, then we heard this voice: “Ad pugnam”;⁶ we saw the animals stir, hurl leaden balls, arrows at us, but they either did not reach us or hit our shields; after a long battle we were left unscathed. Then we heard Mary say: “Haec est victoria vestra, fides vestra”;⁷ and we found ourselves all on the ground, the animals had gone.

Immediately afterwards were heard an agonising cry in the courtyard: they were our boys that seemed to have been torn apart by those wild animals. I wanted to leave the dining hall to see if I could in some way bring them relief. They did not want me to leave, afraid that something terrible would happen to me. I took no notice of their fear and said to them “I want to go and see what has happened, even if I should die with them”. I went out and saw a terrible sight: all the animals were pursuing our boys, injuring them, tearing them apart. But the animal that was creating the most frightful scene of all was the one that had first appeared: he was piercing the boys on both sides of their chest, in their stomach, in the heart, right and left with those two big tusks, and many fell to the ground, some dead, some wounded. When I appeared I ran at the monster, but he could not hurt me or the others who had followed me out, because our shield defended us.

I looked carefully at the monster's two swords, and what a mess they were making of my boys. On the point of one of them I read Otium, and on the other, Gula. Then I understood, but found it hard to explain why my boys were sinning through idleness, or gluttony, because it seemed to me they had been working or studying when and where they should be, and they were not wasting time in recreation; and regarding gluttony, they had not seemed intemperate to me.

I went back to the dining hall very sad, and I asked someone who was with Mary to explain it to me, and he answered: “Ah my good friend, you are still a novice in these things, and you think you have had lots of experience. Know that by idleness we mean not only not working or keeping busy or not just time spent amusing oneself in recreation, but we also mean time left for fantasy to roam free, leading to harmful thoughts; odd moments not properly occupied and especially in church. As for gluttony, you need to know that we can sin by lack of temperance even with just water and when we eat and drink more than we need; that is always intemperance. If you can get your boys to be temperate in these little things, they will always overcome the devil; and with temperance comes humility, chastity and the other virtues. I they are always busy doing their duties, they will never fall into the devil's temptations and will live and die as holy Christians”.

I thanked him for such a beautiful instruction and went up to Brother Michael and the others I knew, to find out if what I had seen and done was real or just a dream. But while I was trying to shake their hand, I seemed to be quite beyond myself. Seeing my amazement one of them spoke to me: “You should know, and you have studied this, that we are pure spirits and to be seen by mortals we have to take on our former likeness until the final resurrection when we will get our bodies back but with all the gifts of immortality”. Then I wanted to get up close to Mary who seemed to want to say something to me, but when I found myself almost up close, I heard a noise from outside me and awoke.