Valsalice, Turin, 22 February 2014

On 31 January 1888 Fr Michael Rua announced Don Bosco's death to the Salesian Family: “With an anguished heart, eyes swollen from weeping, and a trembling hand I give you the most sorrowful news I have ever had to or could ever have to pass on in my lifetime; I am telling you that our beloved father in Jesus Christ, our founder, friend, advisor, guide for our lives, is dead. ‘Ahi’ [‘ouch!’]! A word that pierces the soul, transfixes the heart, opens the gates to a flood of tears!”¹.

These words are not just rhetoric. They express the state of mind of those early Salesians who had been taken in as boys at Valdocco, and had found in Don Bosco a father and friend. He had always been close to each of them with a powerful and solicitous love and fatherly tenderness.

The Bollettino Salesiano began this diary of events after his death with words that express the common state of mind well: “We loved him just as one loves the smiles of children, the hopes of youth, the support and goodness of old age. For us he was the greatest, most noble, affectionate, generous being that could be found on earth. There is no moment in our lives that does not carry some memory of his affection for us”².