Bozzolo_Childhood


Bozzolo_Childhood

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ANDREA BOZZOLO
DON BOSCO’S
CHILDHOOD DREAM
THEOLOGICAL READING

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Andrea Bozzolo
Don Bosco’s
childhood dream
THEOLOGICAL READING
LAS – ROMA

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Translated by the Australia-Pacific SDB province from A. Bozzolo, “Sogno dei nove
anni. Questioni ermeneutiche e lettura teologica,” I sogni di don Bosco. Esperienza
spirituale e sapienza educativa, ed. A. Bozzolo (Rome: LAS, 2017) 209-268.
 
© 2023 by LAS - Libreria Ateneo Salesiano
Piazza dell’Ateneo Salesiano, 1 - 00139 ROMA
Tel. 06 87290626 - e-mail: las@unisal.it - https://www.editricelas.it
ISBN 978-88-213-1586-2

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PRESENTATION
The year 2024 will mark - with a certain degree of approximation -
the bicentenary of Don Bosco’s “nine-year dream”. This anniversary
refers to one of the events that Don Bosco considered to be the most
important in his personal experience and the most decisive for his mis-
sion. He himself states in the Memoirs of the Oratory that this dream
remained deeply impressed in his mind throughout his life and he
attributes to it a particular prefigurative value for the development of
his work. And that’s not all. When, in 1858, Don Bosco went to Rome
to dialogue with Pius IX about the creation of the Congregation, and
Pius IX asked him to recount “everything that had even the suggestion
of the supernatural about it”, he told the Pope about this same dream.
The Pope ordered him to “write out the dream in all its detail and to
leave it as an encouragement to the sons of that Congregation whose
formation was the reason for that visit to Rome”.
Indeed, Don Bosco’s sons and daughters have always considered this
account to be a “sacred” page, full of charismatic suggestions and inspi-
rational force. It is true, however, that the elusive nature of the dream
experience, the great distance in time (around fifty years) between the
moment of the dream and its writing, and the difficulty of assessing its
“supernatural” nature raise serious questions about the real consistency
of the event recounted by the saint. I believe it is important not to shy
away from these questions, precisely to prevent a text of extraordinary
value from being confined to the realm of romance or edifying literature.
A few years ago, I tried to confront with these questions and,
on the basis of reasoned reflection, I attempted to put forward some
possible answers, which I still find convincing. The result is a study
that addresses hermeneutical questions (more complex) and proposes
a theological-spiritual reading of the dream (simpler). The essay has
already been published by LAS in 2017 as part of a voluminous study
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on Don Bosco’s dreams, to which I refer the reader eager for further
reading.1 The bicentenary seems a timely occasion to make it available
also in this independent and more accessible form.
My sincere thanks to the Australia-Pacific province for the translation.
I hope that this work will help us to listen meditatively to the
words with which Don Bosco gave us this intimate event that is at the
origin of our charism.
Don Andrea Bozzolo
Vice-Chancellor of the Pontifical Salesian University
1 A. Bozzolo (ed.), I sogni di don Bosco. Esperienza spirituale e sapienza educativa,
LAS, Roma 2017.
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Abbreviations
ACG / AGC Atti del Consiglio Generale / Acts of the General Council
BM
The Biographical Memoirs of St John Bosco, English (American)
edition published by Salesiana Publishers, New Rochelle, New
York from 1965 onwards.
MB
Memorie biografiche di Don Bosco (del Beato …di San) Giovanni
Bosco, 19 voll, (da 1 a 9: G.B. Lemoyne; 10: A. Amadei; da 11 a
19: E. Ceria) + 1 vol. di Indici (E. Foglio). San Benigno Canavese
- Torino 1898-1939 (Indici, 1948). See BM above for English.
MO-it
G. Bosco, Memorie dell’Oratorio di san Francesco di Sales. Intro-
duzione, note e testo critico a cura di A. da Silva Ferreira, LAS,
Roma 1991.
MO-en
J. Bosco, Memoirs of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales, (Transla-
tion by Daniel Lyons from the E. Ceria 1946 version), Salesiana
Publishers New Rochelle, New York, 2010.
PST1
P. Stella, Don Bosco nella storia della religiosità cattolica. I. Vita e
opere, LAS, Roma 1979.
PST2
P. Stella, Don Bosco nella storia della religiosità cattolica. II Menta-
lità religiosa e spiritualità, Pas-Verlag, Zurich 1969.
RSS
Ricerche Storiche Salesiane, Rome, 1982 onwards.
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DON BOSCO’S CHILDHOOD DREAM
HERMENEUTICAL QUESTIONS
AND A THEOLOGICAL READING
Andrea Bozzolo
The account that Don Bosco gives, in the Memoirs of the Ora-
tory, of the dream he had when he was nine years old, is one of the
most relevant texts of the Salesian tradition. The telling of this story
has accompanied the transmission of the charism in a dynamic way,
becoming one of its most effective symbols and one of its most elo-
quent syntheses. This is why the text appeals to readers, who recognise
themselves in a spiritual tradition with the characteristics of a “bib-
lical” text which claims uncommon charismatic authority and exerts
a consistent performative energy, touching the affections, moving to
action and generating identity. Indeed, the constitutive elements of the
Salesian vocation are authoritatively established there, like a testament
to be handed on to future generations, and returned, through the
mysterious experience of the dream, to their transcendent origin. Just
as is the case for the grand pages of the Bible, the forward movement
towards fulfilment and the reference to the origins are inseparably
intertwined in the narrative.
The truth is that this narrative has produced a rich history of
effects in its reception by those who have inherited it, and generated
a true communitas of readers who have identified with its message.
There are countless men and women, consecrated and lay, who have
found inspiration in it for discerning their personal vocation and for
implementing their educative and pastoral service. From the outset,
the breadth of this history of consequences instructs those who are
ready to analyse the text about the delicacy of the hermeneutic oper-
ation they are about to take in hand. Studying this dream means not
only investigating an event that took place in a boy’s life some two
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hundred years ago, but also intervening critically in something that
bears a spiritual message, and that is an identifying symbol, a story
that carries the weight of a “founding myth” for the Salesian world.
A story cannot acquire such a generative force without there being
a profound reason to justify it, and the scholar cannot but question
himself to grasp its nature.
Even before the impact of the dream on the experience of its
spiritual heirs is considered, the history of the dream’s impact on the
founder’s own experience must be examined. Don Bosco recounts that
“all my life this [dream] remained deeply impressed on my mind” from
the night it happened,1 all the more so because it had “recurred several
times more in ever clearer terms”,2 each time suggesting to him the
direction his life should take and guiding him in the fulfilment of his
mission. In the Memoirs of the Oratory, moreover, he recalls his state
of mind when, on the solemnity of Corpus Christi and now a priest,
he returned to the hamlet where he was born, to celebrate one of his
first Masses there:
As I drew near the house and saw the place of the dream I had when I
was about nine, I could not hold back the tears. I said: “How wonder-
ful are the ways of Divine Providence! God has truly raised a poor child
from the earth to place him amongst the princes of his people.”3
When Don Bosco went to Rome in 1858 to discuss the founda-
tion of the Congregation and Pius IX “asked me to tell him everything
that had even the suggestion of the supernatural about it”, he told the
1 MO-en 34ff.
2 MO-en 72. The complete text says: “So the end of the rhetoric year approached,
the time when students usually ponder their vocations. The dream I had had in Morialdo
was deeply imprinted on my mind; in fact it had recurred several times more in ever
clearer terms, so that if I wanted to put faith in it I would have to choose the priesthood
towards which I actually felt inclined. But I did not want to believe dreams, and my own
manner of life, certain habits of my heart, and the absolute lack of the virtues necessary
to that state, filled me with doubts and made the decision very difficult.”
3 MO-en 96.
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Pope about the dream, and received the order to “write out the dream
in all its detail and leave it as an encouragement to the sons of [the]
Congregation.”4 A further confirmation of the fact that this nocturnal
experience remained an essential point of reference throughout Don
Bosco’s life is found in a well-documented episode from the saint’s
old age.5 Don Bosco was in Rome for the solemn consecration of the
Church of the Sacred Heart, the construction of which he had taken
upon himself at the request of Leo XIII. On the morning of 16 May
1887, he went to celebrate Mass at the altar of Mary Help of Chris-
tians, but during the celebration he had to stop several times, overcome
by intense emotion that even prevented him from speaking. When he
had returned to the sacristy and regained his habitual calm, Fr Vigli-
etti, who had assisted him during the Mass, asked the elderly priest
the reason for his tears and he replied: “I had […] so vividly before
my eyes the scene of that time at ten years of age when I dreamt of the
Congregation, and so well saw and heard my brothers and my mother
discussing and questioning the dream I had had.”6 Don Bosco, who
was by then at the end of his life, had finally grasped the full meaning
of the message that had been communicated to him in the dream as
an open, forward-looking message: “In good time you will understand
everything.” Recounting the episode, Lemoyne notes: “sixty-two years
of hardships, sacrifices and struggles have passed by. All of a sudden,
an unexpected flash of lightning had revealed to him in the building of
the Church of the Sacred Heart in Rome, the crowning of the mission
so mysteriously outlined for him on the very threshold of life.”7
4 MO-en 36. Don Bosco’s first visit to Rome took place between 21 February and
14 April 1858. He met the Pope again on various occasions, on 9, 21 (or 23) March
and 6 April that year. According to Lemoyne it was at the second meeting (21 March)
that the Pope heard the account of the dream and ordered Don Bosco to write it down.
Regarding this journey cf. Braido, Don Bosco prete dei giovani nel secolo delle libertà (LAS,
Roma 2003) 1, 378-390.
5 Stella says that we have solide testimonianze (solid testimonies) of this (PST1, 32).
6 C.M. Viglietti, Cronaca di don Bosco. Prima redazione (1885-1888). Introducción,
texto crítico y notas por Pablo Marín Sánchez (LAS, Roma 2009) 207.
7 MB XVIII, 341 (BM XVIII 289).
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However we understand the contours of that childhood dream ex-
perience and the details of its narration, we can fully agree with Stella’s
assertion regarding the importance that it had in Don Bosco’s awareness:
This dream at nine years of age was not a dream like the many others
Don Bosco would certainly have had during his childhood. Apart from
the problems that are tied to it, that is, to its re-enactment and the
texts that hand it down to us, and apart from the now unresolvable
question regarding when it actually took place, and those regarding the
circumstances that possibly provoked it and immediately provided the
fantastic suggestions – apart from all this, it is clear that Don Bosco
was vividly struck by it; indeed it transpires that he must have felt it as
a divine communication, as something, as he himself says, that had the
appearance (the signs and guarantees) of the supernatural. For him it
was like a new divine character indelibly stamped on his life.8
The dream at nine years of age, in short, “conditioned Don Bosco’s
whole way of living and thinking. And in particular, the way he felt
God’s presence in each person’s life and in the history of the world.”9
1. Sources
The dream at nine years of age has been passed down to us in var-
ious edited versions. When tackling the problem of the sources that
Lemoyne had drawn from when writing the Biographical Memoirs,
Desramaut tracked down six different versions.10 The first (A) was
8 PST1, 30.
9 PSTI, 31ff.
10 F. Desramaut, Les Memorie I de Giovanni Battista Lemoyne. Étude d’un ouvrage
fondamental sur la jeunesse de saint Jean Bosco (Maison d’études Saint Jean Bosco, Lyon
1962) 250-256. The study was taken up and developed by A. Lenti, “Don Bosco’s
Vocation-Mission Dream. Its Recurrence and Significance,” Journal of Salesian Studies
2 (1991) 45-156. Cf. also Idem., Don Bosco storia e spirito. 1. Dai Becchi alla Casa
dell’Oratorio (1815-1858) (LAS, Roma 2017) 211-225.
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the one Don Bosco wrote in his Memoirs of the Oratory.11 The second
(B) is contained in Cagliero’s deposition at the ordinary process for
canonisation. Cagliero says he had heard this dream from Don Bosco
in 1858-59 after the latter, when visiting Rome, had received an order
from Pius IX to put it in writing.12 The third (C) is by Fr Barberis,
substantially repeating Don Bosco.13 The fourth (D) comes from Gi-
useppe Turco, Don Bosco’s childhood friend. Passed on by an uni-
dentified intermediary, it was collected by Fr Lemoyne.14 The fifth
(E) is Fr Rua’s exposition, at the ordinary process, of the account he
had learned from Lucia Turco, Giuseppe’s sister.15 The sixth (F) is the
very short account that Giuseppe Turco himself gave at the process.16
Desramaut shows how versions A, B and C have Don Bosco as a direct
source, while D, E and F depend on memories passed on through the
Turco family.
11 The critical edition is found in MO-it 34-37. Fr Berto, Don Bosco’s secretary,
takes this account literally, obviously representing it in the third person in his deposition
at the ordinary process for canonisation, as can be read in the Copia Publica Transumpti
Processus Ordinaria 1080v (= verso) - 1081r. auctoritate constructi in Curia Ecclesiastica
Taurinensi super fama sanctitatis vitae, virtutum et miracolorum Servi Dei loannis Bosco
Sacerdotis Fundatoris Piae Societatis Salesianae, 277r (= retto) - 279r.
12 Ibid. 1080v (= verso) - 1081r.
13 In its most ancient form it is found, without indicating from whence it came, in
G.B. Lemoyne, Documenti per scrivere la storia di D. Giovanni Bosco, dell’Oratorio di S.
Francesco di Sales e della Congregazione Salesiana, I, 153.
14 Ibid. I, 68-69.
15 “Lucia Turco, who belonged to a family where D. Bosco often went to stay with
her brothers and sisters, told me that one morning they saw him arrive more cheerful
than usual. Asked what was the cause, he replied that he had had a dream during the
night which had cheered him up. Asked to recount it, he said that he had seen a great
Lady coming towards him, who had a very large flock behind her, and approaching him,
she called him by name and said: ‘Here, John: I entrust all this flock to your care.’ I then
heard from others that he asked ‘How shall I take care of so many sheep and lambs? Where
will I find pastures to keep them?’ The Lady answered him, ‘Do not fear, I will assist you’
and then disappeared” (Copia Publica, 2476v).
16 “While he was a cleric, he also told me one day that he had had a dream, that
he would settle somewhere where he would gather a large number of young people to
instruct them” (Copia Publica…, 768v).
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Basing himself on Don Bosco’s assertion that the dream had
been repeated several times and indulging his inclination to keep
all the sources at his disposal, Lemoyne reported the different but
largely convergent versions of the dream in the Biographical Memoirs,
attributing them to different ages.17 Desramaut, in the study cited
above, discusses the plausibility of Lemoyne’s choice, and considers
it mostly the result of an artificial association, except perhaps in the
case of the D version. In fact, it is plausible, although not demon-
strable with secure historical arguments, that John Bosco told his
friend Giuseppe Turco about the dream following one of the occa-
sions on which it had recurred.
At any rate, the version we are referring to for our work is defi-
nitely the one that Don Bosco wrote in his own hand in the Memoirs
of the Oratory. The writing down of the dream and all the events con-
nected to the origin of the Oratory had been requested, as we have
said, by Pius IX in 1858. Don Bosco, however, delayed by his many
commitments and by a reluctance to talk about himself, was slow to
get down to work. This is why the Pope urged him once again, in
1867, during another audience, to write down his recollections. After
delaying for another six years, Don Bosco finally began the manuscript
of the Memoirs in 1873, finishing it in 1875. Copied beautifully by his
secretary, Fr Gioacchino Berto, the text was revised and corrected by
the author on several occasions until 1879.18
17 In Volume I of the Biographical Memoirs, Lemoyne faithfully reports the account
of the dream at nine years of age that Don Bosco offers in the Memoirs of the Oratory
(MB I, 123-126 or BM I 95-96); cross-referencing various piece of information at his
disposal, he attributes the version passed on by Turco (D) to a repetition of the dream
that took place in 1831, when Don Bosco was 16 years old (MB I, 243ff or BM 182ff);
Barberis’ version (C) to a further repetition that took place in 1834 when John was 19
years old (MB 1,305ff or BM 229ff); and finally Cagliero’s version (B) to the time when
John was by then a cleric (MB I,424 or BM 315ff).
18 For matters related to the date of composition of the original manuscript, Fr
Berto’s copy and Don Bosco’s corrections, cf. E. Ceria’s introduction to the first printed
edition of the document. G. (san) Bosco, Memorie dell’Oratorio di S. Francesco di Sales dal
1815 al 1855 (SEI, Torino 1946) 6; F. Desramaut, Les Memorie I de Giovanni Battista
Lemoyne, 116-119; the Introduction to the critical edition MO 18-19.
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On the basis of this data, we can state that the dream, which took
place around 1824 (we cannot be more precise about the date) and
which recurred several times more in the years that followed “in ever
clearer terms”, was written down by Don Bosco about fifty years after
the event. By that time, he was able to grasp the meaning of the dream’s
message in a richer and more profound way than he had understood
it as a boy, an understanding of the dream had certainly grown in him
through his many life experiences, and generated growth in both nar-
rative and interpretative terms. This evolution poses a complex herme-
neutic challenge which we need to be aware of. In fact, different time
horizons merge and interact with each other in the text that we are
reading: the time of the (at least partial) fulfilment of the dream, which
corresponds to the time in which Don Bosco fixes it in the manuscript
of the Memoirs, the time of growth in his understanding, which begins
with the first narration to family members and gradually develops in
his consciousness, the chronological time in which the dream occurred
and the oneiric (dream) time, a kind of “suspended” or “other” time
that is internal to the nocturnal experience. These different time hori-
zons, fused together in Don Bosco’s narration, interact in turn with the
reader’s time, the reader’s expectations, questions and preconceptions
within an interpretative tradition that has passed it down to us. It is
not possible to tackle the study of this dream seriously without being
aware of this multiplicity of levels, from which important hermeneu-
tical questions derive that we will try to focus on in the next section.
Before delving into such issues, however, we must first of all place the
dream narrative in its narrative context, that is, in the whole of the
work that has passed it down to us.19
The Memoirs of the Oratory is an autobiographical text in which
Don Bosco brings together the history of the Oratory of St Francis de
Sales and his own personal life story, with the intention of leaving a
19 For an understanding of the narrative logic in the Memoirs, see the excellent
essay by A. Giraudo, “L’importanza storica e pedagogico-spirituale delle Memorie
dell’Oratorio,” in G. Bosco, Memorie dell’oratorio di S. Francesco di Sales dal 1815 al
1855 (LAS, Roma 2011) 5-49.
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valuable lesson for the future to his spiritual heirs.20 The author’s in-
tentions are made explicit from the very first lines of the manuscript:
Now, what purpose can this chronicle serve? It will be a record to help
people overcome problems that may come in the future by learning
from the past. It will serve to make known how God himself has always
been our guide. It will give my sons some entertainment to be able to
read about their father’s adventures. Doubtless they will be read much
more avidly when I have been called by God to render my account,
when I am no longer amongst them.21
The Memoirs, then, are an edifying story that intends to pass
on, through the selection and linking together of facts, not only the
fundamental events that marked the birth of the Oratory, but also
the profound secret that lay behind this experience, made it possible
and characterised it in an essential way. The work, however, is not a
mere chronicle of events, but it also clearly shows the intention to
involve the reader in the adventure narrated, to the point of having
him participate in it as a story that involves him and, as he is caught
up in the tale, that he is called upon to continue.22 This trait has been
effectively emphasised by Pietro Braido, who coined the felicitous
20 Addressed to Salesians present and future the Memoirs can clearly be distinguished
from other earlier historical texts written by Don Bosco: the letter to the city’s Vicar
in 1846; The Outline and Historical Outlines of 1854 and 1862, that focus on events
connected with the catechism lessons at St Francis of Assisi, and which then moved to
the Barolo Refuge etc. until arriving at the Pinardi House. These texts were aimed at the
authorities or the public, or benefactors and supporters to whom Don Bosco wanted to
offer a briefing on the birth and purpose of his institution, also presenting the activities
that took place there and the educational results achieved.
21 MO-en 30.
22 “The apex of this strategy of pulling the readers along is reached with the dream
of the shepherdess, placed in the move from the Convitto to Valdocco, that is, from the
stage of initial experiences of a mostly personal nature, to the ultimate realisation of the
Oratory, which is of a community nature […]. In the lambs transformed into shepherds
[…] Don Bosco’s children were and are invited to recognise themselves as continuers of
the providential mission foreseen from the beginning in the prophetic experience of the
dream, as a living part of history”. (A. Giraudo, “L’importanza storica,” 19).
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expression memoirs of the future to highlight the character of tes-
tament even before it being a document, that characterises Don
Bosco’s narration.23
In this interpretative reconstruction of the past that connects the
genesis of the Oratory with a precise spiritual event of the narrator,
the dream at nine years of age comes to play a “strategic” role. It is
precisely through it, in fact, that the key to the interpretation of
the entire story is offered, and the prodigious fact that constitutes
its supernatural origin is identified. With regard to the Oratory of
St Francis de Sales and the Religious Congregation that came into
existence there, there is not only the initiative of a generous priest,
but a truly divine initiative, of which the dream is the most evident
feature. Noting the role that the dream plays in the narrative struc-
ture of the Memoirs, Giraudo states:
This event becomes part of the text’s strategy as the true beginning
of the Oratorian “memory”, determining its division into three dec-
ades. The Ten Years of Childhood (1815–1824) is in fact represented as
a significant, but not properly “Oratorian” prelude. Instead, the decade
from 1825–1835, the First Decade, begins precisely with the narrator
depicting himself at the age of ten, intent on looking after the children
by doing “what was possible at my age and forming a kind of festive
oratory.” In this way, the dream-beginning, evoked through literary de-
vices borrowed from fiction, takes on a special value: it becomes a fore-
shadowing of an historico-literary text whose meanings, strategies and
structures it consciously anticipates; in short, it becomes an identifiable
trace of a rhetorical orchestration aimed at the author’s intentions. It is
significant that it is precisely in a prophetic and prefigurative sense that
it has been interpreted in the Salesian tradition.24
The dream is thus placed within the structure of the Memoirs as
the pillar from which the arches of the narrative begin. In its quality
23 P. Braido, “Scrivere ‘memorie’ del futuro,” RSS 11 (1992) 97-127.
24 A. Giraudo, “L’importanza storica,” 21ff.
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of prodigious happening, it is, in some way, the decisive premise for
understanding the supernatural logic of everything that follows. Cer-
tainly, Don Bosco does not attribute any fatalistic character to this
premise, as if he had found his destiny preordained in a cogent manner.
In the development of the story, he in no way hides the tortuousness of
a complex path of vocational discernment from which the dream did
not dispense him in the slightest. Yet, rereading it in retrospect from
his position as priest and founder, he cannot but understand it as an
anticipatory and prophetic revelation. The words with which he seals
the tale – “the things I shall have to say later will give some meaning
to all this” – are a clear testimony to this.25
Once these things have been recognised, the question that the
scholar of Don Bosco and his spiritual experience must necessarily
ask can only be the following: is the exceptional importance that Don
Bosco attributes to this dream, so much so as to place it as the key to
reading the Memoirs, essentially the result of a narrative device moti-
vated by edifying intentions, or does it express a personal conviction
seriously rooted in factual reality? Put another way and more bluntly:
does Don Bosco exaggerate the various details of the story, empha-
sising the importance of the event in order to better pull his readers
into this epic of the Oratory, or does he bring back to life the original
details of an event that was in itself exceptional? Is there an original
greatness in the historical fact or is this merely attributable to how it
is narrated?
It must be made clear that the way one understands the work of
critical interpretation depends on the answer given to these questions:
whether it should take the form of a demythologising deconstruction
as a way of accessing an actual historical truth beyond the narrative, or
whether it should take the form of a trusting (but not naive) reception
of the narrative as a way of finding the historical depth of the event
through it.
25 MO-en 36.
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2. Hermeneutical issues
Responding to the questions that the dream account poses is nec-
essary but very challenging. It is necessary, because they profoundly
affect the way we understand Don Bosco’s spiritual experience and the
charism that came from it. Although Don Bosco’s greatness is based
on his holiness of life and not on the extraordinary phenomena that
accompanied it, the latter cannot be considered as irrelevant and sec-
ondary, neither historically nor theologically. In fact, the same critical
approach applies to the prodigious in the lives of the saints – obviously
on a derivative and analogical level – that theology applies to the
miraculous gestures of Jesus recounted in the gospels. Such gestures
cannot be reduced to marginal elements, but “are an essential moment
of the revelation of the Kingdom, which Jesus explicitly linked to his
proclamation as signs of the Kingdom that is already here (Mt 12:28).
Jesus’s miracles are but one aspect of his word: it is said that Jesus’ word
is not doctrine, but an act, an act that heals.”26 They are therefore a
kind of “signature” that the Father places on the works of the incarnate
Son, to show that his works make God’s action present in history and
inaugurate eschatological time for humankind.
The disciple is therefore called to contemplate God’s liberating
activity in Jesus’ gestures as miracle worker – God who takes care of
humankind – and to receive a word that challenges him by faith. In
the thaumaturgical gestures of Jesus, the disciple is thus summoned
to contemplate the liberating action of God, who cares for human
26 A. Bertuletti, Dio, il mistero dell’unico (Queriniana, Brescia 2014) 395ff. “They
intervene against the forms of disease that give concrete form to the evil that threatens the
whole of existence. They actualise God’s commitment to man and achieve their effect when
they confirm the radical disposition that Jesus called ‘faith’: the intimate conviction that
God’s will towards man is unequivocally determined in favour of his salvation. […] This
explains the analogy, emphasised by the evangelists, between miracles and parables. Like
miracles, parables combine the dimension of judgement with the dimension of edification.
They are intended to overcome the resistance that man opposes to the acceptance of God’s
word because of his apparent lack of trust. An event has occurred in the present that
changes the face of the earth, but it must be sought in order to be understood” (396).
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beings, and to receive a word that challenges them by faith. The ques-
tion of whether the gospel narrative gives voice to real events, so as to
restore their challenging significance, or only to emphatic and belated
reconstructions that are ultimately distant from historical reality, is
obviously not a question that can leave us unaffected. Given all due
proportion, the question we must ask ourselves about the extraordi-
nary in Don Bosco’s life and in particular about the dream when he
was nine, belongs to the same order of considerations.
Formulating the answer, however, is very demanding, because it
implies dealing with at least three orders of problems which we will
now attempt to confront, aware of their complexity and the limits of
our research. They concern the relationship between memory, story and
history (§ 2.1.), the nature of the dream experience (§ 2.2.) and the
theological criteria that allow us to approach extraordinary phenomena
in spiritual life and interpret their meaning (§ 2.3.). What reliability
can an edifying account, formulated fifty years after the fact, have in
accessing the actual quality of the experience? Assuming that the nar-
rative is reliable, can an experience as “vague” as that of the dream have
such strong relevance that it can be proposed, in the light of subsequent
events and their interpretation from a believer’s perspective, as a key to
the interpretation of Don Bosco’s life story? Having also acquired this
data, can one reasonably believe that the dream when he was nine years
old was a supernatural phenomenon of a prophetic nature?
These three questions, obviously, are strictly intertwined, because
the possible supernatural character of the dream cannot but have a
particular prominence due to the way in which the narrator preserves
its memory, and for the margins of narrative freedom with which he
conveys the message. Thus, also the anthropological consistency that
is recognised in the dream experience obviously affects the possibility
of it having a strong existential relevance and being a space for divine
communication. The three problems should in a sense be considered
together, but their complexity and the desire to be clear, as far as pos-
sible in this type of question (!), suggests proceeding per partes. The
reader who finds it difficult to come to terms with such reasoning can
dispense with the effort and go directly to the dream commentary.
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2.1. Memory, story and history
The most mature reflection on the question of narration is prob-
ably the one put forward by French Philosopher Paul Ricoeur with
his idea of narrative identity, which he first formulated in Time and
Narrative, within a theory of storytelling, which is taken up again in
Oneself as Another, within the framework of a theory of the subject.27
The intersection between the two perspectives – that of narration and
that of personal identity – is revealing, because Ricoeur’s thesis con-
sists in maintaining that the world of the subject and the world of the
text cannot be understood as two separate and autonomous worlds,
of which the former (the story) would simply be the sign (always de-
fective with respect to the original) of the latter (the historical reality,
ultimately unattainable in its factualness). The theory of narrative
identity asserts, on the contrary, that subject and story only exist to-
gether: human beings cannot have access to themselves other than by
telling their story and the story cannot be understood except through
the willingness to allow one’s identity to be transformed.28
The basis of this theory is the awareness of the dialectic that is
internal to what language calls, in a single word, the identity of man.
Two meanings are superimposed in this term, meanings that Latin
27 P. Ricoeur, Tempo e racconto. I (Jaca Book, Milano 1986); Tempo e racconto II. La
configurazione del racconto di finzione (Jaca Book, Milano 1987); Tempo e racconto III. Il
tempo raccontato (Jaca Book, Milano 1988); Id., Dal testo all’azione. Saggi di ermeneutica
(Jaca Book, Milano 1989); Id., Sé come un altro (Jaca Book Milano, 1993); Id., “L’identité
narrative,” Revue des sciences humaines 95 (1991) 35-47. [We note that these all exist in
English in various editions that can be found online: Time and Narrative and Oneself as
Another.]
28 Therefore, there is always a circular movement between text and action: they
are the objective and subjective pole of the same implementation. The text reveals the
action because it provides the model for interpreting it. Action is like a text because it
has a project, an intention, an agent (what, why, who). For this reason, the story shows
the specific features of human action: the hierarchical structure of complex actions; their
historical character; their teleological structure, that is, the reference to the total horizon
of life. But on the other hand, language is not understood radically except as an action:
it not only expresses something already constituted, but contributes to constituting it.
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expresses with two different lemmas: idem and ipse. The first designates
identity as “sameness” and implies the idea of something that remains
and does not change, the second designates identity as “ipseity” and in-
dicates what is proper, personal, not foreign. Through this distinction,
Ricoeur shows that one cannot understand a person’s identity merely
as the permanence in time of a reality equal to itself (idem) other than
at the price of losing its irreducible ipseity. Personal identity, in fact, is
realised in the dialectic of what remains and what continually changes
and therefore resembles a story more than an object. The use of the
same name to designate a person from birth to death does not cancel
out the fact that this person continually experiences bodily and psychic
change. Indeed, the time experienced by the ipse is never reducible to
physical-cosmic time, even if it is not separable from it. According
to Ricoeur, therefore, the concept of narration can provide a good
model to give access to ipseity because the process of self-constitution
organises a sequence of separate, conflicting and heterogeneous events
into a unity. Understanding human life as a narrative unity makes it
possible to synthesise permanence and change, without one taking
over from the other.29
The theory of narrative identity therefore poses the question of
personal identity beyond the alternative between an I that would have
immediate access to its own identity, being transparent to itself, and
a He that can be grasped from the outside with the tools of analytical
reconstruction, that is, an historical actor reduced to its objective rep-
resentation. The personal identity is neither that of the Cartesian I
nor that of the historical He, but that of a Self, accessed only through
the form of narration. It cannot be returned in the form of a concept
(no one can say the Self simply in the abstract form of an idea), nor
29 As Ricoeur states, “subjectivity is neither an incoherent sequence of events nor an
immutable substantiality, inaccessible to becoming. It is precisely that kind of identity
that only narrative composition can create with its dynamism. The narrative identity lies
in the middle […] between pure change and absolute identity” (P. Ricoeur, “La vita:
un racconto in busca di narratore,” in ID., Filosofia e lingua, ed. D. Jervolino [Guerini e
Associati, Milan] 169-185, 184ff.).
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through the heuristic model of the natural sciences (the Self is never
by definition objectifiable as a fact). The complexity of the lived expe-
rience can only be restored through the mimesis of the narrative that
gathers the events of existence into a web. Narrative mediation shows
that self-knowledge is an interpretation of self.
Two further annotations must be added to these briefly recalled
theoretical elements. The profound reason why man can only know
himself by interpreting himself is to be found in the fact that the
events of life themselves, and not simply the language that narrates
them from a distance, have an original symbolic prominence which
makes them irreducible to mere empirical fact. The Self happens in
them, and does not merely manifest itself. This is why the memory
that articulates them in the story is the only key to accessing the inten-
tional quality that they have and that constitutes, beyond any positivist
reductionism, the singular form of their historicity.30
Secondly, the act by which the narrator configures the fabula of
his discourse does not simply end with the text, but is intended for the
reader. Reading is a crucial moment, for in the “fusion of horizons” lies
the narrative’s capacity to transfigure the experience of the recipient.
The text always invites the reader to see the world in a different way
and, since narration is never ethically neutral, it also invites the reader
to act differently. One cannot, therefore, access the meaning of the text
without bringing into play the configuration of one’s own identity, the
symbolic horizon within which one’s own story is placed.
For the problem we are dealing with, that is, the link between
memory, narrative and history in the narrative of the dream at nine
years of age, Ricoeur’s theory offers theoretical elements of undoubted
interest. It allows us to grasp with greater clarity that the account
that Don Bosco gave us of his experience cannot be taken as a mere
30 For this reason, even the most scientifically detached work of the historian
ultimately has the form of a story, which defines a starting point and a point of arrival,
reached through an intertwining in which protagonists and other actors caught in the
interaction of a plot are enacted. History cannot be summed up in theory; it can be
understood only in so far as it is told, that is, that it has a narrative intelligibility.
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material account of the event, but must be understood as the narra-
tive mimesis through which Don Bosco configures his own identity,
gathering the episodes of his life story together according to a certain
interweaving. In this way, by giving us his Memoirs, Don Bosco makes
his Self accessible to us in a form that would not be attainable through
simple documentary reconstruction.
The fact that the dream episode appears as a founding element
in the narrative architecture of the Memoirs indicates the importance
that the narrator has recognised in the structuring of his identity. Don
Bosco draws the arches of his story by making the dream the anticipa-
tion of the general picture of history because, in the a posteriori reprise
he makes of his life, he finds there the event that makes it possible to
gather it into unity.
In this sense, the fact that the account is written fifty years after
the fact does not reduce its credibility. An account compiled upon
awakening or even an (impossible) empirical recording of the psychic
phenomenon would not offer us any more authentic access to what
John Bosco as a child experienced in his ipseity. Such reasoning would
betray a vision of the self as the transparency of consciousness to itself
and would reduce the contours of human experience to the limits of
an immediacy without any depth. Our daily experience of life does
not coincide with the degree of awareness that accompanies it and
with the restitution we are able to make of it in the moment. Many
happenings (actions, choices, attitudes, encounters) only become clear
to us in their implications at a distance, through the recovery we make
of them in dialogue with a friend or a spiritual guide. Narrative and
comparison with others thus enable us to recognise what the strict
contemporaneity of facts prevented us from seeing. To put it in the
most accessible way, the meaning of experience is like a seed that grows
in the soil of consciousness and only deploys its energies through the
resources of “culture” that allow it to be interpreted. Memory, there-
fore, is not just a filter that selects and holds memories, destined to
fade more and more; it is the place of narrative elaboration of the sym-
bolic depth of experience that our Self experiences. This is the ultimate
reason why without memory there is no identity.
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To read the dream at nine years of age as a kind of chronicle of the
facts, treating the words of the dream as if they were ipsissima verba,
would be a naive hermeneutic. Such a reading could perhaps appear
as an expression of the utmost trust in the realism of the text, but in
reality, it would imply a substantial disregard for the complex plot
of the tale with the illusion of being able to arrive at the materiality
of an incontrovertible datum. The “growth” that the event fifty years
earlier underwent in Don Bosco’s consciousness is not an element to
be ignored or removed, because it was precisely through this growth
that the sense of the dream experience matured to the point of finding
the time, the context and the most appropriate words to be returned
in the questioning form that it had.31
To read the dream as a mere “artificial construction”, the result of
an intentional emphasis that would have filled the gaps of memory,
would be a hermeneutic of suspicion that, frankly, does not seem jus-
tified. In fact, it would call into question not only the re-proposal of
an event, but the overall reliability of the complete picture that Don
Bosco offers us of his narrative identity. The structural role that the
story of the dream has in the plot of the Memoirs is, in fact, equal to
the importance it has in the configuration that the narrator gives of his
life. The interpretation of that dream as a manifestation of a divine ini-
tiative, evident both between the lines of the story and rightly present
in its explicit formulation, calls into question the deepest convictions
that accompanied Don Bosco in the exercise of his mission and in the
transmission of the charism: as something that did not come from
him, but had precisely another origin. The dream is a symbol of this
origin in narrative terms – and therefore in Don Bosco’s consciousness
truly so. This is why a radical distrust of a saint who tells his own story
would refer rather to a verification of the existential horizon of the
reader, that is, a verification of his willingness to allow himself to be
re-figured by the event of the word offered to him.
31 The very corrections found in the manuscript, and which the precious critical
edition of Antonio Da Silva Ferreira makes available, attest to the accurate quality of this
linguistic selection.
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In conclusion, we believe that reading the account of the dream
at nine years of age as the narrative mimesis that honestly returns the
importance that the dream experience had in the constitution of Don
Bosco’s Self is the most coherent hermeneutic: both critical and trusting.
This makes it possible to affirm that greatness therefore originally
belongs to the real fact (history), but, only through growth in con-
sciousness (memory), was it able to find the words to be returned by
narration (story).
2.2. The dream experience
But can a dream have such significance? The reasoning of modern
Western man immediately leads us to answer ‘no’. This immediacy,
however, is not simply a spontaneous thing, but because of the cul-
tural patterns that have settled in our culture over the centuries of the
Enlightenment.
While for ancient man, with the exception of Aristotle and some
of his followers, dreams refer to something objective, real and concrete,
whether linked to the divine, the magical or the ordinary,32 for modern
man, who tends to make the spaces of spiritual consciousness coincide
with those of alert awareness, they present themselves as a sort of di-
minished experience to which only a very modest coefficient of reality
can be assigned. The history of philosophy shows that with the affir-
mation of the Cartesian Cogito, there is a corresponding proportional
ousting of the dream from the boundaries of truth and a tendency
for it to be marginalised in the realm of illusion. That which is not
ascribable to the domain of clear and distinct ideas, that which does
32 For the classical world, see. E. Dodds, I Greci e l’Irrazionale (La Nuova Italia,
Firenze 1959) (in particular the chapter Schema onirico e schema di civiltà) [available
in English on archive.org as The Greeks and the Irrational]; L. Binswanger, Il sogno.
Mutamenti nella concezione e interpretazione dai greci al presente (1928) (Quodlibet,
Macerta, 2009); for the biblical world see J.M. Husser, “Songe,” in Supplement au
Dictionnaire de la Bible 12 (1996) 1439-1543; E.R. Hayes - L.-S. Tiemeyer (eds.),
“I Lifted my Eyes and Saw”. Reading Dream and Vision Reports in the Hebrew Bible
(Bloomsbury, London 2014).
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not belong to the world of lucid and rational meanings, is regarded as
a weak moment of consciousness.
Luisa De Paula writes lucidly:
In the period from the Meditationes de prima philosophia to the Traum-
deutung, the waking man distances himself from his nocturnal self by
confining it to the non-place of unreality. The dualistic split between
waking mind and dream intelligence is also and immediately a monopo-
ly of the former in the sphere of the real. The divorce of the waking con-
sciousness from the nocturnal cogito and the supremacy of the former
over the latter cannot therefore be understood either as a biological and
constitutive datum of the human being, or as an independent variable of
the historical process, but should rather be framed within that broader
path of western civilisation that has led to the divorce between ego and
world, body and soul, senses and reason, together with the progressive
marginalisation of either term from the horizon of reality.33
Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams is to a large extent the culmi-
nation of this process. The father of the theory of psychoanalysis, in
fact, brings the question of the dream to the centre of the attention
of culture at the price of understanding it not as an original experi-
ence to be understood for its own value, but as a derived reality, a
symptom, a residue. In Freud’s conception the “manifest content” of
the dream is like an illusory facade concealing a hidden truth, the “la-
tent thought” that must be attained. The imaginary experience of the
dream, therefore, has no value for itself, has no meaning of its own,
but is only the distorted reverberation of something that is elsewhere, in
the unconscious. It is therefore of interest only in so far as it refers to a
pre-existing meaning, of which it is nothing more than an expression.
In order for the dream to make sense again, modern psychology has
postulated the unconscious, a non-place where nocturnal creations
refer to frustrated desires and removed fantasies.34
33 L. De Paula, Il sogno tra radicalismo scettico e realismo onirico, http://www.uniurb.
it/Filosofia/isonomia/2008depaula. pdf, 3.
34 “Freud failed to go beyond a fundamental postulate of 19th century psychology:
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However, this approach has shown its inadequacy over time and
psychoanalysis itself has now distanced itself from the Freudian ap-
proach. Consciousness, in fact, “lives the adventures of the night with
the same intensity of the day; the images of dreams present themselves
to us with an evidence not inferior to the images of wakefulness.”35
Perception does not coincide with awareness: we are continually im-
mersed in perceptions (sound, visual, tactile) that do not necessarily
attract our vigilant attention, but do not cease to be real. It is there-
fore not possible to reduce the reality of consciousness to attentional
wakefulness and the instruments of thought. The way in which the
perception of the world and the giving of meaning take place in us
implies taking into consideration a wider range of experiences than
those that we can rationally dominate.
In dreaming, therefore, man is no “less” himself than in waking
life, but is so in a different form, the specific value of which must be
acknowledged in the continuum of existence. By dreaming, man es-
tablishes a different relationship with things, implements a different
way of inhabiting the world which is not merely “illusion”, even if it
does not have the lucid form of cognitive abstraction. Neuroscience
now agrees on this fact thanks to established research. Radioscopic
visualisation shows that while we dream, our brain registers maximum
peaks of activity, comparable to those it only reaches in moments of
maximum concentration in wakefulness.
that the dream is a rhapsody of images. If the dream were only that, one could
exhaust it in a psychological analysis conducted either in the mechanical style of a
psychophysiology or in that of a search for meanings. But the dream is probably much
more than a rhapsody of images, for the simple reason that it is an imaginary experience;
and if it cannot be exhausted – as we have just seen – by a psychological analysis, it is
because it also falls within the scope of the theory of knowledge. Until the 19th century,
it was precisely in the terms of a theory of knowledge that the problem of the dream was
posed. The dream is described as an absolutely specific form of experience, and if it is
possible to highlight its psychology, this is done secondarily and derivatively from the
theory of knowledge that situates it as a type of experience. It is this forgotten tradition
that Binswanger takes up in Dream and Existence” (M. Foucault, Il sogno [Raffaello
Cortina, Milano 2003] 28).
35 L. De Paula, Il sogno tra radicalismo scettico e realismo onirico, 16.
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In order to give the dream back its ability to speak, therefore, it is
necessary to recover the consciousness’ original relationship with the
body and the world. Contemporary philosophy, with its background
in phenomenology, offers significant contributions to the elaboration
of a balanced approach that allows the integration of neuroscience data
and attention to the experiences of the subject. In this way, the dream
moves from being a non-place of consciousness to a phenomenolog-
ical awakening of a personal World (Eigenwelt). This of course implies
respect for the chiaroscuro dimension that the dream brings with it, its
escape from the demands of the sleepless ego to forcibly enclose it in
its own categories.
The idea that the dream manifests the unfolding of the Lebenswelt
or vital world of the person in how he is constituted, recovers and
reinterprets an intuition of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who in
one of his fragments states, “To those who awake, there is one world in
common, but to those who are asleep, each is withdrawn to a private
world of his own” (idios kosmos).36 Ludwig Binswanger, the greatest37
exponent of existential analysis and phenomenological psychiatry,
and Michel Foucault, in the initial phase of his thinking, offered an
important contribution for developing this intuition. Rather than
fixating on individual dream images in order to decipher their hidden
rational meaning, they showed the opportunity to look at the dream as
an intentional act of consciousness in order to bring out its directions
of meaning.
Foucault writes in this regard:
The dream, in its transcendence and through its transcendence, unveils
the original movement by which existence, in its irreducible solitude,
projects itself towards a world that constitutes itself as the place of its
history […] By breaking with this objectivity that enchants the vigi-
lant consciousness, restoring to the human subject its radical freedom,
36 This is fragment IX, quoted in M. Foucault, Il sogno, 42.
37 L. Binswanger, Il sogno. Mutamenti nella concezione e interpretazione dai greci al
presente (1928) (Quodlibet, Macerata 2009); Sogno ed esistenza (1930) (SE, Milano 1993).
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the dream paradoxically reveals the movement of freedom towards the
world, the original point from which freedom becomes the world.38
In this way, the original role of the imagination within the move-
ment of transcendence of consciousness is recovered. It
is not something merely additional or incidental to what is the object
of perception or sensation, but is rather the precondition of appear-
ance, the indispensable prerequisite for any “reality”, thing or person,
to become present to me, and the dream experience is the revelation in
transparency of the incessant work of the imagination.39
Imagination shows the originally constitutive movement of be-
ing-ness in the world, the series of intentional acts by which a world
is made present to consciousness. This recovery is very important,
because it broadens the horizons of the relationship between man and
truth: truth cannot appear to man without showing its connection to
the world and without involving the imaginative dimension.
It also recovers the need to grasp the dream within the subject’s
vital horizon, within the totality of the subject’s openness to the world
and to life. This is how the philosopher María Zambrano speaks of it:
Instead of simply being analysed, (the dream) has to be assimilated,
which is a real process. The interpretation of reality dreams takes place
with a certain lucidity in a kind of second-degree dream during wake-
fulness. The person who has taken part in the dream continues it lucid-
ly […]. Valid knowledge appropriate to the person’s processes must be
active: only then will it be true and liberating knowledge.40
38 M. Foucault, Il sogno, 43.
39 L. De Paula, Il sogno senza inconscio. Immaginazione notturna tra psicologia e
fenomenologia (Alpes, Roma 2013) 31. Even just to see a loved one I need imagination.
It is thanks to it that, at the heart of perception, I am able to shape the person and the
objects that surround him or her. In perceptual experience, a movement of ulteriority and
transcendence is always at work, an intentional dynamic that organises and coordinates
sensory activity, opening up its horizon.
40 M. Zambrano, Il sogno creatore (Mondadori, Milano 2002) 24.
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The dreamlike imagination cannot therefore access wakefulness
through the analysis that deconstructs it, but must transfer itself into
the dreamer’s action. It is more open forward than backward; it is more
an expression of a movement in which the person situates himself than
a deposit of what he has already experienced. The dream therefore in-
dicates a “direction”, an “orientation” of one’s own world: not with the
lucid clarity of the idea, but as the inner movement of the imagination.
It is by listening to such movement that the dream can be understood.
It is not difficult to understand at this point that, if one emerges
from the modern prejudice towards the dreamer, the inspiring and
guiding force that the dream at nine years of age had on the life of Don
Bosco boasts solid reasons for plausibility. Within the horizon of the
most recent anthropological acquisitions on “dream consciousness” it
is a fact that does not raise objections. The childhood dream expressed
a “towards”, an intentional “movement” of the dreamer’s life (indeed,
as we shall see, a correction of movement) that demanded to become
reality. John’s Lebenswelt expresses itself in a fascinating way, in its wealth
of references: environmental references (the field, the house), relational
ones (his mother), religious ones (the two majestic characters), cultural
ones (the youngsters, the ferocious animals, the lambs), but above all
with the clarity of a direction of life that is expressed there: not with
the lucidity of the idea, since the dreamer does not understand things
precisely at this level, but with the help of the images loaded with energy.
Having established the anthropological possibility that a dream
has a real guiding force in life, we now come to the third order of ques-
tions. In John’s dream we meet two characters who present themselves as
transcendent characters, indeed with a clear Christological and Marian
connotation: the dignified man and the woman of stately appearance.
Are they simply images that emerge from a boy’s nocturnal fantasies,
perhaps as a result of some previous event that offered a cue, or is it, as
Don Bosco seems to have believed with growing conviction, a super-
natural phenomenon? In the awareness that it is not possible to arrive
at incontestable answers to these kinds of questions – if only because
personal beliefs, attitudes, experiences and positions are at play in this
area, more than in others – we will try to provide the reader with at least
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some elements that can contribute to clarification, without giving up on
suggesting what we consider to be the most convincing answer.
2.3. The extraordinary phenomenon
To address the question of the “supernatural” character of the dream
at nine years of age, it is worth remembering first of all that the presence
of extraordinary phenomena in Don Bosco’s life is a well-documented
and very consistent fact. The episodes in which the miraculous intrudes
into the saint’s life are numerous and, in many cases, this happens under
the very eyes of those who would then give sworn testimony during the
canonisation process. This is the case of sudden recoveries from serious
or incurable diseases, such as blindness or paralysis, which occur when
Don Bosco imparts the blessing of Mary Help of Christians, or of the
multiplication of loaves, narrated among others by Fr Dalmazzo who
directly witnessed the miracle as a boy, or of the prophecies of future
events which various witnesses attested were fulfilled in detail.
It is also important to recall the attitude that Don Bosco has always
had towards these exceptional phenomena that accompanied his min-
istry. According to the testimonies of the witnesses, he was very detached
from it all, did not in any way seek the fame that derived from it, but on
the contrary feared the hubbub that such facts gave rise to about him. A
more direct testimony to Don Bosco’s attitude towards his dreams comes
from Fr Cagliero, who said in his deposition for the ordinary process:
I was present in 1861 when he told us another dream in which he
had seen the future of the fledgling Congregation, not yet recognised
[praised, commended] by the Holy See. And here I notice a delica-
cy of the Servant of God who, from the time he had begun to have
these dreams, consulted his Spiritual Director, the learned and holy
Fr Cafasso, who told D. Bosco to go ahead conscientiously in giving
importance to these dreams, which he judged to be to the greater glory
of God and souls! And D. Bosco told this to us, his closest friends.41
41 Copia Publica Transumpti Processus Ordinaria, 1195r-v.
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Therefore, Don Bosco demonstrated the attitudes of responsi-
bility, gratitude and humility towards dreams and, more generally,
the “extraordinary” that surrounded his life, that the great spiritual
masters have always recommended in these circumstances. From this
perspective he also demonstrated exceptional spiritual stature and an
admirable freedom of spirit. His dreams, accepted with humble do-
cility and wise discernment,
founded convictions and supported enterprises. Without them one
could not explain some characteristic features of the religiosity of Don
Bosco and the Salesians. They deserve to be studied carefully, not only
for their pedagogical and moralistic content, but already for what they
were in themselves and for the way they were understood by Don Bos-
co, his young people, his admirers and his spiritual heirs.42
The realism and practical common sense that Don Bosco had in-
herited from his people, of which his grandmother’s blunt “We must
not pay attention to dreams” was an eloquent expression, would not
have allowed dreams to influence him so deeply had he not considered
them bearers of a spiritual message that was to be followed.43
Regarding the dream at nine years of age more directly, the starting
point for reasoning about its supernatural character can only be the
following passage from the Memoirs:
But when I went to Rome in 1858 to speak to the Pope about the Sale-
sian Congregation, he asked me to tell him everything that had even
42 PST2, 507.
43 Among his disciples, in any case, the belief that dreams were, for the most part,
true “divine visions” was widespread. This is how Cagliero expresses himself, for example,
in the above-mentioned deposition: “Among the revelations that the Servant of God
had as a child and as a priest, and that he called dreams…” (Copia Publica Transumpti
Processus Ordinaria, 1135r). Cerruti also attests that this was the common notion among
the boys: “I and the great majority of my companions have almost always believed them
to be visions, that is, ways in which the Lord showed Don Bosco what he wanted from
him, and above all what was necessary for our spiritual good” (ibid., 1362v). Testimonies
of this kind could be multiplied.
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the suggestion of the supernatural about it. It was only then, for the
first time, that I said anything about this dream which I had when I
was nine or ten years old. The Pope ordered me to write out the dream
in all its detail and to leave it as an encouragement to the sons of that
Congregation whose formation was the reason for that visit to Rome.
Don Bosco, who was deeply convinced that no one should put
his hand to the foundation of a religious institute without clear signs
from above, seems to express his conviction, with these words, that the
dream he had as a boy had been one of these signs. Pius IX’s order to
draw up an accurate draft appeared to be an authoritative, if implicit,
confirmation of this.
But how are these supernatural communications, of which the
history of spirituality offers numerous testimonies, to be understood,
and to what extent is it possible to express an opinion as to their au-
thenticity? The careful reflection that a theologian of the calibre of Karl
Rahner has developed in this regard in his essay Visions and Prophecies
can help us formulate an answer to these questions.44
For a theological understanding of these phenomena, Rahner in-
troduced an important correction to the approach of textbook apolo-
getics which considered them within the framework of the relationship
between public and private revelations. Noting the inconsistencies of
this scheme, the German theologian took the opportunity to frame
the question from the perspective of the charismatic phenomena with
which the Holy Spirit contributes to leading the Church through the
centuries, by offering her particular lights to face the challenges she
faces. When dealing with visions, therefore, it is not a question of
asking whether they add anything to Christological revelation, but
rather how and to what extent they contribute to embodying it in a
specific era and situation. Their value is not essentially at the level of
assertion, as an attestation of a certain truth, but at the imperative level.
44 K. Rahner, Visions and Prophecies (Herder and Herder, New York, 1964) though
quotations here are a direct translation from the Italian edition: K. Rahner, Visioni e
profezie (Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1995). Page references are from the Italian edition.
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They do not primarily convey an idea, but rather a command, an atti-
tude to be assumed; they are signs that configure a spiritual experience,
urging the recipient, and possibly others involved with this individual,
to fulfil a certain task important for the life of the Church. The im-
perative inspired by God in a member of the Church for the Church
to act in a given historical situation seems to us to be the essence of a
prophetic “private revelation” of a post-Christian type.45
That such phenomena are possible is a sure fact of faith: “The
possibility of private revelation through visions and related auditory
experiences is, for a Christian, fundamentally certain. God, as a per-
sonal and free God, can make himself perceptible to the created spirit
not only through his works but also through his free and personal
word.”46 What they are, on the other hand, can only be the result of
careful discernment, and never requires a true and proper assent of
the fides cattolica, since their content is not entrusted to the official
Church for it to transmit them authoritatively to the faithful, but
rather a credit that is linked to the clarity that can be achieved. In some
cases, this credit may come to be, for the recipient of the vision and
possibly also for others, a matter of true and proper fides divina, that
is, a credit given personally to God by recognising that one has been
challenged by him.
Rahner therefore calls for an attitude of healthy balance that,
much more than in the past, recognises the essential and irreplaceable
role of the prophetic charism in the life of the Church, but at the same
time recalls that “in these questions, the clearest and most apodictic
answers, as well as the simplest and most practical solutions, are not
necessarily also the most just.”47
With regard to the modalities of the supernatural vision, it should
be noted first of all that the manifestation of God through signs and
images “corresponds more to the fundamental character of Christianity
45 K. Rahner, Visioni e profezie, 52. Post-Christian is understood here in the sense
of “belonging to an era that follows the Christological event”.
46 K. Rahner, Visioni e profezie, 38ff.
47 K. Rahner, Visioni e profezie, 31.
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rather than a pure mystical union devoid of ‘images’, from which the
ancient problem always emerges anew, as to whether such a religiosity
of the pure transcendence of the spirit is authentically Christian.”48
The analogy between these visions and the structure of the incarnation,
in which human and divine are united without confusion, implies
recognising that in the phenomenon we are dealing with it is necessary
to keep in mind both the psychic laws that derive from the spiritual
capacities of the person who has the vision, as well as the initiative with
which God intervenes in the subject.
This means first of all that “in order for a vision to truly be the
spiritual reality of a particular subject, it must really be, metaphysically
speaking, the ‘act’ of this subject, that is, not only caused in the subject
by God, but also really the operation of this subject, which he himself
has accomplished.”49 Even the visions provoked by God, in fact, are
rooted in the psycho-physiological structure of the subject, who will
experience them within the horizons of his own life (e.g. in the lan-
guage he speaks, with images that he can recognise and so on).50 In our
case, whatever the theological quality of the event, it must be main-
tained that what happens is achieved through the human faculties of
John Bosco as a boy. It is really he who is dreaming; his consciousness
48 Ibid, 39, note 12. On the other hand, it is necessary to understand, precisely
from this fundamental incarnational structure in which God and creation are gathered
in unity without confusion, that one can access God only in the sign – even in the figure
of the vision – only if one does not attach oneself to the sign (noli me tangere) as if it were
something definitive and ultimate, God himself, but one attests to it by transcending it,
and grasps it by leaving it free” (ibid).
49 Ibid. 66.
50 “Concretely, it will obviously be almost impossible to say exactly where, in the act
of vision, the boundary runs between the necessarily valid psychic laws and the natural
laws, even if not necessary, which are suspended through the miraculous intervention of
God.” (66) Moreover, “if it is necessary to suppose a subjective element already in the
imaginative vision, this can be even more so after the vision, even where they are absolutely
honest people: involuntary corrections, errors of memory, use of preconceived thought
patterns and a vocabulary already packaged in the story with which the perspectives
are inadvertently moved, involuntary additions of an additional type, psychological
description and interpretation of the event, which succeed for better or worse depending
on the self-observation capacity of the visionary” (97ff).
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is not a sort of passive screen on which celestial images are projected
so to speak, but it fully contributes, with its imaginative capacity, to
producing figure and discourse.
A second important clarification concerns the fact that, as Rahner
notes, the expression, “this vision is caused by God”, is in itself extraor-
dinarily ambiguous, because any grace is caused by God, even when it
is perfectly explicable within natural laws. The religious person rightly
recognises the free grace of God for his or her salvation even in an
event that can be explained naturally. In a very particular sense, how-
ever, those visions which have their origin in an authentically super-
natural intervention of God, that is, beyond the laws of physical and
psychic nature, must be described as being “of divine origin”.51 And
even in this case it is still necessary to distinguish between (a) what is
the result of God’s habitual indwelling in the soul – which can give
rise to psychic phenomena in a believer that can truly be called super-
natural visions, without being miracles in the technical sense – and (b)
what is the result of a miraculous intervention of God that suspends
the laws of nature and therefore also the normal psychological laws.
Very aptly Rahner states:
It is clear that, in practice, it will not be easy to say whether a vision
is to be considered as caused by God in the first or second sense of
a supernatural event, especially since the two moments can converge
in the same vision. Moreover, it must be remembered that the reli-
gious meaning of a supernatural vision in the first sense, by its nature
can be essentially greater than one that is supernatural in the second
sense, since what is miraculous in the technical sense must not, from
the ontological and ethical point of view, also necessarily be the most
perfect.52
Finally, leaving aside other aspects of this complex problem, it is
still important to identify an element that helps to understand what
51 Ibid. 68.
52 Ibid. 69.
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is meant when a vision is interpreted as “prophecy” and what distin-
guishes authentic Christian prophecy from the (disputed) psychic
phenomenon of foresight. In the case of parapsychological visions,
says Rahner, the seer sees “a small random part of the future, one could
say a small absolutely random piece of a long film, but without this
piece being inserted in a broader development, in itself meaningful,
having an explanation of meaning.”53 Very different is the nature of
the genuine prophetic vision:
This is not, at least at its core, a “vision,” but a “word.” It properly does
not show a piece of the future as an image, but shares something of it as
it explains it. Such an explanation is, precisely because of this, obscure
in its details – precisely because it comes from God, not in spite of the
fact that it comes from God – because it speaks of the meaning of the
future and, far from being understood as a means to shelter oneself
from this or to foresee it, intends rather to keep open the freedom of
the person who dares to trust in God. It does not therefore have the
style of a chronicler who miraculously moves into the future itself and
from there explains what he has experienced, but rather reveals to the
man to whom he addresses himself, something of his current situation,
through that glimpse of the future that he needs to sustain his present
now, in fidelity and trust.54
At this point we need to return to our dream, summarising the
data already acquired and trying to take a definitive step forward. We
said that the dream at nine years of age plays a fundamental architec-
tural role for developing the narrative interweaving of the Memoirs, a
role that corresponds to the existential importance that Don Bosco at-
tributes to this dreamlike experience in the structuring of his narrative
53 Ibid, 119. The parapsychological seer impersonally grasps a shred of the future,
which absolutely causally, senselessly and blindly slips into the sphere of his knowledge.
What is seen directly, is seen clearly and concretely, as if on the spot. This can be referred
to as a report. But what is seen so clearly remains in itself isolated and therefore, despite
its clarity, incomprehensible.
54 Ibid.
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identity. It has also been said that the story, written fifty years later, is
not simply an account, but is a narrative recovery that comes from the
memory that gathers its own history together in a unity and gives back
the meaning of the original experience in a mature and thoughtful
way. This becomes all the more understandable now that we have seen
that the meaning of dreams is not to be sought in individual images or
in precise words, but in the direction in which the imagination shows
itself moving in its act of transcendence and openness. It is within
this dynamic context that individual details manifest their unity and
orientation.
Now, in the light of what has been said about supernatural vi-
sions, we wonder if these pages about the dream to which Don Bosco
attaches so much importance are merely the empty echo of an experi-
ence in which, without realising it, he has listened only to himself, or
whether it actually gives us the content of a special divine communi-
cation of a prophetic and anticipatory nature.
The clarifications provided so far allow us to frame our response
without maximalist or minimalist excesses. Maximalist and misleading
would be the idea that the content of the dream is an encounter with
the Lord and the Virgin in which they are seen and heard in a manner
analogous to what happens in normal sensory perception. Their state-
ments would therefore be understood as words that came “materially”
from the lips of Jesus and Mary, who came down from heaven to visit
the boy from the Becchi. As we have seen, this concept goes beyond
the anthropological dimension of the event, that is, it neglects the role
that the consciousness of John Bosco as a boy – his cognitive horizon,
his imagination, his faculties – played in the phenomenon, and thus
accepts the naive idea of spiritual immediacy. It would be minimal-
istic, on the other hand, but equally misleading to reduce the dream
to a creation of the dreamer’s unconscious or to an expression of his
fervent religious imagination. The content of the dream would not at
all have the features of something received, but simply of something
produced. This thesis is not metaphysically impossible, but it runs up
against a great deal of the moral and spiritual evidence. To support it,
in fact, it must be stated that by placing the story of the dream when
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he was nine as a key to the reading of the Memoirs of the Oratory and
therefore of his apostolic and spiritual story, Don Bosco was deceived
or, even worse, deceived himself, about an absolutely decisive element
for his personal history and for the life and mission of his religious
Congregation, that is, the presence of a very special call from above,
of which the dream was the sign and seal. A boy’s unconscious would
have produced an important charismatic text from nothing, one which
has inspired thousands and thousands of believers, and would have
offered important spiritual insights to one of the great founders in the
Church’s history, without any particular intervention on God’s part:
very hard to imagine!
Leaving aside these two excesses at both ends of the spectrum, and
taking into account the theological stature of the mission that God
assigned to Don Bosco – the stature of a mission destined to develop
in a surprising way for the benefit of the universal Church – it is quite
reasonable to believe that the dream was indeed, as Don Bosco understood
it, a supernatural communication similar to those that can be read in the
great biblical stories of the dreams of the patriarchs or the nocturnal visions
of the prophets. On the basis of the criteria normally taken into account
in spiritual theology, this evaluation seems the most consistent with
the whole of the saint’s spiritual story. However, it seems to us to be
difficult, but less important, to be able to say whether the supernatural
nature of this communication is to be understood as a charismatic
reflection of the action of grace in the heart of the one called, or as a
real “miraculous” vision in the technical sense. And indeed, it has been
said that its “religious” meaning does not depend precisely on this.
Finally, it is more important to highlight that precisely because
the enlightenment came from God, it did not simply have the features of
immediate intelligibility which would have dispensed John Bosco from
the difficulties of vocational discernment and from reference to eccle-
sial mediation. In essence, the content of the dream did not present the
boy from the Becchi with the future in the manner of clear foresight,
but through an injunction in the present. He heard himself saying what
he had to do in the present for that future to become possible, as a gift
that did not exempt him from commitment, but rather imposed it,
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and in a very demanding way. This also confirms that the dream was
not an empty echo in which the boy listened only to his unconscious,
but was a true religious experience in which he listened to a message
from God.
An act of the dreamlike consciousness of John Bosco as a boy which at
the same time is also the prophetic word of God, rendered in the form of
a recollection, a story in which the prophecy is already read in terms of its
ongoing fulfilment: this, in conclusion, is the dream that we are now
preparing to retrace and whose message we will try to interpret.
3. A theological reading
3.1. Narrative structure and dream movement
Based on the hermeneutical premises developed thus far, we can
now approach the text of the dream at nine years of age, which we
record according to Antonio da Silva Ferreira’s critical edition and
from which we will deviate only for two small variants.55 We divide the
story into paragraphs which, for convenience, we accompany with an
acronym in square brackets. [Translator’s note: the translated versions
come from the English New Rochelle 2010 edition].
[C1] A quell’età ho fatto un sogno, che mi rimase profondamente im-
presso nella mente per tutta la vita.
It was at that age that I had a dream. All my life this remained deeply
impressed on my mind.
[I] Nel sonno mi parve di essere vicino a casa in un cortile assai spazio-
so, dove stava raccolta una moltitudine di fanciulli, che si trastullavano.
Alcuni ridevano, altri giuocavano, non pochi bestemmiavano. All’udire
55 The critical text is in MO-it 34-37. The two variants are indicated by Aldo
Giraudo in G. Bosco, Memorie dell’oratorio di S. Francesco di Sales dal 1815 al 1855
(LAS, Roma 2011) 62ff., note 18: “presemi”, where Da Silva reads “presomi”; and note
19: the addition of “ed ogni cosa disparve”, accidentally omitted by Da Silva.
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quelle bestemmie mi sono subito lanciato in mezzo di loro adoperando
pugni e parole per farli tacere.
In this dream I seemed to be near my home in a fairly large yard. A crowd of
children were playing there. Some were laughing, some were playing games,
and quite a few were swearing. When I heard these evil words, I jumped im-
mediately amongst them and tried to stop them by using my words and my fists.
[II] In quel momento apparve un uomo venerando in virile età nobil-
mente vestito. Un manto bianco gli copriva tutta la persona; ma la sua
faccia era cosi luminosa, che io non poteva rimirarlo. Egli mi chiamò
per nome e mi ordinò di pormi alla testa di que’ fanciulli aggiungendo
queste parole: «Non colle percosse ma colla mansuetudine e colla carità
dovrai guadagnare questi tuoi amici. Mettiti adunque immediatamente
a fare loro un’istruzione sulla bruttezza del peccato e sulla preziosità
della virtù». Confuso e spaventato soggiunsi che io era un povero ed
ignorante fanciullo incapace di parlare di religione a que’ giovanetti. In
quel momento que’ ragazzi cessando dalle risse, dagli schiamazzi e dalle
bestemmie, si raccolsero tutti intorno a colui, che parlava.
At that moment a dignified man appeared, a nobly dressed adult. He wore
a white cloak, and his face shone so that I could not look directly at him.
He called me by name, told me to take charge of these children, and added
these words: “You will have to win these friends of yours not by blows but by
gentleness and love. Start right away to teach them the ugliness of sin and
the value of virtue.” Confused and frightened, I replied that I was a poor,
ignorant child. I was unable to talk to those youngsters about religion. At
that moment the kids stopped their fighting, shouting, and swearing; they
gathered round the man who was speaking.
[III] Quasi senza sapere che mi dicessi, «Chi siete voi», soggiunsi, «che
mi comandate cosa impossibile?» «Appunto perché tali cose ti sembra-
no impossibili, devi renderle possibili coll’ubbidienza e coll’acquisto
della scienza». «Dove, con quali mezzi potrò acquistare la scienza?».
«Io ti darò la maestra sotto alla cui disciplina puoi diventare sapiente, e
senza cui ogni sapienza diviene stoltezza».
«Ma chi siete voi, che parlate in questo modo?» «Io sono il figlio di colei,
che tua madre ti ammaestrò di salutar tre volte al giorno». «Mia madre mi
dice di non associarmi con quelli che non conosco, senza suo permesso;
perciò ditemi il vostro nome». «Il mio nome dimandalo a Mia Madre».
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Hardly knowing what I was saying, I asked, “Who are you, ordering me to
do the impossible?”
“Precisely because it seems impossible to you, you must make it possible
through obedience and the acquisition of knowledge.”
“Where, by what means, can I acquire knowledge?”
“I will give you a teacher. Under her guidance you can become wise. With-
out her, all wisdom is foolishness.”
“But who are you that speak so?”
“I am the son of the woman whom your mother has taught you to greet
three times a day.”
“My mother tells me not to mix with people I don’t know unless I have her
permission. So tell me your name.”
“Ask my mother what my name is.”
[IV] In quel momento vidi accanto di lui una donna di maestoso
aspetto, vestita di un manto, che risplendeva da tutte parti, come
se ogni punto di quello fosse una fulgidissima stella. Scorgendomi
ognor più confuso nelle mie dimande e risposte, mi accennò di av-
vicinarmi a Lei, che presemi con bontà per mano, e «guarda», mi
disse. Guardando mi accorsi che quei fanciulli erano tutti fuggiti, ed
in loro vece vidi una moltitudine di capretti, di cani, di gatti, orsi e
di parecchi altri animali. «Ecco il tuo campo, ecco dove devi lavora-
re. Renditi umile, forte, robusto; e ciò che in questo momento vedi
succedere di questi animali, tu dovrai farlo pei figli miei». Volsi allora
lo sguardo ed ecco invece di animali feroci apparvero altrettanti man-
sueti agnelli, che tutti saltellando correvano attorno belando come
per fare festa a quell’uomo e a quella signora. A quel punto, sempre
nel sonno, mi misi a piangere, e pregai quello a voler parlare in modo
da capire, perciocché io non sapeva quale cosa si volesse significare.
Allora Ella mi pose la mano sul capo dicendomi: «A suo tempo tutto
comprenderai».
At that moment, I saw a lady of stately appearance standing beside him.
She was wearing a mantle that sparkled all over as though covered with
bright stars. Seeing from my questions and answers that I was more con-
fused than ever, she beckoned me to approach her. She took me kindly by
the hand and said, “Look.” Glancing round, I realised that the youngsters
had all apparently run away. A large number of goats, dogs, cats, bears, and
other animals had taken their place.
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“This is the field of your work. Make yourself humble, strong, and energetic.
And what you will see happening to these animals in a moment is what you
must do for my children.”
I looked round again, and where before I had seen wild animals, I now
saw gentle lambs. They were 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.”
[C2] Ciò detto un rumore mi svegliò ed ogni cosa disparve. Io rimasi
sbalordito. Sembravami di avere le mani che facessero male pei pugni
che aveva dato, che la faccia mi duolesse per gli schiaffi ricevuti; di
poi quel personaggio, quella donna, le cose dette e le cose udite mi
occuparono talmente la mente, che per quella notte non mi fu possi-
bile prendere sonno. Al mattino ho tosto con premura raccontato quel
sogno prima a’ miei fratelli, che si misero a ridere, poi a mia madre ed
alla nonna. Ognuno dava al medesimo la sua interpretazione. Il fratello
Giuseppe diceva: «Tu diventerai guardiano di capre, di pecore o di altri
animali». Mia madre: «Chi sa che non abbi a diventar prete». Antonio
con secco accento: «Forse sarai capo di briganti». Ma la nonna, che sa-
peva assai di teologia, era del tutto inalfabeta, diede sentenza definitiva
dicendo: «Non bisogna badare ai sogni». Io era del parere di mia nonna,
tuttavia non mi fu mai possibile di togliermi quel sogno dalla mente.
Le cose che esporrò in appresso daranno a ciò qualche significato. Io ho
sempre taciuto ogni cosa; i miei parenti non ne fecero caso. Ma quan-
do, nel 1858, andai a Roma per trattar col Papa della congregazione
salesiana, egli si fece minutamente raccontare tutte le cose che avessero
anche solo apparenza di soprannaturali. Raccontai allora per la prima
volta il sogno fatto in età di nove in dieci anni. Il Papa mi comandò di
scriverlo nel suo senso letterale, minuto e lasciarlo per incoraggiamento
ai figli della congregazione, che formava lo scopo di quella gita a Roma.
With that, a noise woke me up and everything disappeared. I was totally
bewildered. My hands seemed to be sore from the blows I had given, and
my face hurt from those I had received. 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.
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I wasted no time in telling all about my dream. I spoke first to my brothers,
who laughed at the whole thing, and then to my mother and grandmoth-
er. Each one gave his own interpretation. My brother Joseph said, “You’re
going to become a keeper of goats, sheep, and other animals.” My mother
commented, “Who knows, but you may become a priest.” Anthony mere-
ly grunted, “Perhaps you’ll become a robber chief.” But my grandmother,
though she could not read or write, knew enough theology and made the
final judgement, saying, “Pay no attention to dreams.”
I agreed with my grandmother. However, I was unable to cast that dream
out of my mind. The things I shall have to say later will give some meaning
to all this. I kept quiet about these things, and my relatives paid little atten-
tion to them. But when I went to Rome in 1858 to speak to the Pope about
the Salesian Congregation, he asked me to tell him everything that had even
the suggestion of the supernatural about it. It was only then, for the first
time, that I said anything about this dream which I had when I was nine
or ten years old. The Pope ordered me to write out the dream in all its detail
and to leave it as an encouragement to the sons of that Congregation whose
formation was the reason for that visit to Rome.
3.1.1. Characters and structure
The dream story presents a development that follows very simple
narrative structures, although it is not lacking in some complexity.
Fundamentally, they are based on a tripartite scheme which provides
for the presentation of the actor, action and reaction from time to
time. Without being able to exclude a literary component of plot
completion, especially in the dialogues, the absence of any artificial
sophistication in the construction of the plot is quite apparent. This
confirms, also at the analytical level, the plausibility of substantial
correspondence to a child’s dream experience.
Although fundamental elements of Salesian spirituality are obvi-
ously to be found in the narrative fabric, one can further observe the
absence of some words that would become “technical” in explaining
Don Bosco’s mission, such as “loving kindness”, “assistance”, “educa-
tion”, “souls”, “salvation” and so on. The ideas that correspond to them
are expressed through the language accessible to a peasant lad: “take
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charge of ”, “win these friends of yours”, “field” in which to “work”,
make yourself “humble, strong, energetic”, “teach… sin and virtue”.
The protagonist of the dream is clearly the dreamer himself, the
places are ones that are familiar to him, populated with a cheerful
and festive youthful presence, but also already spoiled by evil (fights,
clashes, blasphemies). The other characters are somehow all known
to him. Apart from the children, none of whom is identified, and
his mother, who is a presence evoked but not personally active in the
dream, the two interlocutors of the dreamer are the dignified man
and the woman of stately appearance, clearly identifiable as Jesus and
Mary. The traits of the man are his età virile [which has not been liter-
ally translated in English as “manly age” but implied by “dignified”],
his noble dress, specified with the detail of a white mantle that “gli
copriva tutta la persona” [again not literally translated as “envelops the
whole person,” but implied by the word “cloak”] the face so bright
that “I could not look directly at him”: all details that seem to refer
to the gospel imagery of the transfiguration of the Lord. His actions
are marked by authority (“he told me to…”), but also by closeness to
John (“he called me by name”) and they had a pacifying effect on the
children, who gathered around the one who was speaking. The woman
of stately appearance is introduced as the mother of the dignified man,
and she also has a mantle that seems embroidered with very bright stars
and is the teacher from whom one learns true wisdom. The element
that most directly points to her identity, revealing her unequivocally
as a Marian figure, is the reference to the boy’s daily custom, having
learned the Angelus from his mother, with which he greets the Virgin
three times a day.
It is interesting to note that there is no reference to the father figure
in the dream, which clearly corresponds to John’s situation, fatherless,
as he tells us, since the age of two. Perhaps this also translates into the
lack of a direct reference to the Father in heaven, since the space of the
transcendent is fully occupied by the figures of Jesus and Mary. This
too seems like a trait of John’s religious experience as a child that does
not undergo any theological completion at the time of writing. This
absence of an explicit fatherly presence could perhaps suggest some
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inspiration for reflection on its connection with the mission that John
receives in the dream: it is proper to the father, in fact, to be strong and
energetic and work for the good of his children. In fact, fatherhood
will be precisely the most evident characteristic of the love that Don
Bosco will embody for countless numbers of young people. However,
we leave this discourse in suspense, as the dream has left it, limiting
ourselves to suggesting that the absence of the father may be precisely
the symbolic space that John will have to personally fill.
The account is presented with a structure that can be divided into
the following sections:
[C1] initial frame
[I] vision of the boys and John’s intervention
[II] the appearance of the dignified man
[III] dialogue on the identity of the character
[IV] apparition of the woman of stately appearance
[C2] closing frame
Leaving aside, for now, the initial (very short) and final (much
broader) frame, we call attention to the content of the dream experi-
ence. The division into four sections corresponds to a clear sequence
of scenes.
The first [I] presents the beginning of the vision, with a chal-
lenging situation to which John gives an immediate and impulsive
response. The second [II] introduces the “twist” of the appearance
of the dignified man that interrupts John’s initiative and guides it
in another direction, through an order and a teaching that provoke
confusion and fear in him. This scene could be continued, including
the part of the dialogue with the character, but the description of the
boys who stop fighting and gather around the speaker introduces a
pause in the narrative, opening up to a new unity in our opinion. The
third section [III] differs from the others because it does not contain
actions, only a rapid dialogue made up of four pressing questions
and their answers. At the centre of the dialogue is the question of the
character’s identity, but the answers gradually shift attention to the
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presence of his mother. The last part of the dream [IV] presents the
appearance of the second character, the stately woman through whom
John’s doubts are to be answered. It too indicates a task to be carried
out and proposes preparation, but its discourse is intertwined with a
scene that is a “vision within the vision”, explicitly introduced by the
imperative: “look”. Words and vision convey an explanatory message,
but the conclusion is actually marked by growing confusion in the
dreamer and the reference to things being understood in the future.
3.1.2. Narrative tension
Taking up the individual units in more detail to bring out the
narrative tension running through them, we can say that in the first
section [I] it is possible to recognise first of all the spatial location of
the dream in a very spacious yard near home. From the outset, do-
mestic proximity and openness of the horizon qualify the imaginative
environment in which the Lebenswelt of the dreamer unfolds. The
setting is cheerfully populated with children having fun. However, the
element of disturbance by not a few who are swearing immediately
takes over. The behaviour is perceived by the dreamer as unacceptable
and challenging and he intervenes with resolute and violent move-
ment, in which it is not difficult to recognise the naturally impetuous
character of the boy from the Becchi.56 The first episode can therefore
56 On the impulsive and fiery disposition of Don Bosco’s character we have these
significant testimonies of those who knew him very closely: “By his own admission,
which I heard, he was naturally fiery and arrogant and could not endure being resisted,
yet with many acts he was able to restrain himself so much as to become a peaceful and
meek man and so much a master of himself that he seemed never to have anything to
do” (Marchisio, in Copia Publica Transumpti Processus Ordinaria, 629r). The judgement
of Fr Cagliero and Fr Rua is similar: “By his own admission, he was naturally fiery and
arrogant, so he could not suffer being resisted, and he felt an inexpressible internal struggle
when he had to ask someone for charity” (Cagliero, ibid., 1166r); “He was fiery, as I,
and many others with me, could see; because in various circumstances we realised how
much effort he had to make to repress anger because of the setbacks that happened to
him. And if this occurred in his advanced age, it leaves room to believe that his youthful
character was even more lively” (Rua, ibid. 2621 r-v).
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be schematically divided into these three moments: (1) spatial location
of the dream, (2) the negative behaviour of a group of children, (3)
John’s spontaneous reaction.
There is an obvious structural parallelism between section II and
IV. In both, in fact, there is a clear ternary element: the appearance
of the character, his order/instruction (presented in turn in tripartite
form), reaction to the character’s words. In the case of the dignified
man the text can be ordered as follows:
(1) appearance of the dignified man and his characteristics
(2) his order/instruction
a. to take charge of the children [indirect speech]
b. not by blows
c. start right away…
(3) John’s reaction and the children’s reaction.
In the case of the stately woman:
(1) vision of the woman and her characteristics
(2) Her order/instruction, intertwined with a symbolic scene
* vision of ferocious animals
a. here is your field
b. make yourself humble, strong and energetic
c. What you see… you will have to do,
** change of ferocious animals into meek lambs
(3) John’s reaction and the Lady’s assurance of future understanding.
The structural and thematic parallelism is clear: the two characters
are presented with similar characteristics which combine transcend-
ence (nobility of dress and splendour of the person) and closeness (he
calls by name, she invites him to approach, takes him by the hand, puts
her hand on his head); in both cases there is the imperative assignment
(“start right away”, “[This] is what you must do”) of a youthful mis-
sion and the teaching about the method of kindness and gentleness to
follow. Even the outcome of the meeting is the same in both scenes:
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John comes away confused and dismayed, while the recipients of his
mission have had a peaceful transformation (in the first scene the boys
stop fighting and gather around the dignified character, and in the
second the ferocious animals become meek lambs that are jumping
and bleating around the man and the lady). Despite the parallelism of
the elements, however, from a functional and dynamic point of view
the two moments are not simply a repetition. The second, in fact,
appears as a resumption of the first that intensifies the dynamics and
contrasts, increasing the light, but paradoxically also the darkness and
disturbance. With this dialectic, therefore, the two episodes keep the
tension of the dream movement alive.
In a way fully suited to the psychology of a child, who spontane-
ously turns to his mother for explanations, the function of the second
scene is to offer a maternal clarification of the first. The mother of the dig-
nified man appears as a mediator for understanding the message which
she has an appropriate understanding of. However, while she explains
the content through images (the vision of animals), as mothers often
do with their children, she also preserves the dimension of mystery that
surrounds it. The name of the character, which John should have
known from the woman, remains unknown, while the task entrusted
to him becomes only partly clearer. What at first appeared to be a moral
instruction to be carried out “immediately” on a group of boys, later
appears as a long-term future mission, a field to be worked on assidu-
ously, carrying out an operation illustrated in an enigmatic way: “what
you will see happening to these animals in a moment is what you must
do for my children.” The task assigned is to bring about a (spiritual)
metamorphosis that certainly does not seem to be on a human scale.
No wonder the nine-year-old did not understand: the tension between
clarity and obscurity of the first apparition (section II) is radicalised in
the second (section IV), leading to extreme consequences.
The increase in tension between the first and second apparitions is
achieved through the tense dialogue of section III, with its four pressing
questions/requests: “Who are you…?”; “Where, by what means…?”;
“Who are you…?” “Tell me your name.” It is clear that the central
question concerns the identity of the character who produces the “twist
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of fate” in the dream, requiring the dreamer to change his way of acting.
The theme of the mission that the child will have to carry out (central
to sections II and IV) is, in this way, inseparably linked to the ques-
tion about the instigator who assigns it to him. But together with the
question of the instigator, there is also the question of the feasibility
of the task, which seems completely disproportionate to the resources
of the dreamer. To the dialectic between clarity and obscurity of the
mission, mentioned above, is added a tension between the possibility and
impossibility of the enterprise, evidently provided by the first lines of the
dialogue: “Who are you who are ordering me to do the impossible?”
“Precisely because it seems impossible to you, you must make it possible
through obedience and the acquisition of knowledge.”
The answers in this section III, on the other hand, gradually shift
attention towards the question of the mother, which will appear in
section IV, with a significant doubling of figures. In fact, there are
two mothers spoken of: the mother of the dignified man and John’s
mother. The latter is already a reliable teacher for him and he appeals
to her teaching to justify his request: “My mother tells me not to mix
with people I don’t know unless I have her permission. So, tell me your
name.” The dignified man shows that he knows and approves of the
teachings of John’s mother, to whom he also appeals: “I am the son of
the woman whom your mother has taught you to greet three times a
day.” But this is another mother, “My Mother” says the man, at whose
school John must place himself to learn the wisdom that makes im-
possible things possible.
This section III, therefore, if on the one hand it seems a transition
between the two apparitions, on the other it introduces thematic el-
ements of great depth: the dreamer will find the key to accessing the
identity of the dignified man and to acquiring the wisdom that makes
possible the impossible from the Mother/Teacher of the mysterious
character, whom his mother/teacher has already made known to him.
This concatenation shows how the tension between a “surplus of the
unknown” and the “familiarity of the already given” is the narrative tone
of the dream, the form in which the transcendent novum enters the
Lebenswelt of the dreamer to modify it from the foundations.
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Summarising the narrative structure that emerges from the anal-
ysis, we can therefore arrive at this scheme:
[I] initial situation
1. Spatial location of the dream
2. deviant behaviour of the children
3. John’s spontaneous reaction
[II] section regarding the dignified man
The appearance of the dignified Man and his characteristics
2. His order/triple instruction:
a. to take charge of the children (indirect speech)
b. not by blows…
c. start right away…
3. the different reactions of John and the children
[III] intermediate dialogue
“Who are you…?”
“Where, by what means…?”
“Who are you…?”
“Tell me your name.”
[IV] section regarding the woman of stately appearance
1. Vision of the woman and her characteristics
2. Her order/triple instruction intertwined with symbolic scene:
* vision of ferocious animals
a. here is your field
b. make yourself humble, strong and energetic
c. What you see… you must do
* change of ferocious animals into meek lambs
3. John’s reaction and the woman’s assurance of future understanding
3.1.3. Intentional movement
The analysis of the structure of the text and the examination
of the narrative tension that runs through the story now allows us
to grasp the “movement towards”, the “direction”, the “intentional
movement” that characterises the dream experience. We have seen
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that the scene takes place in a familiar environment but from the
beginning is very open and populated with presences (children
playing). The perception of an element of disturbance (swearing)
sees John intervening fiercely because he wants to repress this nega-
tive behaviour. Here, therefore, is a first “movement towards”, which
expresses a natural tendency to active intervention, to take respon-
sibility and perhaps an inclination to seeking the limelight, all of
which fully correspond to the data we know about the dreamer’s
natural temperament.
However, while this gesture takes shape with all its impetus made
up of fists and words (“I jumped immediately amongst them… at that
moment”), a surprising fact happens that calls for a decisive change in
the intentional “movement” and imparts a new “direction”. The elements
that must change are two: firstly, the objective, which must be to “win”
over his companions by becoming their leader, and not simply to re-
press evil; secondly, the method: “not by blows, but by gentleness and
love.” All the further development of the dream can be considered as
the clarification and deepening of this change of direction, its future
prospects and its present needs.
Faced with this intentional change of movement required “from
the outside”, however, a resistance immediately emerges that comes
“from within” the dreamer. It manifests itself in the form of objections
which rely on two elements: inadequacy (“poor and ignorant child,
unable to talk about religion”) and difficulty in understanding (“I did
not know what all this could mean”). The first objection is answered by
indicating the means that make the impossible possible: obedience and
knowledge/wisdom. The second is answered with a reference to the
future: what is not clear now, will be in time. The paradox contained
in these answers cannot be concealed, since in essence they affirm
that only by obeying the command will it become fully clear what it
really requires (!). However, there is an assurance of power/possibility,
guaranteed from above, which compensates for the inadequacy/im-
possibility perceived by the narrator and an offer of present and future
light that makes the degree of obscurity sustainable. Although the new
movement – or to put it clearly in Christian terms: the new mission
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– may seem arduous and obscure, it must therefore be implemented.
This is the character of injunction that the dream brings with it.
The injunction comes from the two mysterious characters. The
dignified man is really the origin and the decisive reference: not only
does he intervene first and imperatively, but the objection subsequent
to the vision of the animals is once again addressed to him (“I begged
for the Lady to speak so that I could understand her”). The woman of
stately appearance, who is assigned to John as a sure and authoritative
teacher, actually depends on the son, since ultimately she does nothing
but mediate his will. From the theological point of view, that she may
be a teacher of what seems impossible and obscure to human beings
(Lk 1:37) is entirely pertinent.
The impact of the injunction on the consciousness of the dreamer
is described in the final frame of the dream. The Memoirs narrate that
John wakes up and everything disappears. The dream vision ends, but
not its effects, imprinted not only in the mind, but also on the body:
I was totally bewildered. My hands were sore from the blows I had
given and my face hurt from the blows I had received. The memory of
the man and the lady, and the things seen and heard, so occupied my
mind that I could not get any more sleep that night.
This is entirely plausible, since the nerve centres of the brain
during sleep actually send their signals to the body’s organs, in such a
way as to dispose them to action. Just as a dream can make you scream
out loud, so, if the experience is very engaging, it can make your hands
and face ache. There is nothing like the body, in fact, as a reliable
witness of the impact – physical and psychic – of the real, because it
is not only organic mass, but “flesh” that pulsates and vibrates. The
testimony of the body, in this case, is particularly strong, equal to the
intensity of the impulse it registered: an impulse that would end up
guiding an entire life; indeed, it would end up guiding many.
After having been awake for a long time, because he could not get
any more sleep that night, John “wastes no time” telling his brothers
about the dream, and they laugh, then to his mother and grandmother,
as one day he will tell future readers. Thus begins the conflict of inter-
pretations, which Don Bosco does not hide: the funny one (keeper of
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goats) and the irresponsible one (robber chief ), the sceptical one (pay
no attention to dreams) and the spiritual one (becoming a priest). The
one who best approaches the heart of the experience is his mother,
already evoked in the dream experience. The one who will give the
dream the authoritative coverage it needed to become a public message
and an ecclesial prophecy is the one who plays the symbolic role of
father in the Church, the Pope.
But we are already beginning to make a faith reading, and for this
to unfold more clearly it needs to have a background. The images and
dynamics of the dream must therefore be related to what, in the life
of the Church, constitutes the “canon” of the language of faith, that
is, the Scriptural texts.
3.2. Biblical background
Among the biblical texts that must be considered as a herme-
neutical criterion for the spiritual experience of the dream at nine
years of age, there are obviously, first of all, the ones that refer to the
possibility that God communicates with man through the mediation
of dream imagination. This conviction is expressed, albeit with due
caution, clearly in both the First and New Testaments and has an
extensive and articulated series of attestations. For the First Testament
suffice it to recall the dreams of Abraham (Gen 15:12ff), Jacob (Gen
28:10), Joseph (Gen 37:5-11; in Gen 39-41 Joseph later appears as an
interpreter of the dreams of two dignitaries and of Pharaoh), Gideon
(Judg 6:25ff.), Samuel (1 Sam 3:2ff), Nathan (2 Sam 7:14 -17) and
Solomon (1 Kings 3). After the exile, the night visions of Zechariah
(Zech 1-6) and Daniel (Dan 7) – in Dan 2 Daniel explains the dreams
of Nebuchadnezzar – are described, while the prophet Joel announces
that dreams and visions will accompany the time of the outpouring
of the spirit: “Then afterwards, I will pour out my spirit upon flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall
dream dreams, and your young men shall have visions” (Joel 2:28).
The particular importance of this text appears if we take into account
that it is taken from the Acts of the Apostles in the part that narrates
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the miracle of Pentecost (Acts 2:17-21), and in the outpouring of the
Spirit of the Risen One is seen the fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel
and in the signs that accompany it the coming of the time in which the
prophetic charism spreads among the people of God. Among the First
Testament texts still to be counted is the foreboding dream of Judas
Maccabeus, who foretells victory before the battle against Nicanor (2
Mac 15:11ff.).
The possibility that God speaks to man through the dream is
therefore fully accepted in Scripture, even if there are warnings that
advise against trusting in deceitful dreams (Deut 13:2-4) and every
form of divination is categorically prohibited (Deut 18:10).
In the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew presents three divine
communications in a dream to Joseph (Mt 1:20; 2:13; 2:20) and one
to the Magi (Mt 2:12), and reports that, during the passion of Jesus,
Pilate’s wife sends a note to him to say: “Have nothing to do with
that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a
dream about him” (Mt 27:19). In the Acts of the Apostles, night visions
are reported by Ananias (Acts 9:10-12) and Paul (Acts 16:9; 18:9).57
The biblical attitude toward dreams is therefore complex: wisely
prudent, but not preconceived. It makes room for the possibility that
men of God receive particular revelations during sleep, but it categori-
cally excludes that such communications can be requested or solicited.
The most obvious analogy that can be found between a biblical
episode and the dream of the boy from the Becchi is probably to be
found in the nocturnal vocation of Samuel, described in 1 Sam 3:1ff.
Although the inspired text does not describe a dream of Samuel, the
passage is introduced with the statement that in those days “visions
were not widespread”, thus suggesting that this kind of phenomena
57 If, on the one hand, Job affirms that God “in the dream, in the vision of the night,
when deep sleep falls on mortals, while they slumber on their beds, then he opens their
ears and terrifies them with warnings, that he may turn them aside from their deeds and
keep them from pride” (Job 33:14-17); on the other hand the prophets warn: “Do not
let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you; and do not listen to
the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name:
I did not send them” (Jer 29:8-9; cf. Jer 27:9)
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belongs to the experience that the young Samuel has during the night,
hearing himself repeatedly called by name. On the other hand, the
idea of a true night vision while the boy is sleeping is confirmed by the
fact that the next morning Samuel “was afraid to tell the vision to Eli”
(3:15). For Samuel, too, the experience of a nocturnal call in his sleep is
prolonged in other visions. At the end of the nocturnal vocation scene,
it is said that “the Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, for the Lord
revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord” (3:21).
Norbert Hofmann58 highlighted the parallels that can be found
between the dream at nine years of age and the biblical accounts of
prophetic vocation, among which the prophet Jeremiah’s dream can
be taken as a prototype:
Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Before I formed you in
the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I
appointed you a prophet to the nations.’ Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God!
Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.’ But the Lord
said to me, ‘Do not say, “I am only a boy”; for you shall go to all to
whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do
not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.’
Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord
said to me, ‘Now I have put my words in your mouth (Jeremiah 1: 4-9).
The outline of the story of vocation that underlies these verses and
that also occurs in other vocation scenes of the First Testament presents
this list of elements: description of the situation of departure and en-
counter with the one who calls, mission, objection of the one called,
assurance of help, sign. Comparing the biblical scheme of First Tes-
tament vocation and the structure of the dream, Hofmann concludes
that between the two “there appears to be a broad convergence not
only of a formal nature, but also in terms of content, which can also
58 N. Hofmann, “Der Berufungstraum Don Boscos,” Schriftenreihe zur Pflege
salesianischer Spiritualität 29 (1991) 1-48. A reduced edition in Italian can be found in:
N. Hofmann, “Il sogno della vocazione di don Bosco,” in ABS, Bollettino di collegamento
n. 11, 43-65.
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be verified in the analysis of the details.”59 In particular, among these
traits of similarity, those that have more clear theological importance
deserve to be highlighted, such as the sudden and unexpected char-
acter of the heavenly figure who bears the call; the social character of
the mission, which never concerns only the personal affairs of the one
called, but a people entrusted to him; the awareness of the one called
of his own radical inadequacy due to the disproportion that exists
between the greatness of the task and the scarcity of personal abilities.
In the case of Jeremiah, the parallelism between the objections of the
young prophet – “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak,
for I am only a boy” – and John’s objections in the dream – “Confused
and frightened I replied that I was a poor ignorant child, I was unable
to talk to those youngsters about religion” – is quite evident. This does
not necessarily imply a conscious use of the biblical scheme by the
author of the Memoirs of the Oratory, since the common nature of the
call experience is sufficient to justify the similarity of the text. It should
not be surprising, in any case, that biblical stories played an inspiring
role, at least implicitly, in Don Bosco’s narrative act.
With respect to the question of the change of “intentional move-
ment” – from an impulsive gesture of repression of evil to a liberating
action of guidance towards good – the most evident First Testament
reference point is the story of Moses. The Book of Exodus does not
speak about the leader’s youth. The only episode that stands between
his birth and his coming of age is the killing of the Egyptian and his
flight (Ex 2:11-15), followed by the narration of the marriage with
Zipporah, the daughter of Reuel. The passage deserves to be reported,
because it offers the possibility of some important considerations:
11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and
saw their forced labour. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of
his kinsfolk. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed
the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next
day, he saw two Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in
59 N. Hofmann, “Il sogno…”, 53.
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the wrong, ‘Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?’ 14 He answered,
‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as
you killed the Egyptian?’ Then Moses was afraid and thought, ‘Surely
the thing is known.’ 15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill
Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian,
and sat down by a well.
The text highlights the growth of Moses, which is not only phys-
ical but also spiritual. This growth is expressed in an outreach to his
brethren, which the text recounts twice: in v. 11 and v. 13. Thus the
verb “go out” that will be central in the theology of the Exodus appears
for the first time in this passage. It expresses here the spontaneous
and natural movement of Moses, a movement that, although born of
the will to do justice and repress an evil, is nevertheless realised in a
violent and disjointed way with negative outcomes. Therefore, a first
“exodus” of Moses is described in these verses, the limits of which are
shown because “violence does not eliminate injustice, rather it makes
the situation worse than before, and above all because at the origin of
this exodus there is still no mission on the part of God – meaningfully
in this whole affair he is silent – but only the ideal and enthusiasm of
a man.”60 Only through the call to the burning bush, the archetypal
place for the theme of the revelation of the divine Name, does Moses
receive the new inner direction, the movement that will put him at
the head of the people and allow him to guide his people in the right
path of exit, in the true exodus.
In the New Testament, the same theme of a change of inner direc-
tion is recognisable in the story of Paul of Tarsus. At first, his adherence
to the Law of God passed down by the fathers is expressed in an aggres-
sive and violent zeal which seeks to suppress what seems incompatible
with the religious education received. But, as Paul unleashes his inner
drive, he experiences an encounter on the road to Damascus that turns
him upside down. It is the encounter with a light that makes him blind
60 Esodo, a new version, introduction and commentary by M. Priotto (Paoline,
Milano 2014) 72.
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and leads him to go to the school of Ananias, to learn to understand
what God really wants from him in a new way. From now on, Paul will
define himself as one “called to be an apostle” (cf. Rm 1:1; 1 Cor 1:1)
or “apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” (2 Cor 1:1; Eph 1:1; Col
1:1), thus emphasising that this change is not the result of his inner
search, the development of his thoughts or reflections, but the fruit
of an unpredictable divine intervention which has oriented his life in
a new direction. For this reason he, who had been “a persecutor and
a man of violence” (1 Tim 1:13), learned to “become all things to all
people, so that I might by any means save some” (1 Cor 9:22).
Both the experience of Moses and that of Paul illuminate in a pen-
etrating way the inner transformation required of John to abandon his
spontaneous impulse towards reality and his claim to improve it with
his own strength, and enter into the movement and style with which
God acts in history.
This style is connoted essentially, in the dream as in Scripture,
through pastoral symbolism. Although in the dream at nine years of
age the terminology of the “shepherd” does not appear explicitly, the
imagery that corresponds to it is clearly attested to, especially where
the boys for whom John will have to work are represented as meek
lambs.61 This imagery, on the other hand, was familiar to a boy who,
like all his companions, spent several hours of the day in pastures
taking care of the animals. This daily activity was therefore an element
of spontaneous connection with the religious experience of the people
of Israel, where pastoral care was one of the fundamental symbols to
61 Although the terminology of the “shepherd” does not explicitly recur in the story,
its symbolism is undoubtedly in the background. Moreover, it will become explicit in a
second dream, which the Memoirs of the Oratory narrate later, qualifying it as a sort of
“appendix to the one I had at Becchi” (MO [2010] 109). In this dream, which Don Bosco
has on the night before the second Sunday of October 1844, he once again sees the scene
of animals making a din that become meek lambs, but to this is added a wonderful new
element, since many lambs “were transformed into shepherds, who as they grew took care
of others” (130). The same female figure of the dream when he was nine also returns in
this one, in the figure of a “shepherdess”. The pastoral imagery, which in the first dream
was present as an implicit background, thus becomes progressively clearer.
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express the leadership of the community and the care of its life. The
flocks need skilled men to guide them and defend them from fierce
beasts; in the same way the people need wise guides, who with dedica-
tion and responsibility look after their lives. For this reason, in the First
Testament the title of “shepherd” is normally attributed to kings and
other roles of responsibility, without forgetting that the two greatest
leaders of Israel – Moses and David – were first pastors in the literal
sense. The title, however, refers above all to God, because through the
shepherds placed as leaders for the people it is He Himself who actu-
ally guides him: “Give ear, O shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph
like a flock” (Ps 80:2); “We are the people of his pasture, and the sheep
of his hand” (Ps 95:7); “The Lord is my shepherd” (Ps 23:1); “He will
feed his flock like a shepherd and his flock, he will gather the lambs
in his arms” (Is 40:11). Among all the First Testament texts that make
use of this metaphor, Chapter 34 of Ezekiel emerges in particular. In it
the prophet expresses a harsh judgement on false pastors, who instead
of devoting themselves to the good of the people follow their own in-
terests, and reports God’s decision to take on the role of pastor in the
first person (“myself will be the shepherd of my sheep … I will seek the
lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured,
and I will strengthen the weak.” This commitment is completed with
the promise that God makes to raise up a shepherd according to his
heart: “I will set up over them one shepherd… and he shall feed them
and be their shepherd” (Ez 34:23).
In the New Testament the image of the shepherd, which Jesus
uses in parables and which reveals his inner attitude when he is moved
before abandoned crowds, reaches its culmination in the great Chris-
tological discourse of Jn 10. In controversy with the false political and
religious guides, described as mercenaries, Jesus presents himself as the
“good shepherd”, that is, the authentic shepherd sent by God, who
knows his sheep one by one and offers his life for them. The image
of the shepherd is therefore one of the privileged forms in which the
theology of Christ’s mission is expressed. The Son sent by the Father
is the guide through which God leads the whole of humanity to him-
self, freeing it from evil and introducing it to the pastures of life. This
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image, however, is also used in the New Testament for those whom
Jesus associates with his mission, the apostles and their successors,
establishing them in turn as guides and pastors of his community.
Jesus’ words to Peter “Feed my lambs” (Jn 21:15) are one of the highest
expressions of this pastoral mandate. The task that the Risen One en-
trusts to the Apostle appears as a true participation in the gesture that
Jesus himself continues to carry out personally, leading those who are
part of his flock through the paths of history.
The biblical depth of the pastoral metaphor casts a significant
light on the scene of the dream that presents the meek lambs that run
jumping and bleating around the dignified man and the lady. The
mission that the boy of the dream receives and that totally exceeds his
strength is made possible by the fact that ultimately he must not rely
on his strength, but rather must act “inside” the vital space of the Risen
One. It is not difficult to understand that the Shepherd who will trans-
form the fierce animals is himself and that, for this reason, the lambs
will gather joyfully around him and his Mother, and not around John.
This consideration thus leads us to the subject of the Christo-
logical and Mariological symbolism of the dream, to which we have
already necessarily referred in the commentary on the sections of the
story, so crucial is it to its understanding. We have mentioned the nu-
minous and familiar characteristics that characterise the two figures.
They are characterised by a sparkling light, which makes it even im-
possible to fix his gaze on the man, while it shines from all sides in the
woman’s mantle. Light is clearly one of the most characteristic features
of religious symbolism to express the divine and the transcendent: God
himself is “wrapped in light as with a garment” (Ps 104:2). However,
we do not need to summarise here all the biblical richness of this met-
aphor, as well as to explain all the scriptural (especially apocalyptic)
references that can be found for the traits and actions that describe the
two figures. The reader who has the slightest familiarity with Scripture
will immediately grasp its suggestions. On the other hand, it is more
important, at this point of reflection, to stop to grasp some theological
and spiritual themes that the dream presents and that it conveys to
readers as a legacy to guard and cultivate.
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3.3. Spiritual themes
A commentary on the theological and spiritual themes found in
the dream at nine years of age could have such wide-ranging develop-
ments as to include a comprehensive treatment of “Salesianity”. Read
from the perspective of the history of its consequences, the dream
opens up countless avenues for exploring the pedagogical and apos-
tolic traits that have characterised the life of St John Bosco and the
charismatic experience that originated from him. The nature of our
survey and its place within a larger research project require, however,
that we limit ourselves to a few elements, focus our attention on the
main themes and suggest directions for deepening our understanding
of them. Let us therefore choose to focus on five significant areas for
spiritual reflection, in the following order, (1) the Oratorian mission,
(2) the call to the impossible, (3) the mystery of the Name, (4) ma-
ternal mediation and, finally, (5) the strength of meekness.
3.3.1. The Oratorian mission
The dream at nine years of age is full of youngsters. They are
present from the first to the last scene and are the beneficiaries of
everything that happens. Their presence is characterised by cheerful-
ness and playfulness, which are typical of their age, but also by disorder
and negative behaviour. In this dream, children are therefore not the
romantic image of an enchanted age, neither are they untouched by
the evils of the world, nor do they correspond to the postmodern myth
of youth as a season of spontaneous action and perennial openness
to change which should be preserved through eternal adolescence.
The children of the dream are extraordinarily “real”, both in physical
likeness, and when they are symbolically represented in the form of
animals. They play and squabble, laugh and swear, just as they do in
reality. They seem neither innocent, as a pedagogy of spontaneity ima-
gines them to be, nor capable of acting as if self-instructed, as Rous-
seau thought them to be. From the moment that the children appear,
in a “very large yard”, which looks ahead to the great playgrounds
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of future Salesian Oratories, they invoke the presence and action of
someone. However, the impulsive response of the dreamer is not the
right intervention; the presence of an Other is required.
The appearance of the children is linked to the appearance of the
Christological figure, as we can now openly call him. The One who
said in the Gospel: “Let the little children come to me” (Mk 10:14),
comes to point out to the dreamer the attitude with which the chil-
dren must be approached and accompanied. He appears as a strong,
manly, majestic figure with traits that clearly highlight his divine and
transcendent character; his way of acting is marked by assurance and
power and he manifests authority over things that happen. The dig-
nified man, however, does not strike fear, but rather he brings peace
where before there had been confusion and noise, and he shows a
benevolent understanding in John’s regard and guides him to a path
of gentleness and charity.
The relationship between these figures – the boys on the one hand
and the Lord (to whom the Mother is then added) on the other –
defines the boundaries of the dream. The emotions that John feels
in the dream experience, the questions he asks, the task he is called
to perform, the future that opens before him are totally linked to the
dialectic between these two poles. Perhaps the most important mes-
sage that the dream conveys to the dreamer, the one that he probably
understood first because it remained stamped in his imagination, be-
fore even understanding it in a reflexive way, is that those figures will
become part of his memory and that he will not be able to forget them
for the rest of his life. The encounter between the vulnerability of young
people and the power of the Lord, between their need for salvation
and his offer of grace, between their desire for joy and his gift of life,
must now become the centre of his thoughts, the space of his identity.
The musical score of his life will be entirely written in the notes that
this generative theme gives him: modulating it in all its harmonious
potential will be his mission, one into which he will have to pour all
his gifts of nature and grace.
The dynamism of John’s life thus appears in the dream-vision as a
continuous movement, a sort of spiritual coming and going, between
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the boys and the Lord. From the group of children into which he had
immediately jumped, John must let himself be drawn to the Lord who
calls him by name, and then he must set out again from the One who
sends him and go and place himself, with much more authority, at the
head of his companions. Even if he had received such powerful blows
from the children in a dream that he still feels the pain on waking up,
and even if he listens to the words from the dignified man that leave
him confused, his coming and going is not a purposeless journey but
a path that gradually transforms him and brings a life-giving energy
and love to young people.
That all this happens in a yard [the English translation of the word
cortile, which can also mean a courtyard] is highly significant and has
a clear educational value, since the oratory courtyard will become the
privileged place and the exemplary symbol of Don Bosco’s mission.
The whole scene is played out in this setting, both vast (a very large
yard) and familiar (close to home). The fact that the vocational vision
does not have a sacred or celestial location as its background, but the
space in which the children live and play, clearly indicates that the
divine initiative adopts their world as a place of encounter. The mission
entrusted to John, even if it is clearly understood in a catechetical and
religious sense (“to teach them the ugliness of sin and the value of
virtue”), has the world of education as its habitat. The association of
the Christological figure with the courtyard and the dynamics of play,
which a nine-year-old boy could certainly not have “constructed”. In
fact, it summarises the dynamics of the mystery of the Incarnation,
in which the Son takes our bodily nature in order to offer us his, and
highlights how nothing human needs to be sacrificed to make room
for God.
The courtyard thus speaks of the closeness of divine grace to how
children “feel”: to accept this grace it is not necessary to leave aside one’s
chronological age, or to neglect its needs, or to counter its rhythms.
When Don Bosco, by then an adult, writes in the Giovane provveduto
(The Companion of Youth) that one of the deceptions of the devil is
to make young people think that holiness is incompatible with their
desire to be joyful and with the exuberant freshness of their vitality, it
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is but a return in mature form of the lesson indicated in the dream and
which then becomes a central element of his spiritual magisterium.
The courtyard speaks of the need to understand education at its inner-
most core, that is, the attitude of the heart towards God. In that place,
the dream teaches, there is not only room for an original openness to
grace, but also for a place of resistance wherein the ugliness of evil and
the violence of sin lurk. Hence the educational horizon of the dream
is clearly religious, and not merely philanthropic, and it presents the
symbolism of conversion, not merely that of self-development.
In the courtyard in the dream, filled with children and inhabited
by the Lord, John is given a revelation of what will be the pedagogical
and spiritual dynamics of later Oratorian courtyards or playgrounds.
We would still like to stress two more elements clearly evidenced in
the dream through the actions first of the children, and then of the
meek lambs.
The first element that must be noted is the fact that the youngsters
“stopped their fighting, shouting and swearing: they gathered round
the man who was speaking.” The theme of “gathering” is one of the
most important theological and pedagogical elements of Don Bosco’s
educational vision. In a famous passage written in 1854, the Introduc-
tion to the Draft Regulations for the boys Oratory of St Francis de Sales in
Turin in the Valdocco region,62he presents the ecclesial nature and the
theological meaning of the oratory as an institution by quoting the
words of the evangelist John: “Ut filios Dei, qui erant dispersi, congre-
garet in unum” (Jn 11:52). The activity of the Oratory is thus placed
under the sign of the “eschatological gathering” of the children of God
that is the centre of the mission of the Son of God:
It seems to me that the words of the Holy Gospel, which tell us that
our divine Saviour came down from heaven to earth to gather together
all the children of God scattered all over the world, could be applied
literally to the young people of our times.
62 The critical text is published in P. Braido (ed.), Don Bosco educatore. Scritti e
testimonianza, 3rd ed. (LAS, Roma 1996) 108-111.
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Youth, “the most vulnerable yet most valuable portion of human
society,” are often scattered by the lack of interest of parents in their
education, or by the influence of bad companions. The first thing to
be done is to provide for the education of these young people precisely
by “gathering them, being able to speak to them, instructing them in
the moral life.” In these words of the Introduction to the Draft Regu-
lations, the echo of the dream, now matured in the awareness of the
adult educator, is present in a clear and recognisable way. The Oratory
is presented as a joyful “gathering” of young people around the one
attractive force capable of saving and transforming them, that of the
Lord: “These oratories are gatherings in which young people, after
they have attended church services, are entertained with pleasant and
wholesome recreation.” As a child, Don Bosco understood that “this
was the mission of the Son of God; this can only be done by his holy
religion.”
The second element that will become a feature of Oratorian spirit-
uality is what is revealed in the dream through the image of the lambs,
all of whom were jumping and bleating “as if to welcome that man
and lady.” The pedagogy of celebration will be a supportive dimension of
Don Bosco’s Preventive System. This will seek to offer children the op-
portunity to breathe fully the joy of faith through the many religious
celebrations held throughout the year. Don Bosco will enthusiastically
involve the youthful community of the Oratory in the preparation of
events, such as theatrical performances and other events that provide
a diversion from the fatigue of daily duty, and that will enhance the
talents of the boys in music, acting, and gymnastics, thereby guiding
their imagination in the direction of positive creativity. If we con-
sider that usually the education proposed in the religious circles of
the nineteenth century had a rather austere feel to it and seemed to
present devout behaviour as a pedagogical ideal to be achieved, then
the healthy festivity of the Oratory stands out as an expression of a
humanism open to meeting the psychological needs of young people
and one capable of accommodating their creativity. The festive joy that
follows the transformation of the animals in the dream is therefore
what Salesian pedagogy must aim for.
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In fact, celebration and festivity offer human beings the opportu-
nity to escape the constraints of everyday life, to abandon the roles that
hem them in their relationships and to bring to light what is essential,
what is truly the foundation of the joy of living and allows them to
recognise themselves as a community. At the root of festive behaviour,
however, there is an inescapable question which concerns its origins. In
all cultures, festive behaviour presupposes an authorisation which the
participants in the festivities cannot provide of their own account. The
feast cannot simply be the result of an autonomous decision; it cannot
be celebrated without there being a real reason for doing so, and this
reason must arise from an experience that really enlarges the spaces
of the heart and introduces freedom. Otherwise, the freedom that is
experienced during the celebration will only be an empty outer shell
which covers frustrated aspirations; ultimately, such a celebration will
be an illusion that can only disappoint. Instead of freedom we experi-
ence restriction, instead of community it produces “a herd”, instead of
joy there is only noise that imitates joy but does not produce it.
The festive celebrations at the Oratory are centred on that trans-
formation through which the noisy crowd are changed into the lambs
of the dream. The centre, the origin and the goal of youthful festive
celebrations are the presence of Jesus and his Mother. Don Bosco
knows that authentic joy springs from the peace of a conscience that
lives in friendship with the Lord. For this reason, he prepared for
feast days with novenas that helped introduce the heart of the young
to the life of grace, and through the sacrament of Confession which
was presented as a true experience of inner healing. The festive cel-
ebration is therefore the culminating moment of a true journey of
spiritual transformation in which God’s grace is the driving force,
while in turn it refers to a future fulfilment which will take place in
the joy of heaven, when the transfiguration of humanity will be fully
accomplished. Scripture teaches that all creation is, from the outset,
oriented towards the Sabbath, the day of God’s rest, which is not an
“empty time”, but rather a space for the free gift of encounter and the
celebration of friendship. Human beings spontaneously carry within
themselves the yearning to enter “God’s Day”, to journey towards a
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fullness of life that no longer experiences the weight of existence and
the fatigue of everyday life. This tension is particularly alive in the
young who search more intensely for play and fun that are the antici-
pation of a greater happiness. Don Bosco was able to use the creaturely
basis and the educational space in this tension to create a spiritual
experience of true festivity made possible by the gift of grace.
The link between recreation in the courtyard and celebration in the
liturgy is certainly one of the mature consequences of the intuitions
that the dream carried within it. In a passage from The Memoirs of the
Oratory, describing the liveliness of a typical day among the young-
sters, Don Bosco states: “I made use of that unorganised recreation
period to introduce my pupils quietly to thoughts of religion and use
of the holy sacraments.”63 In the famous Letter from Rome of 1884,
which is one of the most valuable expressions of his spiritual wisdom,
he identifies a very close relationship between “unwillingness” to en-
gage in recreation and “coldness” in approaching the sacraments. In
the mission of the Oratory that the dream entrusts to him, courtyard
and church, play and liturgy, healthy fun and a life of grace must be
closely linked as two inseparable elements of a single pedagogy.
3.3.2. The call to do the impossible
While for the boys in the dream it ends with celebration, for
John it ends with dismay and even with tears. This is an outcome that
can only be surprising. It is customary to think, in fact, with some
simplification, that visits from God are bearers exclusively of joy and
consolation. It is therefore paradoxical that for an apostle of joy, for the
one who as a secondary school student will help found the “society for
a good time” and who as a priest will teach his children that holiness
consists in “being very happy”, the vocational scene ends with tears.
This can certainly indicate that the joy spoken of is not pure leisure
and simple light-heartedness but an inner response to the beauty of
63 MO-en 136.
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grace. As such, this can only be achieved through demanding spiritual
battles, of which Don Bosco to a large extent will have to pay the price
for the benefit of his young people. He will thus personally relive the
exchange of roles which has its roots in the paschal mystery of Jesus and
which is prolonged in the circumstances of the apostles: “We are fools
for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak but you
are strong. You are held in honour but we in disrepute” (1 Cor 4:10), but
precisely in this way “we are workers with you for your joy” (2 Cor 1:24).
The confusion with which the dream closes, however, recalls above
all the disturbing upset that the great biblical characters experience
in the face of the divine vocation that reveals itself in their lives, and
directs them in a completely unexpected and disconcerting direction.
The Gospel of Luke affirms that even Mary, at the words of the Angel,
felt a sense of profound inner turmoil (“but she was much perplexed
by his words” Lk 1:29). Isaiah had felt lost before the revelation of
God’s holiness in the temple (Is 6). Amos had compared to the roar
of a lion (Am 3: 8) the strength of the divine Word by which he had
been seized, while Paul would experience on the road to Damascus
the existential reversal that resulted from his encounter with the Risen
One. While they witness to the attraction of an encounter with God
that totally seduces them, biblical men and women, at the moment
of their call, seem to hesitate, afraid as they are of something that
overwhelms them, rather than throw themselves headlong into the
adventure of the mission.
The upset that John experiences in the dream appears to be a
similar experience. It arises from the paradoxical character of the mis-
sion that is assigned to him, which he does not hesitate to define as
“impossible” (“Who are you ordering me to do the impossible?”). The
adjective, “impossible”, may seem “exaggerated,” as children’s reactions
sometimes are, especially when they express a sense of inadequacy in
the face of a challenging task. But this truth of child psychology does
not seem sufficient for shedding light on the content of the dream
dialogue and the depth of the spiritual experience it communicates.
All the more so since John is made of real leader’s quality and has an
excellent memory, which will allow him in the months following the
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dream to immediately start putting a little oratory into place, enter-
taining his friends with active games and repeating the sermons of the
parish priest. So, in the words with which he frankly declares that he is
“unable to speak about religion” to his companions, it is good to hear
the distant echo of Jeremiah’s objection to the divine vocation resound:
“I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy” (Jer 1:6).
It is not on the level of natural attitudes that the demand for the
impossible is at stake here, but on the level of what can fall within
the horizon of the real, of what can be expected according to one’s
own image of the world, of what falls within the limit of experience.
Beyond this frontier, the region of the impossible opens up, which, in bib-
lical terms, is the space of God’s action. It is “impossible” for Abraham
to have a child by a barren and elderly woman like Sarah; it is “im-
possible” for the Virgin to conceive and give to the world the Son of
God made man; salvation seems “impossible” for the disciples, if it is
easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Abraham answered, “Is anything
too wonderful for the Lord?” (Gen 18:14); the Angel tells Mary that
“nothing will be impossible with God” (Lk 1:37); and Jesus responds
to unbelieving disciples that “what is impossible for mortals is possible
for God” (Lk 18:27).
The most important event in which the theological question of the
impossible arises is, however, that decisive moment in the history of
salvation, namely, the Easter drama where the impossible frontier to be
overcome is the very dark abyss of evil and death. How is it possible to
conquer death? Is death not itself the mandatory emblem of impossi-
bility, the insurmountable limit to every human possibility, the power
that dominates the world, its checkmate? And does not the death of
Jesus irrevocably seal this limit? With this death, more than with any
other, death triumphs as the end of all possibility, because with the
death of the Holy One it is a question of destroying the possibility of
everything and everyone.64
64 J.L. Marion, “Nulla è impossibile a Dio,” Communio 107 (1989) 57-73, 62.
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Yet right at the core of this supreme impossibility, God has cre-
ated absolute novelty. By raising the Son made man in the power
of the Spirit, he has radically reversed what we call the world of the
possible, and broken through the limits within which we enclose our
expectation of reality. Since even the powerlessness of the cross cannot
prevent the gift of the Son, the impossibility of death is overcome by
the newness of the risen life, which gives rise to a definitive creation
and makes all things new. From now on and “once and for all” it is
no longer life that is subject to death, but death that is subject to life.
It is in this space created by the resurrection that the impossible be-
comes effective reality. It is here that the dignified man of the dream,
resplendent with Easter light, asks John to make the impossible pos-
sible. And he does so with a surprising formula: “Precisely because it
seems impossible to you, you must make it possible through obedi-
ence.” These are the words with which parents urge their children,
when reluctant, to do something they do not feel capable of doing,
or do not want to do. “Obey and you will see that you will succeed,”
says Mum or Dad: the psychology of the world of children is perfectly
respected. But they are also, and much more, the words with which the
Son reveals the secret of the impossible, a secret that is completely hidden
in his obedience. The dignified man who orders something impossible,
knows through his own human experience that impossibility is the
place where the Father works together with his Spirit, provided that
the door is opened through his own obedience.
Naturally, John remains upset and bewildered, but this is the
feeling that any human being experiences in the face of the impossible
Easter miracle, in other words, in the face of the miracle of miracles,
of which every other salvific event is a sign. After a detailed analysis
of the phenomenology of the impossible, J.L. Marion comments,
“On Easter morning, only Christ can still say I: so that, before him,
every transcendental I must recognise itself as […] a challenged me,
because bewildered.”65 Easter means that what is most real in history is
65 Ibid., 72.
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something that the unbelieving ego considers a priori impossible. The
impossibility of God, to be recognised in his reality requires a change
of horizon, which is called faith.
It should therefore come as no surprise that in the dream the
dialectic of the possible-impossible is intertwined with the other di-
alectic of clarity and obscurity. It characterises first, the very image
of the Lord, whose face is so luminous that John cannot look at it.
A divine light shines from the face that paradoxically produces dark-
ness. Then there are the words of the man and the woman who, while
clearly explaining what John must do, leave him confused and fright-
ened. Finally, there is the symbolic transformation of the wild animals,
which, in turn, leads to an even greater misunderstanding. John can
only ask for further clarification: “I begged the lady to speak so that
I could understand her, because I did not know what all this could
mean”, but the answer he gets from the woman of stately appearance
only postpones the moment of understanding: “In good time you will
understand everything.”
In truth, this means that only by carrying out what is already
understandable in the dream, that is, through obedience, will an op-
portunity be provided to clarify its message. This does not consist, in
fact, simply in an idea to be explained, but in a performative word,
an effective expression, which precisely by realising its own operative
power manifests its deepest meaning.
This dialectic of light and darkness and the corresponding means
of accessing truth are the elements that characterise the theological
structure of the act of faith. Believing, in fact, means walking in a
luminous cloud in a way that indicates to a man the path he is to
follow but at the same time takes away from him the possibility of
dominating it with his gaze. To walk in faith is to walk like Abraham
who “set out not knowing where he was going” (Heb 11:8); however,
this does not mean that he set out on an adventure, moving at random,
but rather, in the sense that he set out in obedience “for a place he
was to inherit”. He could not know in advance the land that was
promised to him, because, in fact, it was his availability and interior
surrender that contributed to making it exist as a land of encounter
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and covenant with God, and not simply as a geographical space to be
reached in a material way. Mary’s words to John – “in good time you
will understand everything” – are therefore not just words of benev-
olent maternal encouragement, like those that mothers offer to their
children when they cannot explain any further, but words that really
contain the maximum light that can be offered to those who must
walk in faith.
3.3.3. The mystery of the name
At this point in the reflection, we are able to better interpret an-
other important element of the dream experience. It is the fact that at
the heart of the tension between possible and impossible, and between
known and unknown, and also, at the centre of the dream narrative
itself, is the theme of the mysterious “name” of the dignified man.
The tightly-knit dialogue in section III is, in fact, interwoven with
questions that raise the same issue: “Who are you, ordering me to do
the impossible?”; “But who are you that speak so?”, and finally: “My
mother tells me not to mix with people I don’t know, unless I have her
permission; so tell me your name.” The dignified man tells John to ask
his mother for his “name”, but, in fact, the latter will not tell him. It
remains shrouded in mystery until the end.
We have already mentioned, in the part dedicated to recon-
structing the biblical background of the dream, that the theme of the
“name” is closely related to the episode of Moses being called to the
burning bush (Ex 3). This passage is one of the central texts of the First
Testament revelation and lays the foundation for all of Israel’s religious
thought. André LaCoque has suggested that it should be defined as the
“revelation of revelations”, because it constitutes the principle of unity
of the narrative and prescriptive structure that qualifies the narrative
of the Exodus, the “mother cell” of the entire Scripture.66 It is impor-
tant to note how the biblical text expresses the close unity between
66 A. LaCocque, “La révélation des révélations: Exode 3:14,” in P. Ricoeur - A.
LaCocque, Penser la Bible (Seuil, Paris 1998) 305.
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the condition of slavery of the people in Egypt, the vocation of Moses
and the revelation of God’s name. The revelation of God’s name to
Moses does not take place simply as the transmission of information
to be known or data to be acquired, but as the revelation of a personal
presence which is aimed at giving rise to a stable relationship and ini-
tiating a process of liberation. In this sense, the revelation of the divine
name is oriented towards the covenant and the mission.67 The “name” is
both God-revealing and performative, for those who receive it are not
simply introduced into divine secrecy, but are the recipients of an act
of salvation.68
The “name”, in fact, unlike the concept, does not designate merely
an essence to be thought about, but an otherness to be referred to, a
presence to be invoked, a subject that proposes itself as a true interloc-
utor of existence. While implying the proclamation of an incompa-
rable ontological richness, that of Being that can never be adequately
defined, the fact that God reveals himself as an “I” indicates that only
through a personal relationship with Him will it be possible to ac-
cess his identity, the Mystery of Being that he is. The revelation of
God’s personal “name” is therefore an act of speech that challenges
the recipient, and asks him to place himself facing the speaker. Only
in this way, in fact, is it possible to grasp the meaning of the “name”.
This revelation, moreover, stands explicitly as the foundation for the
liberating mission that Moses must carry out: “I-am has sent me to
you” (Ex 3:14). Presenting himself as a personal God, and not a God
bound to a territory, as the God of promise, and not purely as the lord
of immutable repetition, Yahweh will be able to provide a path for his
people in their journey towards freedom. He therefore has a “name”
that makes itself known inasmuch as it establishes a covenant and
directs history.
67 With reference to Ex 3:15, in which the divine Name is joined to the human
singular “you shall say”, A. LaCocque states: “The greatest of paradoxes is that he who
alone has the right to say ‘I’, who is the only ‘ehjeh [I am who am] has a name that includes
a second person, a ‘you’” (A. LaCocque, “La révélation des révélations: Exode 3,14,” 315).
68 A. Bertuletti, Dio. Il mistero dell’unico, 354.
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This name, however, will be fully revealed only through Jesus. The
so-called priestly prayer of Jesus, which we read in Jn 17, identifies the
heart of the Christological mission in the revelation of the name of
God (v. 6, 11,12,26). In this passage, as Ratzinger comments, “Christ
himself appears to us almost as the burning bush, from which the name
of God flows over men.”69 In him God becomes fully “invocable”, for
in him God entered totally into coexistence with us, inhabiting our
history and leading it into its definitive exodus. The paradox here is
that the divine Name that is revealed by Jesus coincides with the very
Mystery of his person. In fact, Jesus can attribute to himself the divine
name – “I am” – revealed to Moses in the bush. The divine name is
thus revealed in its unimaginable Trinitarian depth, of which only the
paschal event will fully manifest the Mystery. Through his obedience
to the death of the cross, Jesus is exalted in glory and receives a “name
that is above every other name”, so that before Him every knee bends,
in the heavens, on earth and under the earth. Only in the “name” of
Jesus, therefore, is there salvation, because in his history God has fully
fulfilled the revelation of his own Trinitarian mystery.
“Tell me your name”: this question of John’s cannot be answered
simply through a formula, a name to be used as an external label of the
person. To know the “name” of the One who speaks in the dream, it is
not enough for John to receive information; it is necessary for him to
do something before his act of speaking. That is to say, it is necessary
for him to enter into that relationship of intimacy and surrender which
the gospels describe as “remaining” with Him. This is why, when the
first disciples asked Jesus about his identity – “Teacher, where do you
live?” or literally, “where are you staying?” – he replies, “Come and see”
(Jn 1:38ff). Only by “remaining” with him, dwelling in his mystery,
entering into his relationship with the Father, can anyone truly know
who he is.
The fact that the character in the dream does not respond to John
by giving his name, as we would by sharing what is written on our
69 J. Ratzinger, Introduzione al cristianesimo. Lezioni sul simbolo apostolico
(Queriniana, Brescia 1971) 93.
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identity card, indicates that his “name” cannot be known only as ex-
ternal information. God reveals his truth only when it is sealed with
an experience of covenant and mission. Therefore, John will only know
that “name” by experiencing the dialectic of the possible and the im-
possible, of clarity and darkness; he will know it by carrying out the
Oratorian mission entrusted to him. John will know who the dignified
stranger is by bringing him within himself, thanks to a story lived
as a history inhabited by Him. One day Cagliero would testify that
Don Bosco’s way of loving was “very tender, great, strong, but entirely
spiritual, pure, truly chaste”, so much so that “it gave a perfect idea of
the love that the Saviour bore for children.”70 This indicates that the
“name” of the dignified man, whose face was so bright as to blind the
vision of the dreamer, really entered as a seal into the life of Don Bosco.
He had the experientia cordis through the path of faith and the sequela
Christi. This is the only way in which the question asked in the dream
could be answered.
3.3.4. Maternal mediation
In the uncertainty about the One who sends him, the only firm
point that John can grasp in the dream is the reference to a mother,
indeed to two: the mother of the dignified man and his own. The
answers to his questions, in fact, sound like this: I am the son of the
woman whom your mother has taught you to greet three times a day”
and then “Ask my Mother what my name is”.
That the location of possible clarification is Marian and maternal is
undoubtedly an element that deserves reflection. Mary is the person in
whom humanity achieves the highest correspondence to the light that
comes from God and the creature through whom God has given his
Word made flesh to the world. It is also significant that upon his awak-
ening from the dream, the one who best understands its meaning and
scope is John’s mother, Margaret. On different levels, but analogously,
70 Copia Publica Transumpti Processus Ordinaria, 1146r.
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the Mother of the Lord and the mother of John represent the feminine
face of the Church, which shows itself capable of spiritual intuition
and is the womb in which the great missions come into being and are
given birth.
It is therefore not surprising that the two mothers resemble each
other, and precisely on the point of answering the question that the
dream presents, namely, the identity of the One who entrusts John
with his life mission. The common gestures of prayer, the angelic
greeting that was usual three times a day in every family, suddenly ap-
pear for what they are: a dialogue with the Mystery. John discovers that
at the school of his mother he has already established a bond with the
stately Woman who can explain everything to him. There is, therefore,
already a kind of female conduit that bridges the apparent distance
between “a poor, ignorant child” and the man “nobly dressed”. This
feminine, Marian and maternal mediation would accompany John
throughout his life and would mature in him as a particular disposi-
tion to venerate the Virgin under the title of Help of Christians, and
to become her apostle for her children and for the whole Church.
The first help that Our Lady offers him is what a child naturally
needs: a teacher. What she must teach him is a discipline that will
make him truly wise, one without which “all wisdom is foolishness.”
It is the discipline of faith, which consists in giving credit to God and
in obedience, even when faced with the impossible and the obscure.
Mary presents this as the highest expression of freedom and as the
richest source of spiritual and educational fruitfulness. To carry within
oneself the impossibility of God and to walk in the darkness of faith is,
in fact, the art in which the Blessed Virgin herself excels above every
other creature.
Mary used this experience as a type of practical training in her
peregrinatio fidei, which was not infrequently marked by obscurity
and misunderstanding. One needs only to think of the episode of the
rediscovery of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple (Lk 2:41-50).
To the mother’s question: “Child, why have you treated us like this?
Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety”,
Jesus responds in a surprising way: “Why were you searching for me?
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Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And the evan-
gelist notes: “But they did not understand what he said to them.” It is
even less likely that Mary understood when her motherhood, which
had been solemnly announced from on high, was greatly expanded to
become the common inheritance of the community of disciples: “For
whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, is my brother and sister
and mother” (Mt 12:50). And then, at the foot of the cross, when it
became dark all over the earth, the “Here I am” that she pronounced
at the first moment of her call, took the form of extreme renunciation,
namely, the separation from her Son in whose place she was to receive
sinful children for whom she was to let a sword pierce her heart.
When the stately woman of the dream begins to carry out her
task as teacher and places a hand on John’s head, and then says to him
“In good time you will understand everything”, she draws forth these
words from the spiritual depths of the faith that made her the mother
of every disciple at the foot of the cross. John will have to remain under
her discipline for the rest of his life: as a young man, as a seminarian,
as a priest. In a special way, he must remain there when his mission
takes on dimensions that at the time of the dream he could never have
imagined, when, that is, he must become the founder of religious
families, in the heart of the Church, destined to work for the youth
of every continent. Only as a priest, will John understand the deepest
meaning of the gesture with which the dignified man gave his mother
to him as his “teacher”.
When a young person enters a religious family, he finds a novice
master to whom he is entrusted and who will introduce him to the
spirit of the Order and help him to assimilate it. When it comes to a
Founder, who must receive from the Holy Spirit the original light of
the charism, the Lord arranges that it is his own Mother, the Virgin of
Pentecost and the Immaculate Model of the Church, who acts as his
Teacher. She alone, the one who is “full of grace”, understands every
charism from within, like a person who knows every language and
speaks each one as if it were her own.
In fact, the woman of the dream knows how to point out in a de-
tailed and appropriate way the riches of the oratory charism. She adds
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nothing to the words of her Son, but illustrates them with the scene of
wild animals who become meek lambs and indicates the qualities that
John will have to develop to carry out his mission, namely, becoming
“humble, strong, energetic”. These three adjectives, which describe
strength of spirit (humility), of character (strength) and of the body
(energy), there is a great realism. These are the words of advice given
to a young novice who already has a lengthy experience of oratory
work and knows what the “field” in which he must “work” requires.
The Salesian spiritual tradition has carefully guarded the words of this
dream that refer to Mary. The Salesian Constitutions clearly make
reference to this when they state: “The Virgin Mary showed Don
Bosco his field of labour among the young”,71 and recall that “under
the guidance of Mary his teacher, Don Bosco lived with the boys of
the first oratory a spiritual and educational experience that he called
the Preventive System.”72
Don Bosco recognised Mary as playing a decisive role in his edu-
cational system, and saw in her motherhood the clearest inspiration of
what it means to “prevent”. The fact that Mary intervened at the first
moment of his charismatic vocation and that she played such a central
role in this dream, will forever make Don Bosco understand that she
belongs to the roots of the charism and that if her inspiring role is not
recognised, the charism is not understood in its authenticity. Given to
John as Teacher in this dream, she must also be given to all those who
share in his vocation and mission. As Don Bosco’s successors never
tired of affirming, “the Salesian vocation cannot be explained either in
its birth or in its continuing development without the continual and
maternal guidance of Mary.”73
71 C 70.
72 C 20.
73 E. Viganò, Mary renews the Salesian Family of Don Bosco, AGC 289 (1978) 1-35,
28. For a critical reception of Marian devotion in the history of the Salesian Constitutions,
cf. A. van Luyn, “Maria nel carisma della ‘Società di San Francesco di Sales’,” in AA.VV.,
La Madonna nella “Regola” della Famiglia Salesiana (LAS, Roma 1987) 15-87.
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3.3.5. The strength of gentleness
“You will have to win these friends of yours not by blows but by
gentleness and love”: these words of the dignified stranger are un-
doubtedly the best-known words of John’s dream at nine years of
age, the words that somehow sum up the message and convey its
inspiration. They are also the first words that the dignified man says
to John, and they interrupt his forceful efforts to put an end to the
disorder and swearing that the boys are engaged in. They are not only
a formula that conveys an ever-valid wisdom saying, but advice that
specifies the way in which John is to carry out the order (“he told me
to take charge of these children and added these words”) with which,
as has been noted, the intentional movement of his consciousness has
already been reoriented. The heat and passion behind the use of his
fists must become the driving force of love, and the disjointed energy
of repressive intervention must make room for gentleness.
The term “mansuetudine” [which becomes “gentleness” rather
than “meekness” in the English translation] has significant weight
here, especially when we remember that the corresponding adjective
is used at the end of the dream to describe the lambs frolicking around
the Lord and Mary. This suggests what is probably a relevant observa-
tion: for those who were originally ferocious animals to become “gentle”
lambs, their educator must himself first become gentle. Both, albeit from
different points, must experience a real transformation to enter the
Christological orbit of gentleness and love. It is easy to understand
what this change requires for a group of rowdy and quarrelsome boys.
For an educator it may be less obvious. In fact, for the educator who
has already embraced good, positive values, order and discipline, what
change can be asked of this person?
Here is something that will have a decisive impact on Don Bosco’s
life, first of all at the practical level of his way of acting and, to a cer-
tain extent, also at the level of theoretical reflection. It will lead Don
Bosco to categorically exclude an educational system based on repression
and punishment, and to choose with real conviction a method that is
entirely based on love that Don Bosco will call the “preventive system”.
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Apart from the different pedagogical implications that derive from this
choice, it is interesting to highlight here the theological and spiritual
dimension that underlies this direction, and for which the words of
the dream are in some way the origin and the trigger.
By placing themselves on the side of the good and the “law”, ed-
ucators may be tempted to frame how they act with young people in
such a way that order and discipline are established essentially through
rules. Yet the law contains an ambiguity within it that makes it insuf-
ficient for guiding someone to freedom, and this, not only because of
the limits that every human rule contains within itself, but also because
of a limit that is ultimately of a theological order. The whole of Paul’s
reflection on the law is a great meditation on this truth, since Paul had
learnt from his personal experience that the Law had not prevented
him from being “a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence”
(1 Tim 1:13). Scripture teaches that the same Law given by God is
not enough to save man, if there is not another personal principle
to integrate and internalise it in the heart of man. Paul Beauchamp
sums up this dynamic nicely when he states: “The Law is preceded by
a “you are loved” and followed by a “you will love”: “you are loved” is its
foundation, and “you will love” its fulfilment.”74
Without this foundation and this fulfilment, the law bears in
itself the signs of a violence that reveals its inability to generate the
good that it requires people to accomplish. To return to the scene of
the dream, the fists and blows that John uses in the name of a sacred
commandment of God, which prohibits blasphemy [swearing, as the
English says], reveal the inadequacy and ambiguity of any moralising
impulse that is not internally incarnated from above.
It is therefore also necessary for John, and for those who will learn
the “preventive spirituality” from him, to embrace an unprecedented
educational logic which goes beyond the regime of the law. This logic
is made possible only by the Spirit of the Risen One, poured into our
hearts. In fact, only the Spirit allows us to move from a formal and
74 P. Beauchamp, La legge di Dio (Piemme, Casale Monferrato 2000) 116.
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external justice (be it the classic justice of “discipline” and “good con-
duct” or the modern one of “procedures” and “objectives achieved”) to
a true inner holiness which does good because it is inwardly attractive.
Don Bosco will show that he has this awareness when he clearly de-
clares in what he wrote about the Preventive System, that it is entirely
based on the words of Saint Paul: “Charitas benigna est, patiens est;
omnia suffert, omnia sperat, omnia sustinet.”
Only theological charity, which makes us participants in the life of
God, is capable of imprinting on the work of education the character
that identifies its unique gospel quality. It is not for nothing that the
New Testament locates the distinctive features of the “wisdom that
comes from above” in gentleness: it “is first pure, then peaceable,
gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace
of partiality or hypocrisy.” (Jas 3:17). This is why, for those who prac-
tise it, performing the work of peace, eventually reaps “a harvest of
righteousness” (Jas 3:18). The “gentleness”, or in Salesian terms the
“loving-kindness”, that characterises such wisdom is the defining sign
of a heart that has gone through a true Easter transformation, and let
itself be stripped of all forms of violence.
The power of this initial imperative, which perhaps we have iden-
tified too much as an injunction, reflects the very strong words of
the gospel: “For I say to you, do not resist an evildoer” (Mt 5:39) or
“Put your sword back in its place” (Mt 26:52; cf. Jn 18:11). It refers
to one of the novel qualities of the Christ event, that for which the
absoluteness of its truthful claim is expressed only in the form of agape,
that is, of the gift of self for the life of the other. Starting with the
opening words of the dream, we find ourselves at the very heart of
Christian revelation, where it is a question of the authentic “Face of
God” and the conversion that it entails. The “style” of Christian ed-
ucation, its capacity to generate practices and attitudes truly rooted
in the Christological event, depends exactly on this correspondence
with the “Face of God”.
Religious language alone is incapable of honouring him. The story
of Jesus clearly shows that even within that language, with its codes
and its rites, its rules and its institutions, something can take root that
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does not come from God and that on the contrary resists and opposes
him. The Christological event explodes these contradictions within
the practice of the sacred as the children of Adam pass it on to their
children, adapting it to their standards of justice and punishment;
ready, in the name of the Law, to stone the adulteress and crucify the
Holy One of God!
In the face of this distorted way of understanding religion, Jesus
came to inaugurate another Kingdom of which he is the Lord, and the
logic of which is revealed by his messianic entry into Jerusalem. By
entering the Holy City on the back of a donkey, Jesus presents himself
as the Messiah who does not conquer people with arms and armies
but through the gentle strength of truth and love alone. The gift of
his life, which he will bring to its completion in the city of David, is
the only way through which the Kingdom of God can come into the
world. His gentleness as a Paschal Lamb is the only force with which
the Father wants to win our hearts.
“You will have to win these friends of yours not with blows but by
gentleness and love.” Reading these words against the background of
gospel revelation means recognising that through them John is given
an interior direction that has its one and only source in the Heart of
Christ.75 “Not with blows but by gentleness” is the educational trans-
lation of the “very personal” style of Jesus.
Of course, “winning” young people in this way is a very de-
manding task. It implies not giving in to the coldness of an education
based only on rules, nor to the apparent goodness of a proposal that
refuses to denounce the “ugliness of sin” and present the “value of
virtue”. Establishing the good by simply showing the strength of truth
and love, witnessed through dedication “to one’s last breath”, is the
image of an educational method that is at the same time a true and
proper spirituality.
75 For this reason, Article 11 of the Constitutions states that “the Salesian spirit finds
its model and its source in the heart of Christ, apostle of the Father”, specifying that it
is revealed in the attitude of the “Good Shepherd who wins hearts by gentleness and
self-giving.”
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It is not surprising that John in the dream resists entering into
this dynamic and asks for a better understanding of the identity of the
One who is demanding it. But when he has understood this dynamic,
first, by turning the message into the oratory as an institution and then
also by founding a religious family, he comes to believe that telling the
dream in which he learned that lesson will be the most beautiful way
to share with the most authentic meaning of his experience with his
sons. It is God himself who has always been our guide, it is he who started
the initial movement of what would become the Salesian charism.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Presentation............................................................................................................ 3
Abbreviations........................................................................................................ 5
DON BOSCO’S CHILDHOOD DREAM.
HERMENEUTICAL QUESTIONS
AND A THEOLOGICAL READING........................................................ 5
1. Sources............................................................................................................... 10
2. Hermeneutical issues..................................................................................... 17
2.1. Memory, story and history....................................................................... 19
2.2. The dream experience............................................................................... 24
2.3. The extraordinary phenomenon.............................................................. 30
3. A theological reading..................................................................................... 39
3.1. Narrative structure and dream movement............................................ 39
3.1.1. Characters and structure........................................................... 43
3.1.2. Narrative tension......................................................................... 46
3.1.3. Intentional movement............................................................... 50
3.2. Biblical background................................................................................. 53
3.3. Spiritual themes........................................................................................ 61
3.3.1. The Oratorian mission............................................................... 61
3.3.2. The call to do the impossible.................................................... 67
3.3.3. The mystery of the name........................................................... 72
3.3.4. Maternal mediation.................................................................... 75
3.3.5. The strength of gentleness......................................................... 79
Table of Contents................................................................................................. 85
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The year 2024 will mark - with a certain degree of ap-
proximation - the bicentenary of Don Bosco’s «nine-year
dream». This anniversary refers to one of the events that
Don Bosco considered the most important in his personal
experience and the most decisive for his mission. Indeed,
Don Bosco’s sons and daughters have always considered
this account to be a «sacred» page, full of charismatic sug-
gestions and inspirational force.
The essay has already been published by LAS in 2017 as
part of a voluminous study of Don Bosco’s dreams, but the
bicentenary seems a timely occasion to make it available
also in this independent and more accessible form.
Andrea Bozzolo is a Sale-
sian priest with a doctorate
in Classics and Theology.
He teaches dogmatic theol-
ogy at the Pontifical Salesian
University, where he has also
been Rector since 2021. He
was an expert at the Synod
on Youth and the Synod on
Synodality. His most recent
LAS publications include Il
rito di Gesù. Temi di teologia
sacramentaria, LAS, Roma
2013 and La cultura affettiva.
Cambiamenti e sfide, 2022.
€ 6,00