- Demographic growth; social and geographical mobility of population (regional, continental and worldwide); consequent social and pastoral problems.

- The emergence and social redemption of the working classes: Their educational and professional qualification.

- A Christian effort to win over society again after Napoleon and the period of revolutions.

- Liberal evolution in Piedmont from 1821 to 1861: a new model of state and church, citizen and Christian.

- A dynamic model of the priest: spirituality, zeal and practical creativity (Caritas Christi urget nos - Da mihi animas...).

- From a territorial ministry to one based on categories: Different sensitivities and approaches.

- “It is not sufficient to provide instruction: we need to educate” .

- A spirituality for the emerging working class and for the young: A holiness which is easy for everyone, but no less demanding nonetheless.

- The role of the 'Convitto’ (Pastoral Institute) and Cafasso in the formation of pastoral understanding (the heritage of “L’Amicizie”).

- The experience of "catechism classes” for youngsters who were “wandering through the city streets and squares".

- Importance of collaboration with the Marchioness Barolo and Fr Borel.

- From “Catechism class” to the “Oratory of St. Francis de Sales in the Valdocco area” : A structured and well articulated proposal moves from something that happens occasionally to something that becomes stable.

- Beneficiaries of the Oratory: The young people of the poorer classes, the  “poor and abandoned”; spontaneous participation and seeing the worth of youthful occasions.

- Don Bosco, priests and helpers at the Oratory: From personal charism to the educative and pastoral community.

- A growing demand from below: Education and reading; need for popular journalism which is instructive, edifying, devout.

- Don Bosco showed great capacity for coordination between pastoral-educative activity and other activity: His particular involvement as a writer and publishing entrepreneur

- After his early experiences - from the Cenni biografici (outlines) on Louis Comollo (1844) for the clerical world, to booklets aimed at young people or particular groups: Il divoto dell'Angelo Custode (1845); Storia ecclesiastica ad uso delle scuole (1845); Le sei domeniche e la novena di san Luigi Gonzaga (1846); The Il Giovane Provveduto (1847); Storia sacra ad uso delle scuole (1847): all written for those who went to the Oratories, for the students and their families -- Don Bosco never took a break as a writer, publisher, propagandist . He was convinced that preaching the Good News through the press was a service that he was able to do, as an expression of his vocation as an educator of youth and people generally. A faith he had in common with many of his contemporaries.

- Don Bosco was concerned with making it understood, including by those who, though not knowing how to read, liked listening to things being read on winter evenings (vigils) held by farming folk. Nevertheless he was convinced that linguistic features were essential to the effectiveness and dignity of what was written and to its “advantage to religion”. Along with the urge to write and publish, this caused him a degree of apprehension, because he knew he was not such an elegant writer. So he sought humble and simple collaboration and also review from both the learned and the simple.

- In 1853, in an understanding with bishop Moreno from Ivrea, Don Bosco began his “Catholic Readings” (Letture Catholiche, henceforth LC); the first pamphlets were written by him: Il cattolico istruito nella sua religione (The well-instructed Catholic): trattenimenti di un padre di famiglia co' suoi figliuoli secondo i bisogni del tempo (Dealings of a father of a family with his beloved children according to the demands of the times). The LC responded appropriately to an emerging need of the people of the lower classes, who by reading and listening were brought to a higher level.

- After uncertain beginnings and some risky steps (like the inclusion of the ultra-reactionary Catechismo cattolico delle rivoluzioni, 1854, by Serafino Sordi sj) the LC became more pleasantly narrative and geared towards religious instruction (ie on themes other than those to do with political struggles). Each year ended with an almanac called “Il Galantuomo”, where there was no shortage of ideas for the year, thoughts, wise maxims, calendars of feast days and weekdays.

- Developments: Support from the bishops; a network of distributors in the area; initial print run of 3,000 which gradually grew to 12,000 in the '70s. French edition 1854-55, taken up again in 1896. Argentinian edition, “Lecturas católicas” from 1883.

- Important repercussions of the LC for Don Bosco's works: A network of understanding, sympathy and support; recruitment tool for young people and a positive resource for his mission as priest and educator.

- Don Bosco's publishing activity was a determining factor for further matters:

“Had Don Bosco not been a writer and publisher, his educational work would have gone ahead differently from the way it actually did. Had he not set out to write books like Giovane provveduto (The Companion of Youth), Storia sacra (Sacred History) and his Storia ecclesiastica (Church History), Storia d'italia (History of Italy) and the life of the Popes, he would not have felt the need to withdraw quietly during the week to the Pastoral Institute (Convitto) to read books and search out pages which inspired him. Consequently there would have been less urge to find someone to substitute him at the Pinardi House and then at the "Oratory annex". If he had not been involved in fostering and spreading the “Catholic Readings”, in 1858 he would not have been able to present himself to Pius IX as the director of a set of readings aimed at the people, supported by the bishops and clergy in the Savoy States. The “Catholic Readings” and books which Don Bosco authored, in turn facilitated his recruitment of young people at the Oratory...

Don Bosco’s publishing enterprise would not have multiplied had a series of favourable circumstances not intervened after 1848 ... The years of poverty and famine from 1846-1847 had forced workers and farmers into the city in search of work and sustenance. The philanthropic campaign for kindergartens and the opening of night schools had created a wider environment of aspirants for learning through whatever means and in whatever way they could. Young and not so young were motivated by the mirage of economic, professional and civil betterment and access to culture opened up by knowing how to read and write. Freedom of the press, the rise of patriotism and political parties led to factors that would have broken the vicious circle of reduced print runs and high costs of magazines and books ...

And in those years the school text became part of the chain of production with flattering success. In this sector, too, in fact after 1848 there was a tendency to better print runs and well-contained costs ...

1848 then was a crucial year for publishing activity. Once he had overcome the difficult transitional time when, during the time of Charles Albert the book market was relatively static, during the Cavour decade and the post-unification period he succeeded in achieving an effective combination of educational and publishing activity” (P. Stella, Don Bosco nell storia economica e sociale, pp. 328-330).

- Don Bosco’s concern as a writer was neither as the historian nor the scientist, but prevalently educational and formational, with a strong sense of getting them out far and wide; it was in function of the pressing needs of his work and those for whom he worked.

1.5.1. School texts

- Storia ecclesiastica ad uso delle scuole (Church History) (1845): Don Bosco based himself on the small textbooks for young people by Jean-Nicolas Loriquet (1767-1845), including edifying details in them and outlines of saints which he drew from Bercastel, to show the "progress" of the Church and "and how it was preserved and propagated despite difficult times". The Storia sacra ad uso delle scuole (Sacred History) (1847) too, was not modelled on commentaries by Tirino, Calmet or Martini, but on the booklets by Loriquet, Soave and others writing for young people. Thus his Storia d'italia raccontata alla gioventù da' suoi primi abitatori ai nostri giorni (History of Italy) (1855) was put together initially from publications at popular level and for the young and from Racconti morali tratti dalla storia d'italia (inserted into the Giannetto, a widely available reader for primary schools by Louis Alessandro Parravicini). Don Bosco’s history texts, as with his models, were more episodic and about people than they were a tightly-knit set of events: They are pages written by an educator who tells a story with the aim of teaching and moralising and pointing to a religious meaning of history.

- Il sistema metrico decimale ridotto a semplicità ... ad uso degli artigiani e della gente di campagna (Metric System)(18492) has a similar basic concern: From arithmetical operations he took the idea of presenting models of young people who used money well and saved also in favour of the poor, people who left monies to restore churches and educate the young, lazy workers who were fined, youths who let their finances go up in smoke... He continued an educational tradition that went back to the Lasallians and the Port-Royal primary school texts.

1.5.2 Enjoyable writings and plays

- Don Bosco wrote plays on the (decimal) metric system (1849), Una disputa tra un avvocato e un ministro protestante (1853) and La casa di fortuna (1865); stories, like the Novella amena di un vecchio soldato di Napoleone I (1862) and the Fatti ameni della vita di Pius IX (1871).

- They are expressions of a common feeling of sympathy or its opposite in the setting they came from, a kind of writing where the feelings were not strongly expressed, but aimed at moralising and entertaining by focusing on the energy of the actors, on the scenes or common feeling with values expressed.

1.5.3. Hagiographic writings

- Vita di S. Pietro (1856), S. Paolo (1857) the Popes of the first three centuries (1856-1864); Vita di San Martino (1855), S. Pancrazio (1856), Caterina de Mattei da Racconigi (1862), Beata Maria degli Angeli carmelitana scalza (1865) S. Giuseppe (1867): these are writings on saints based on widespread models of such (the works of C. Massini, the Esercizi di pietà per tutti i giorni dell'anno di G. Croiset sj and the like).

- These lives can ideally be linked to the Storia ecclesiastica ad uso delle scuole, but coming after 1848 also deal with Protestant proselytising and tend to show the Catholic Church as the only Ark of salvation and source of holiness. Don Bosco preferred to use hagiographic material already written, taking care to write pages that would be pleasing and understandable for the popular reader, presenting heroes in action, and involved in activities which gave rise to admiration and the desire to emulate. He favoured scenic presentation, nice stories, heroic dialogue; he liked contrast and simplification, all-encompassing characters.

1.5.4. Biographical writings and stories with a historical basis

- The Lives or Historical outlines of Louis Comollo, Dominic Savio, Michael Magone, Joseph Cafasso, Francis Besucco belong to the genre of edifying biographies common in college (boarding) and seminary environments from the Tridentine period onwards. Don Bosco, using a thin basis of biographical facts and a handful only of chronological data, slips in episodes which are categorised according to the scholastic, moralistic or hagiographical aspects of the virtues presented: spirit of prayer, innocence, penance, sacramental practice, devotion to Mary, edifying death crowning a good life.

- The structure of such "biographies" is echoed in other works like his Sei domeniche e la novena in onore di S. Louis (1846) or his Mese di maggio (1858), but also in explanatory tales with an historical basis like La forza della buona educazione (1855), Valentino o la vocazione impedita (1866), Angelina o l'orfanella degli Appennini (1869) in which we find (like in the Life of Besucco) some passages on frequent communion that come from the Mese di maggio (1858) and which also went into the Nove giorni consacrati all'augusta Madre del Salvatore (1870).

1.5.5. Shorter works on religion and prayer

- It is difficult to make any neat distinctions amongst Don Bosco’s writings, both because of the mixture of material and the purposes of one or the other item, and because he was not so concerned about giving each item a precise character.

- Il giovane provveduto per la pratica dei suoi doveri negli esercizi di cristiana pietà (The Companion of Youth 1847) is easily seen as a manual of prayers and devotional practice, but Don Bosco really meant it as a method for life: with the devotional part and with the beginning, with its instruction on how to understand one's being, creation, growth into adolescence, expressions for daily life; with i Fondamenti della cattolica religione (a short apologetic treatise published in 1850 with the title Avvisi ai cattolici and inserted into The Companion of Youth the following year).

- We find the same tendency in small and large works like Il divoto dell'Angelo Custode (1845), l'Esercizio di divozione alla Misericordia di Dio (1847), the Chiave del paradiso in mano al cattolico (1856), Il cattolico provveduto per le pratiche di pietà (1868), the Porta teco cristiano ovvero avvisi importanti intorno ai doveri del cristiano(1858), the Mese di maggio (1858), La figlia cristiana provveduta (1878) ...

- Booklets of instruction, devotional nature, or matters and connections for the devout with the Turin Shrine are tied in with devotion to Mary Help of Christians: Rimembranza della funzione per la pietra angolare della chiesa sacrata a Maria Ausilaiterice in Torino-Valdocco (1865), Maraviglie della Madre di Dio invocata sotto il titolo di Maria Ausiliatrice (1868), Rimembranza di una solennità in onore di Maria Ausiliatrice (1868), L'Associazione dei divoti di Maria Ausiliatrice (1869), Nove giorni consacrati all'augusta Madre del Salvatore (1870), Maria Ausiliatrice col racconto di alcune grazie (1875), La nuvoletta del Carmelo ossia la divozione a Maria Ausiliatrice premiata di nuove grazie (1877), l'Apparizione della Beata Vergine sulla Montagna di La Salette (1871).

- There are religious education texts, instead, published on the occasion of the First Vatican Council: La Chiesa cattolica e la sua gerarchia (1869) and I Concili generali e la Chiesa cattolica (1869), which feature a concern for apologetics and aim to protect young people and ordinary folk from anticlerical propaganda or Protestant proselytism, especially Il cattolico istruito nella sua Religione (1853, then 1883: Il cattolico nel secolo).

- Belonging to the same genre, though with a more narrative structure, we find Conversione di una valdese (1854), the Conversazioni tra un avvocato ed un curato di campagna sul sacramento della confessione (1855), the Due conferenze tra due ministri protestanti ed un prete cattolico sopra il purgatorio e intorno ai suffragi dei defunti (1857), Severino ossia avventure di un giovane alpigiano (1868), Massimino ossia incontro di un giovanetto con un ministro protestante sul Campidoglio (1874).

- We should note that the public which Don Bosco addresses is not made up of Waldensians or anticlericals, since his aren't books of a controversial type meant to confound or confuse his opponent: The readers Don Bosco is thinking of are his young working boys, peasant folk, ordinary inhabitants of Piedmont, and he speaks to them of the uncertainty and therefore the unhappiness of non-Catholics contrasted with the security of Catholics, and the ease with which Catholics find salvation if they practice their religion well.

- His aim, during a time of socio-cultural transformation, migration is to consolidate a sense of belonging and cultural and religious identity (Herein, probably, lies the yet to be fully studied value of these booklets).

1.5.6. Writings dealing with the Oratory and Salesian work

- In this group we can possibly put most of his letters, the Regulations of the Oratory and for the Houses, the Regulations for the Sodality of the Blessed Sacrament, the Salesian Society, the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians; circulars and booklets for benefactors and the Cooperators, for political and religious authorities, articles from the Salesian Bulletin, feast day and College programmes; notes in defence of the schools at the Oratory or of the Congregation, or to obtain benefits, explanations on how the Congregation was progressing or on the missions in Patagonia; notes on papal audiences; advice given to his boys and to the Salesians; General Chapter plans; drafts of homilies, conferences and "dreams".

- Don Bosco’s writings are in response to the practical needs of that circle of people to whom he directed his activity. (1) He likes writing, not to theorise or express his reflections, but mainly with a concern to insinuate Catholic culture into the lives of the young and ordinary people. (2) Secondly, he wrote to identify the purpose and needs of his work, which had become ever more complex. In both cases he confronts needs based on what his own experience tells him, or by having recourse to what can help him by quickly putting together an item which is distributed in a way that is adapted “for everyone's understanding”. This is the perspective from which he makes his choice of sources.

- His tendency to see religion as a deed, religious practice as holiness, explains his predilection for writings that speak of the life of the Church and the saints. He uses material from the Bollandists, Saint Alphonsus, Perrone, Cuccagni, Gervaise, Berchialla, Gerdil, Frassinetti. His critical attention is in his choice of authors, those considered authoritative by the learned and favourable to the Church, the papacy, and even better if they were zealous and holy.

- Don Bosco’s mindset as a publisher led him to prefer widely published items rather than the sources (Bergier, Moore, Charvaz, Bellarmino, St. Alphonsus and other minor writers).

- Holy Scripture, when not being used narratively, is used in its moral sense and sometimes in an extended or accommodated sense. His Marian writings are prevalently allegorical or figurative (as was the case for the mariology of his time). In his apologetic works Don Bosco often quotes patristic texts which are favourable to the papacy and the juridical and magisterial authority of the Church.

- Don Bosco's library of learning was rich in works about the 1700’s ansd 1800’s, but the 1600’s too: The ascetical and dogmatic writings of St. Alphonsus; the Storia del Cristianesimo by Bercastel and Rohrbacher, the Historia di tutte le eresie by Bernino, the Esercizi di pietà by Croiset, the Filotea of St. Francis de Sales, the Vita di San Francesco di Sales by Gallizia, the Vita of Saint Philip Neri by Bacci and hundreds of French works in their original or in translation (Fleury, Gobinet, Gervaise, Calmet, Rollin, Ansart, Loriquest, Huguet, Aimé, Guillaume de Burry, Chaucon, Arvisenet, Nicolas, Ségur). He also made use of contemporary Piedmontese, Ligurian and Savoyard authors (Casacci, Cerri, Charvaz, Perrone, Franco, Casalis and Moroni) or from the preceding century (Gerdil, Sebastiano Valfré...). As he became involved in formation of Salesians he used L'Esercizio di perfezione by Rodriguez.

- Any development of sources was almost minimal. At times Don Bosco seems to only look for sentences he agrees with. He shows a tendency to publish, understanding he intuits, assimilates, simplifies and then re-writes. He avoids theorising and abstractions and addresses himself to what is practical and leads to action. But this is nurtured with intuitions and beliefs, mottoes and hopes.

- Sometimes we can recognise the actual edition of the source that he had in hand as he was writing. But Don Bosco’s re-working of sources is always a bit complicated, as we see from his manuscripts filled with rubbing out, over-writing and corrections in the margins. Instead, when he is transcribing material to include into his own writing, the style flows better than when he develops it or elaborates on it; they are the bits most congenial to his own thinking, or which respond to his beliefs or way of expressing himself.

- Writings bearing the name of Don Bosco on the frontispiece, or those where he has his signature on the preface, as with the anonymous ones or names of those who collaborated in the text, maybe either all his or partially his, express his own sentiments well or not so well (in which case they may emerge more from his practical attitude or from the Cronachette). However, almost all his published works indicate that they are both Don Bosco's work and that of others. This is also verifiable in first-hand works like the Cenni on Comollo, the Vite of Dominic Savio, Magone and Besucco. Besides, from 1859 on, many of his writings also involve collaboration from Salesians: Rua, Bonetti, Bongiovanni, Berto, Lemoyne, Barberis.

We would like to take up some of Don Bosco's works, well known ones, from a novel perspective.

In this we are imitating what Robert Darnton tried to do with material from France in the 1700’s, putting “new questions to old material”. In fact he tried to seek out “ways of thinking”, trying to show “not merely what people thought but how they thought – how they construed the world, invested it with meaning, and infused it with emotion”. Instead of providing an intellectual history, he too k the view of an histoire des mentalités, an historical genre that “might simply be called cultural history; for it treats our own civilization in the same way that anthropologists study alien cultures”. This way of doing history “studies the way ordinary people made sense of the world … to show how they organized reality in their minds ad expressed it in their behaviour”¹.

Here the aim is to discover how different from our own beliefs and mental frameworks is Don Bosco’s way of interpreting life and events, even if the language seems the same in many instances.

“But one thing seems clear to everyone who returns from field work: other people are other people. They do not think the way we do. And if we want to understand their way of thinking, we should set out with the idea of capturing otherness. Translated into the terms of the historian’s craft, that may merely sound like the familiar injunction against anachronism. It is worth repeating, nonetheless; for nothing is easier than to slip into the comfortable assumption that Europeans thought and felt two centuries ago just as we do today – allowing for the wigs and wooden shoes. We constantly need to be shaken out of a false sense of familiarity with the past, to be administered doses of culture shock.”²

A patient familiarity with Don Bosco’s writing, aimed at starting from the awareness that his apparent simplicity hides an inner richness and complexity, and done with new and different methods, may have some surprise in store for us. Darnton warns us that, “when we cannot get a proverb, or a joke, or a ritual, or a poem, we are on to something. By picking at the document where it is most opaque, we may be able to unravel an alien system of meaning. The thread might even lead into a strange and wonderful world view”.³ Could we say the same of Don Bosco?

This workshop attempts to open the way by inviting a work of exploration of ways of seeing Don Bosco’s mentality, ways less familiar to the prevailing Salesian interpretation. We do so by following the surprises gained from a series of well-known writings, like the Vite of Dominic Savio, Michele Magone, Francis Besucco. So, maybe, it will be possible for us to gain access to his mindset, his point of view and, starting from there, we can begin to move around in his symbolic universe, his culture and his inner thoughts.⁴ Also, making the effort to understand the context in which these works are located, whom they address, what they aim to achieve and what problems give rise to them - but also analysing the strategies he put in place in organising and composing the text – maybe we will be helped to find access to levels of interpretation which are more profound and meaningful for us today.

This will not be easy work and certainly will be imperfect, because we are all working within cultural confines, and we also share certain linguistic beliefs. We are interested in seeing how the culture and certain models of behaviour shape Don Bosco’s way of thinking, in order to understand, beneath all these layers, the more universal dynamics and values.

The Lives of Dominic Savio, Michele Magone, Francis Besucco⁵: are edifying biographies, addressed to young people and ordinary people, where - through anecdotal storytelling about ordinary daily experience, inserting many explanatory and incisive items of a spiritual and psychological order – he offers models accessible to virtuous behaviour: “in reality they are primarily selective messages with precise and evident educational aims”.⁶

2.2.1. Problems and opportunities

- These writings present both problems and challenges: Don Bosco, when necessary, knew how to employ a special language, “between exact terms, hyperbole and allusions” and sometimes made us of “bloated numbers in order to attract attention, wonder, sympathy ... and all kinds of support”.⁷ What was the idea of giving certain expressions, perhaps just shifted, metaphors or approximations? What was urging Don Bosco to re-construe certain anecdotes?

For example, in the Life of Dominic Savio the chief character is in the foreground, leaving father, mother and his younger sisters in the background and the stories about him are somewhat selective and elastic. Also, did Dominic on his deathbed call on the saints and his heavenly Mother (Don Bosco in the Mese di maggio of 1858)? Or did he have a vision (Don Bosco in the Life of 1859)? Or did he expire after having made some effort to recall what the parish priest had said to him a little beforehand (Rua’s version)? In 1931 the Benedictine Henri Quentin, the general spokesperson for the historical commission for the cause (of beatification), placing the original testimonies beside those in the Life, concluded that the entire Life written by Don Bosco was not trustworthy.

- “Books like the Life of Dominic Savio, Memoirs of the Oratory, the Storia d'italia, the Storia sacra... are in reality primarily selective messages with precise and evident educational objectives; the fact that they are written by Don Bosco does not exempt them from being subjected to a careful documentary criticism before basing any kind of analysis of mentality on them, or of the images they represent and the messages they aim to pass on”.⁸

Nevertheless, if it is true that one must avoid uncritical use of the data and notes from these documents, this does not mean that they are untrustworthy and of little value. More to the point, whether from an historical point of view (especially on the side of history of a mentality and Cultural History, or of the History of Spirituality and Education) or from the Salesian point of view, we find ourselves faced with documents of extraordinary historical importance. They need to be evaluated from adequate perspectives and with appropriate methods, to understand not only the "spirit" and mentality of an era and of an interesting a developed historical phenomenon, but especially of the person, mission, spirituality, pedagogy of Don Bosco, identity and the Salesian charism.

2.2.3. Mechanics of composition

As for the mechanisms of composition, more or less consciously, that Don Bosco used to achieve his edifying aims Pietro Stella speaks of a work of "selection" “with the idea of making evident in the lad a certain kind of activity that interested him more; leaving aside other forms of religious behaviour that were not focused on the sacraments, devotion to Mary and his duties as a student”:

With regard to St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Don Bosco's Dominic Savio offered features of a lad in a student setting, especially in Italy and elsewhere there was an increased demand for humanistic education and a Catholic movement in a liberal atmosphere supported the organisation of schools of a strictly confessional nature. It would not be inopportune to add that after all “true cheerfulness” (that is, cheerfulness in its fullness) was to be understood as the natural expression of the state of grace and a peaceful conscience. The same can ne said of loving-kindness that Don Bosco declares, in his short work on the Preventive System is characterised in its carrying out as an expression of charity following the Pauline dictum: “Caritas patiens est, benigna est...” (1Cor 13,4). Here we are talking of mental schemes which modulate Don Bosco's entire activity and that therefore are to be kept in mind for their practical historical relevance.⁹

So then, the observations of the critics, such as those expressed by Fr H. Quentin on the Life of Dominic Savio, should be taken in a wider framework, from which we can see the importance of these writings of Bosco. In them he wanted to show holiness as the practice of one’s duty by the good Christian, according to one’s particular state of life (a theme dear to Francis de Sales), but also wanted to express his belief, as well as that of his parents and his own companions, that Dominic really was a “young saint”: “DB's edifying composition gave a sort of order, in part conventional, in part new, to the fond memories of Dominic for those who had known him”.¹⁰

What is said of the Life of Dominic Savio can also be said of the short works on Michael Magone and Francis Besucco: We are not dealing with biographies, but exemplary stylisations forged for youngsters on the brink of adolescence, and they are not so much concerned with highlighting events, people and places. Also the rather free use that Don Bosco makes of the documents proves interesting for understanding his mentality, the popular world he was addressing, the social and religious situation of those he was writing for, besides the inner dimension of the proposed model and the spiritual teaching fostered thereby.

2.2.4. The organisational outline of the three Lives

The three Lives have been structured around an essentially biographical recall, in which episodes have been introduced which can be classified according to the moralistic or hagiographical aspect of the virtues concerned. The handful of chapters which are actually biographical are included and surrounded by the prevailing theme of edification. This structure, which Don Bosco draws from earlier hagiographical models, is also repeated in his stories of an historical kind, like La forza della buona educazione (1855), Valentino o la vocazione impedita (1866) and Angelina o l'orfanella degli Appennini (1869).

Going down to the first level of analysis, it is possibile to highlight a structure of articulation into sequences that find almost identical repetition in the three Lives:

In this break-up we identify each subsequence characterising the three profiles in their specific differences, and which, at the same time, reveal a deep macro structure, made up of Don Bosco’s value systems, his beliefs and mental frameworks, running throughout the text and freely emerging beyond any rigid re-partition of the text.

As an example we highlight the Spiritual Programme sequence identifying common themes there developed in specific narrative units (chapters), but also the hooks pieces of such themes grated into other sequences (indicated by: cf). It should be noted that the Life of Francis Besucco is made up of two distinct narrative units with their own specific features: One depending on the account of the Parish Priest of Argentera (cc. 1-15), which follows a mainly chronological order and has references spread throughout all chapters, and the other coming from Don Bosco (cc. 16-34), which features a greater homogeneity and fidelity to the outlining of virtue; this explains why, in the grid below there are frequent references to ‘hooks’ in the first fifteen chapters.

Within this Spiritual Programme sequence, we now examine the subsequence called Piety:

Beyond and throughout all this sequential break-up of the text, at a level running across the text - independent of the primary aims established by the author – we can extract a series of data that reveal, for example: Particular aspects of culture, sensitivity and popular mentality; the spirit, educational style and rhythms of life at Valdocco between 1854 and 1864; Don Bosco’s mental framework and certain aspects characteristic of his behaviour as he relates to people and of his educational praxis.

With regard to this final point we propose an exercise of synoptic reading of the three Lives in order to analyse the usual way of procedure of Don Bosco in his approach to each youngster, from their first encounter until setting up a regular spiritual accompaniment. As a grid we take that made up of the different phases of a productive method of work (anamnesis; diagnosis; prognosis; aims; strategies; tactics; control) and follow a sequential segmentation of the text determined by the description of the rapport between Don Bosco and the one whose life he is writing (first encounter; arrival at Valdocco then second encounter; fitting into the community; the "crisis" and the way it is managed; the qualitative leap; characteristic features of spiritual accompaniment):

The Memoirs of the Oratory (= MO) is one of Don Bosco’s livelier and more personal writings. They have had a great importance in Salesian history, and not only because of facts like the dream at nine years of age and Don Bosco’s meeting Bartholomew Garelli. Such stories have become emblematic of the Saint’s life and of the Salesian mission, furnishing material for spiritual and pedagogical reflections. The epic we read in this document is the providential history of Don Bosco’s person and of his favourite institution, the Oratory. It has filled our imagination with the decisive role of Mamma Margaret, Fr Calosso, Fr Borel, the Marchioness of Barolo and of the city Chief of Police Michael Cavour. We also find adventure: the challenge to the acrobat, the murky attempts on Don Bosco’s life and the mysterious dog “Grigio.”

The main effect of the Memoirs has been to consolidate an image of Don Bosco that still circulates. The stereotypes popular at the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th century, of Don Bosco as founder of works of charity, Catholic societies, orphan homes, educator, healer and visionary, clever organizer of pastoral and educational activities tuned to the needs of the times, have lost their appeal, partly or wholly.¹¹ Public opinion is hardly moved by the most accurate historical reconstruction worked out by serious and well-documented historians. What remains popular is the image of the young acrobat, the lively animator of young peasants and students, the dreamer, the friend close to youthful aspirations, the affectionate father who opens meaningful horizons and paths of formation to the young by valuing what they cherish most. Such are the dominant traits of his identity. They emerge from the Memoirs to strike roots in popular imagination, within and without the Salesian family. Don Bosco, the author, popularized this imagery first within the narrow confines of the Valdocco community, and then out of it to the wider circle of friends and cooperators.

2.3.1. The ups and downs of this text

Don Bosco composed his Memoirs between 1873 and 1875. His secretary Fr Joachim Berto copied them in longhand. Don Bosco himself revised, corrected and integrated the text several times up to 1879.¹² At the beginning he reserved it to his Salesians with the express prohibition to make it public, whether before or after my death,¹³ but parts of it were published by the Saint himself in a History of the Oratory compiled by Fr John Bonetti and published in instalments on the Salesian Bulletin between 1879 and 1886.¹⁴ John Baptist Lemoyne inserted it in his Biographical Memoirs, enriching the text with lots of information taken from documents, from living witnesses, first or second-hand, and reminiscences of Don Bosco himself. Accurate chronology and polished style were Lemoyne’s main concern. The intent was to highlight the extraordinary, supernatural experiences of the Saint. It lacked an adequate historical and critical apparatus. The results were double. The first was that the memory of past events, which in the Memoirs responded to definite theses, was assumed to be a contemporary account spelled out in detail. The addition of so much extra information had the effect of expanding the scope of the narration, turning the figure of Don Bosco into something halfway between history and edifying literature. The second result was that the original writings of Don Bosco became somewhat de-natured, thus losing that effectiveness and meaning intended by their author. Lemoyne’s re-adaptation of Don Bosco’s Memoirs was published between 1911 and 1913,¹⁵ with many reprints and translations.¹⁶

Lemoyne’s interpretation, not to say manipulation of the MO was destined to influence all subsequent biographies and hagiographies. The first historical-critical and pedagogical studies appeared in the second half of the 20^th century.¹⁷ Despite the latter there remains, powerful, the solid image of legendary hagiography, which continues to appear in journalistic texts, music, movies and the theatre.¹⁸

The first complete edition of MO appeared in 1946.¹⁹ The editor made it clear that the decision to publish the whole document, despite the author’s express prohibition, had been taken in view of the universal dimension of the Saint’s figure following his canonisation.²⁰ The publication ought to be seen in the light of the historical context of the time. The Superiors of the Congregation, motivated by the new educational challenges in Europe and the world, had for some time felt the need to champion a return to the original experiences and intuitions of Don Bosco. Fr Peter Ricaldone, Rector Major between 1932 and 1951, had understood the importance of such rehabilitation. It would serve as an instrument to rejuvenate Salesian identity and provide the Salesian works with a new incisiveness in the face of the new social and pastoral requirements. The generation formed by Don Bosco had passed on. The cultural context had undergone deep changes. The core of the religious-educational mission of the Oratory, its identity and method needed a new focussing. A whole series of initiatives had sprung up, involving the entire Salesian structure. They had entailed a new reflection and reorganization of catechesis, pastoral action and pedagogy. In 1936 Fr Ricaldone had issued a programme, in a letter with the title “Fidelity to St John Bosco;” in 1938 he launched a “Catechism Crusade;” next year he wrote a dense circular letter entitled “Oratory, Catechism and Religious Formation”²¹ on occasion of the centenary of the Salesian Oratory (1841-1941). In the last months of his life he published “Don Bosco Educator.”²² At the same time he promoted institutions, fostered studies and publications. He had supported Albert Caviglia in the editing of Don Bosco’s writings, from 1939 he had undertaken the foundation of the Central Salesian Catechetics Office, had reorganised the centres of Study of the Congregation and had set up a Chair of Pedagogy as the basis of a new faculty with the help of Carlos Leôncio da Silva.²³ Only the war prevented him from launching a “Review of Pedagogy.” The publication of the MO was entrusted to Ceria. It was in line with the effort to return to the charismatic roots of the Salesian work and to give it new life.

It would seem that at first the Salesians did not pay much attention to MO. After four years the review “Salesianum,” in the Publisher’s leader, pointed out its importance and recommended its reading.²⁴ The conviction grew that the MO contained “a precious biographical and psychological documentation” about “a first class personality” like Don Bosco’s. People began to understand that the book, in all its freshness, “contained the concentrate of the Saint’s history.”²⁵ Augustin Auffrey’s first French translation appeared in 1951,²⁶ and Rodolfo Fierro Torres’ Spanish one in 1955.²⁷ In the Salesian current affair press, however, Lemoyne still held forth. Even the two Ricaldone volumes quote Lemoyne most of the time, referring to MO only three times.

Things developed otherwise in the academic world. Its first interest in the MO was due to their incoherent dating. The first research aimed at reconstructing the chronology.²⁸ Later the interest shifted, because of the originality and meaning of its contents and nature. At the beginning of the 1960s Francis Desramaut made marginal use of MO, since they had been Lemoyne’s source. He underscored the pedagogical value of the account, which he defined as “an actual small treatise of pedagogy.”²⁹ Because of such role as an exemplar, the writing received increasingly more attention.

Peter Braido (1955) made the first critical observations on the nature and importance of MO: “The date of drafting […] and the author’s purpose lead one to consider them not as a pure historical document. They are above all an edifying story bequeathed by a founder to the members of a Society of apostles and educators. They were supposed to perpetuate the work and the style, following the directives, the orientations and the lessons […] Events and anecdotes are from real life. In all probability, though, the fullness of meaning and an organic vision have not yet reached the maturity they have acquired today in terms of projects and realizations.”³⁰ Peter Stella, in his Don Bosco nella storia della religiosità cattolica, makes use of the biographical data offered by MO, which he considers part of the history of mentalities.³¹

Meanwhile between the 1970s and 1980s, everywhere in the Salesian world, the text was being increasingly appreciated, as a series of translations testify.³² Spain saw the successful publication of a new version of MO edited by Basilio Bustillo.³³

It appeared more and more necessary to study the Founder’s experience, to recover his sources, so as to reflect deeper on one’s identity as educator and pastor. They were years when many more or less developed courses were given on Salesian history, pedagogy and spirituality. Don Bosco’s writings were being published as anthologies. In 1976-1977 there came out a facsimile edition of Don Bosco’s published works.³⁴ It was a remarkable initiative, as was the microfilming of the oldest documents of the Salesian Central Archive. Not only scholars, but also the Salesians receiving formation, had at their disposal a vast and most important material for their theses, studies and research programmes.

The year 1981 saw the foundation of the Salesian Historical Institute. Its review Ricerche Storiche Salesiane further contributed to the general interest, equipping it with a patient work of critical editions and essays. In a few years the Salesian team refined its historical sensitivity, and the attention to the historical figure of Don Bosco became keener.

With the 1991 critical edition of MO by Antonio Silva Ferreira,³⁵ don Bosco’s writing received a most general welcome.

2.3.2. “A Manual of pedagogical and spiritual stories”

Peter Braido at once spotted, in his essays on the pedagogical significance of Don Bosco’s experience, the relevance of MO. They were inspired by the primary preoccupation towards defining the sense of a global educational experience […] as also by having to formulate a “plan of action […].” The MO condense 35 years of priestly and educational commitment; but before that, they are the result of a coherent reflection ending up into spirituality and pedagogy: the “preventive system” is explained most completely.”³⁶ Hence they are more of a “theological” and pedagogical history, than a real one of the Oratory. They contain perhaps the longest meditated and desired document of animation, wanted by Don Bosco himself:³⁷ “an exceptional document of pedagogical experience.”³⁸

Peter Stella also remarked upon the peculiarity of the MO from the historical-critical point of view: “Whatever the facts, Don Bosco displays them so as to highlight what he considers to be God’s purposes.”³⁹ The text is full of omissions. The handwriting varies from section to section. The language is rather flexible, and rich in errors and anomalies. But the resulting reading is agreeable. It attracts and involves the reader in its simplicity, sending more or less explicit religious and pedagogical messages.” “The lives of Dominic Savio, Magone and Besucco can be considered as biographical reconstructions of models of juvenile sanctity;” MO should be considered as “a sort of religious-pedagogical poem built on the idealised framework of autobiographical anecdotes.”⁴⁰ Don Bosco’s intention seems to have been to convince the reader that his entire life was “a fabric of prefigured, prepared events turned into reality by divine wisdom.” He therefore re-read and reconfigured the past more from a theological-pedagogical than from an historical-erudite point of view.”⁴¹

When reviewing the critical edition of MO, Peter Braido remarked that⁴² in many ways the document appears as a friendly agreeable chat of a father with his children. The reminiscences reinterpret the author’s life from a providential angle, both in the general sense and in detail. In other ways it shows the intention of describing, however poetically, the origin, the making and the consolidation of a characteristic spiritual and pedagogical experience, crystallizing into the Oratory formula, but effectively being the kernel of a more productive and functional approach for the youth of the future.” The MO are, more than anything else, Memoirs of the future. The paradoxical expression was coined by P. Braido. Don Bosco wanted, more than anything else, to hand over his experience as a programme of life and of action to those who would continue his work after him. Hence he added flesh to the outline of his 1877 “Sistema preventivo nella educazione della gioventù.”⁴³ In the MO, therefore, “the parable and the message” come ahead and “above history.” By cheering up and entertaining the disciples, they are meant to “comfort and confirm” them. At the same time they appear as an effective “prelude in the narrative form to the preventive system,” which is “perhaps Don Bosco’s richest book in content and orientation about prevention.” It is “a manual of pedagogy and spirituality narrated straight out of the Oratorian experience.”⁴⁴

2.3.3. Reminiscences of an Oratorian identity

To understand the character and original importance of MO, for a respectful interpretation of the Author’s intentions, let us recall what prompted Don Bosco to write.⁴⁵

2.3.3.1. Don Bosco’s concerns as a writer and peculiar features of the MO

It is well known that he did not have in mind science or history, but education and formation, aimed straight at the immediate beneficiaries of his work. He wrote three popular historical works: History of the Church for schools (1845) Sacred History (1847) and History of Italy narrated to the young (1855). In all three one can see the tendency to narrate in order to instruct and moralize. History is seen as a backdrop for the providential saving action of God. The biographies of Louis Comollo, Dominic Savio, Michael Magone and Francis Besucco are written very much on the same vein. They may be defined as edifying outlines of role models accessible to 19^th century adolescents and youths of the people. “They are selected messages with precise and clear educational aims.”⁴⁶ Expressions dear to Don Bosco are often repeated: give oneself to God in good time; sanctity consists in being cheerful by avoiding sin, which takes away peace of soul, and by fulfilling the duties of one’s state of life; trust in the confessor, or in a faithful friend; it is one of the secrets of spiritual and moral success for the young; bad company must be avoided like the plague; the Sacraments of Penance and Eucharist are the pillars of the spiritual life; and the spirit of prayer consolidates and transfigures the interior life of a youth. To these are added a series of practical recommendations, incidental or incarnate in definite personages: love the young, use loving kindness to them, come close to them, assist them to prevent or correct possible evil, and help them to stay firm on the right path.

All this can also be found in MO, in a larger perspective. There Don Bosco shows greater confidence and fluency than in other works, but together with more depth and complexity. Along the path of personal formation in function of the Oratorian vocation/mission, he brings up the numerous spiritual facets of his inner world. There appear the educational and pastoral attitudes of religious educator, as well as the most original and qualifying activities of the Oratory. The MO is one of Don Bosco’s most personal, lively and intense writing.

2.3.3.2 Circumstances of the genesis of the MO

Why did Don Bosco plunge into such an endeavour during a period as troubled and intense as the years 1873-1875?

The explicit reason appears in the introduction: “A very high personage has added to the urging his own command, which I can in no way refuse to obey.”⁴⁷ Two more motives need be added. The first is the conviction that the Oratory was wanted by God as an instrument of salvation for the youth of the new times. Such conviction had consolidated with the passing of the years; the moment had arrived to make public its genesis, purpose and method. The same conviction was being shared not only by his close collaborators, but also by a widening circle of admirers, co-operators, and anyone who could see himself involved in active Catholicism. The second motive was the critical context in which the institution was operating in those years. While the Constitutions of the Salesian Society proceeded along the itinerary of ecclesiastical approval, Don Bosco was having a hard time to get freedom of action from the bishops. They denied him faculties and privileges usually granted to other religious families. The mutual lack of understanding with Msgr Gastaldi, Archbishop of Turin, aggravated the situation. All this created problems of discernment for Don Bosco: the historical beginning of his commitment to the youth, and the justification and communication of his choices. The latter motive had already impelled him to write, back in 1854, a first Plan of Regulations, with an historical appendix. In 1862 he had drafted a historical outline of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales.⁴⁸ They are documents of great “historical and conceptual relevance.”⁴⁹

Don Bosco, a born narrator, did not hesitate to put in writing the story of the beginning and successive development of the Oratory whenever he wanted to get the support of the authorities,⁵⁰ the sympathy of public opinion and financial help. But he preferred, almost by instinct, to use narration as a method of formation, with the boys, during the night talks or in the homilies, and in the intimate meetings with his Salesians. He significantly instilled this same tendency to his collaborators. Fr Lemoyne, for instance, published his first book in 1870. It was a biography of the youth Joseph Mazzarello. It encompasses a period of the Oratory between 1841 and 1868. It seems taken from Don Bosco’s live account more than from written documents.⁵¹ Similar to this are the Chronicles drafted in the 1860s by John Bonetti and Dominic Ruffino, as well as the small Chronicle by the first Novice Master Giulio Barberis. They all make use of reminiscences so as to form the disciples’ identity, and stimulate their desire to know the origins of the Oratory and Don Bosco’s memories.⁵²

Beginning in 1863 Don Bosco committed himself to produce documents that would inform on the history and identity of his institution. The purpose was the approval of the Salesian Society and its Constitutions. The densest and most significant of these documents is a Historical Outline⁵³ drafted in August 1873 and printed in February 1874. There is a clear intention of underlining the indissoluble bond between the work of the Oratories and the Salesian Society. Such historical documents are not chronicles but ideals and apologias.⁵⁴

The years when Don Bosco wrote the MO were the years of his commitment to writing history in order to inform. The foregoing external circumstances were the same that prompted him to write an Account to the Holy See in 1879. This document is typical of Don Bosco’s way of revising “history.”⁵⁵ Other circumstances were internal to the institution. Many reasons urged him to revise his experience in the interest of the formation of the disciples and of the specific identity of his work. In the very years 1873-1875 he was re-thinking the idea of “day Salesians,” transforming them into an Association or Union of Salesian Co-operators. At the same time his work was expanding outside Piedmont, following the great success of boarding schools. This phenomenon forced him to re-focus on the identity of the institution in relation to these new forms, starting their analysis from the birth of the Oratory, felt and proclaimed as the matrix of every other institution. It was the beginning of a fruitful time of reflection and clarification. It would produce, besides the MO, greatly important documents like the Preventive System in the Education of the Youth.⁵⁶

2.3.4. “History” of the Oratory and the MO as “autobiography”

The title of the document clearly expresses Don Bosco’s intention to write the Memoirs of the Oratory.

2.3.4.1 The Oratory as a focal point

It was not his intention to bequeath to posterity the history of his life,⁵⁷ but to outline the events and the identity of the Oratory in its inspiration, the beneficiaries of its activity, the circumstances that favoured or hindered its realisation, the elements that singled out its mission, its method and characteristic connotations:

I shall therefore recount small, confidential things that may cast light or be of use to that institution that Divine Providence deigned to entrust to the Society of St Francis de Sales.⁵⁸

Past biographers have underrated this central aim, concentrating their attention instead on the evocative narration of the formation and early ministry of the Saint. They read in MO loose events, out of the context that had prompted the Author to select and order them as he did.

Don Bosco’s commitment to write in function of the Oratory has a long history behind. But the early writings are very different in tone from the MO. The letter to the City Head of Police of 1846, as well as the Outlines of 1854 and 1862, focus on motives and events linked to the Catechism begun at the St Francis of Assisi church, thence moved to the Marchioness of Barolo’s Refuge and the little Hospital of St Philomena, then to the St Martin by the Mills chapel, then to the Cenotaph of St Peter in Chains, to the Filippi brothers’ field, and finally become “Oratory” in its own right at the Pinardi house. There it would have its own courtyard and rooms, with all the facilities to develop and prosper. Don Bosco evidently summarised, informing about the aims, diversification, activities, personnel and results of a religious and educational activity. The document, addressed to the authorities and the public on the one hand, and to supporters and benefactors on the other, aimed at informing and sensitizing the former and mobilising the latter. The “narrator” expresses himself as the main responsible initiator of a pastoral and educational activity aimed at poor and abandoned youths. It makes constant references to civil and religious motives, but completely avoids any remark about his interior history.

2.3.4.2 Addressees and aim

In the MO, on the contrary, the history of the Oratory is closely linked to the Author’s interior history as well as to that of his disciples and immediate successors. From the past it stretches towards the future, putting conditions for continuity. This difference is substantial in respect of all of Don Bosco’s other writings.

First, the addressees of MO are singled out as his “dearest Salesian children. I absolutely forbid making these things public, before or after my death.”⁵⁹ The main aim is, therefore, the practical and ideological transmitting of an intimate, familiar patrimony shared by the Author and his readers spiritually joined in a common vocational ideal. Narration is therefore in function of formation and animation, of a mission, an identity and a method. The deliberate exclusion of outsiders renders the Author free from every formal preoccupation about style, as from that caution and reserve that would have been proper for a heterogeneous public. Requesting a certain reserve, which is traditional in books reserved for family usage, he aims at protecting foundational values and intimate sentiments from critical appraisals:

I am a father who speaks of his things to his beloved children. They will rejoice in coming to know the little adventures of him who loved them so much, and who tried, in small as in great things, to work always with their spiritual and temporal good in mind.⁶⁰

Don Bosco then enthrals the addressees, the “beloved children,” with the adventure of these Memoirs. He turns them into an active part with vested interests, making them share the values and realities narrated as means to attain a certain identity. At the same time he treats them as interlocutors asked to accept his historical, personal version of events belonging to a world at once real and poetic. He shows to be aware of the reader’s possible difficulties, and tries to forestall his reactions so as to give him clear directions. The awareness of the presence of readers appears here and there, conditioning Don Bosco’s relating his story. At times the same awareness breaks through in dialogue form:

You have often asked me when I started taking care of young children [...] Listen.⁶¹ “From what I used to do on feast days you will understand what I did on working days.⁶² Had you been there you would have seen, as I told you, the speaker become a professional acrobat.⁶³

At other times the allusion is an indirect one, when the public is asked to go in depth:

“[Louis Comollo’s] biography has been published, so that anyone can read it separately.”⁶⁴ After drafting the rules [of the St Louis Company] according to the needs of the youth, I showed them to the Archbishop […]. They can be read elsewhere.”⁶⁵ “Many newspaper spoke of this solemnity, for example the Armonia and the Patria.”⁶⁶

Often he appears to forestall the readers’ objections and questions. He prepares the ground for a right interpretation by going beyond a simple relation of events:

Here you will ask, but to go to fairs, market places, to see the charlatans and buy the stuff for those shows must have cost money. Where did it come from? […]. You will now ask: was my mother happy about my dissipated life and my acting as a charlatan? Let me tell you that my mother loved me;⁶⁷ But how could I study, and where would I find time for translations? Listen. [...]⁶⁸; Let me remind you how religion was part and parcel of education in those days. ⁶⁹ Seeing how dissipated I was, you may suspect that I must have neglected my studies. I don’t hide that I could have studied more; but take into account that paying attention in class was enough for me to learn anything needed.⁷⁰ “You perhaps may say: with so much reading, he may not have had time to study the treatises. It was not so.”⁷¹

Secondly, after selecting the addressees, Don Bosco specifies the aims of his writing the MO:

What is this work meant to do? It will serve to overcome future difficulties in the light of the lessons of the past. It will serve to show how God led the way in all things at all time. It will amuse my children, when they read the events to which their father took part, and they will read them the more willingly when I, called by God to give an account of my action, will no longer be among them.⁷²

Before focussing on the influence of such aims on Don Bosco’s writings, let us point out that every autobiography always mentions the motives behind relating stories about oneself. An autobiography is not a simple chronological relation of events. Scholars point out that “a motive to write is the more necessary and inherent to the text, structurally and dynamically, the less a text is a “literary” one, by design or not.” Yesterday or today, every author who begins to talk about self tends to address a selected public, and to clarify his intentions with “premises, forewords, warnings, etc. He builds up, either out of habit or of a secret attraction, the characteristics of the genre.”⁷³ Five types of such motivations have been identified in autobiographies: 1) Requests by an authority or by a friend, child or disciple, as for St Theresa of Avila and St Ignatius of Loyola; 2) A defensive or apologetic reaction, as for Rousseau’s reacting against Voltaire’s attack with his Confessions and J.H.Newman’s with his Apologia to Kingsley; also, Nietzsche writing his Ecce Homo to forestall future distortions of his thought; 3) Assertion of one’s identity against others, to overcome a crisis, or to confirm a process of maturation by looking at the past. This is still the case of Rousseau’s Confessions, of Chateaubriand’s Mémoires d’outre-tombe and of Malcolm X’s Autobiography; 4) Transmission of one’s testimonial, teaching, values and experiences that are part and parcel of one’s experience: J. Stuart Mill makes use of his Autobiography to relate the atypical education he went through; the 14^th century Florentine merchants write to hand down their example to their descendants; the whole of religious autobiographical literature is meant to instruct, as is Italian Risorgimento autobiography; 5) Recovered time after having wasted it, or the coming of old age and approaching death are occasion for summarising one’s experience. This is what Guicciardini, Cardinal Bentivoglio, Benjamin Franklin and D’Azeglio did in their autobiographies or memoirs.⁷⁴

The MO, both in the introduction and in the text, shows the five motivations, albeit with different emphases and relevance. What stand out are the witness-didactic type and the search-cum-construction of the Oratorian identity, even though not explicitly declared. The text is relatively complex and articulated. Its main outlook is theological-ideological. The past is examined in function of the beginning of the institution of the Oratory and its development pari passu with Don Bosco’s own interior, missionary life.

2.3.4.3 The beginning of the work and its lack of conclusion

That is why the MO does not begin, as do the Outlines, with the account of the circumstances that impelled Don Bosco to start his Catechism Oratory of 1841. They begin with the author’s own birth, which he brings forward by one day to make it coincide with a Marian feast.⁷⁵ It would seem a minor detail, but it sheds light on the author’s choice, explicitly stated at the beginning «It will serve to show how God led the way in all things at all time».⁷⁶ The MO are written with a vision of providential history, where the life of one person is projected towards becoming a patrimony to be shared and bequeathed. Behind the account there is a divine Subject, the “God of mercy” master of events and of hearts. He governs personal and social history with a perspective of redemption and salvation, inspiring vocations and opening pathways. On the other side there is a human subject, the narrator, from the beginning of the text. Personal history mingles with that of the Oratory.

A few pages later we meet with a surprise, which also highlights the complexity and the mingling of the personal story with that of the Oratory. There is drama and detail in the dream made at the age of nine. It sheds light over the rest of the MO, as the author himself avers: «Below I will relate events that will cast light on all that».⁷⁷ This event marks the true beginning of the MO, determining its subdivision into three Decades. The Ten Years of Childhood (1815-1824) are a meaningful prelude, but have nothing to do with the Oratory yet. The First Decade 1825-1835 begins with a description of the narrator taking care of children «to do what I could at my age, which was a sort of Oratory».⁷⁸

The initial dream, worked out in novel form, assumes a special value. It pre-figures a historical-literary text with all its meanings, strategies and structures. Salesian tradition has interpreted it in the prophetic-pre-figurative sense together with the encounter with Bartholomew Garelli, at centre stage of the Second Decade (and by default of the whole MO). We may add to them a third event taken from the 7^th chapter of the Third Decade: the dialogue with the Val Sesia orphan, «the first youth of our Home»,⁷⁹ which completes the structure of the Memoirs.

It looks as if Don Bosco saw here the conclusion of the narration centred on the dream made at nine. This is suggested by the title of Chapter eight: Historical Memoirs of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales, 1846-1855. The word “historical” shows that it is not a simple repetition of the previous books, where that word does not appear. It is more like the Historical Outlines of 1854 and 1862, which do not show any link between the author’s interior life and that of the institution.

The pages that follow show a break.⁸⁰ Handwriting, style and content no longer form a unit with the previous text. They are notes of information, inserted chronologically. With no more plot and connection between personal vocation, mission, educational-pastoral model and institution, from a narration the text turns into a chronicle. The chapters are still numbered. The events are chronologically inserted and laboriously blended, but they no longer flow into one coherent woven plot. After chapter 18 even the numbering stops. Don Bosco relates events as he had done with previous informational memos. There is no more personal, intimate involvement characteristic of the previous texts. There are aspects of the Oratory praxis, its progress, political events and dissensions among the priests of the Oratory, the purchase of land and buildings, construction and publishing initiatives. The few episodes narrated no longer symbolise or reveal anything of the inner vocation to the Oratory. There are also accounts of attacks and aggressions, improbably carried out by “Protestants and Freemasons.”⁸¹ Finally there is mention of the dog Grigio. All in all it is a dull, not to say bizarre, finale for such a significant and important writing. But the document is useful to place Don Bosco’s mental and cultural world in its proper context, as well as his taste for the supernatural, so archaic and yet so near to the popular tastes of the time.

All autobiographical literature, like the MO, suffers of the lack of a due conclusion, overlapping of anecdotes disjointed from each other, and change of style and content towards the end.⁸² Documents, loose notes, old texts, published or not, and the like, tend to be jumbled towards the end of any such autobiographical work. The draft is always “uncertain, provisional, imperfect, stratified, or double. It is very much linked to the period of writing, and it is not separable from the series of notes preceding, accompanying or following it. The context is essential to it.”⁸³

2.3.4.4. Procedure

The problems posed by the MO are the same as those posed by the autobiographic genre generally speaking.⁸⁴ There are vast and complex epistemological questions. Let us point out some useful aspects.

There is an immense amount of autobiographical literature from ancient times down to our day. The authors have tried to look for the roots of their identity and their achievements in life. Their books witness to spiritual, psychological journeys, mental and volitional contexts, a peculiar way of approaching events and interpreting them, and an overall effort to give unity and historical sense to their past life.

The MO do not differ from this type of writing. Don Bosco starts from the present and investigates the past, with the idea of making sense of all the events. He also journeys along his own formation, unveiling all the factors that either helped or hindered his vocation to the Oratory: his family, acquaintances, institutions, society and historical events, and to what extent did all these factors become part and parcel of his consciousness and method. Eventually he puts this experience of the past into practice. He himself, things and people become a resource that allows him to build up a spiritual and pedagogical wisdom to hand down to his interlocutors.

Don Bosco gives unity to the MO by selecting his facts, interpreting them and organising them into a coherent flow. Evidently he filters certain events, while he reconstructs the circumstances around each event into the unifying core of the vocation to the Oratory. To whatever consciousness he might have had at the time of the event, he adds a “second level,” i.e. retracing his steps to identify meaning and harmony among the various elements. Retrospect and prospect blend into one. He shows he is aware of the process, in two phrases that conclude the dream of a nine-year old: “In time you will understand,” and “below I will relate events that will cast light on all that.”⁸⁵

The process of selection operates on the facts as well as on their meaning. Then he organises the events according to the weight he gives to each of them. The plot develops along these lines.

This type of narration privileges the point of arrival of the story; it gives sense to every single story by organising them into an intelligible unity.⁸⁶

In the end, the text of the MO appears as a constant search and highlighting of the characteristics of the Oratory seen in the context of the Author’s life, which he takes to be a divine vocation. We can see this in the very first account of his entertaining children when he was barely ten,⁸⁷ his looking after the young on the eve of his taking the clerical habit: «It was a kind of Oratory, with some 50 boys. They loved me and obeyed me as if I had been their father»,⁸⁸ and in the rules of the Società dell’Allegria during his staying at Chieri.⁸⁹ We can also see it in the description of the catechesis of the years 1841-42, also defined as “Oratory”, albeit prematurely.

During that winter I took care of consolidating that small Oratory […]. Every feast day there was the opportunity to receive the sacraments of Confession and Communion; one Saturday and one Sunday per month were fixed for this duty. In the evenings there was some singing of songs of praise, catechism classes, and then small tokens were distributed, at times to all, at times by raffling them.⁹⁰

This same trend can be seen above all in the description of significant characters, like the Provost of Castelnuovo and his vice-parish priest («If I was a priest, I would act otherwise. I would approach children, speak a good word to them, give good advice»)⁹¹ or the Humanities teacher Fr Banaudi («He was a real model teacher. Without ever punishing, he had succeeded in making himself feared and loved by his students. He loved them all as sons, and they loved him as a true father)⁹².

A careful reading of the document shows, practically at every chapter, that the point of arrival, the Oratory of the 1850s, with its end, formation, method, life and pastoral-educator model, is effectively the background for Don Bosco’s revisiting his life to the advantage of his disciples.

2.3.5. The Text of the MO

As a writer, Don Bosco is sober, essential and clear. He is very effective in portraying the environment, give character to the personages, highlight their relations, vary the scenery, and bring to the reader’s attention moments of joy, worries, tensions and even sentiments.

2.3.5.1 Don Bosco’s Writing: Style and Contents

After 30 years as a freelance writer addressing the youth and the ordinary people, his style had been perfected. His skill as a narrator had sharpened. The corrections to the first draft of the MO do not aim at improving the style, but at simplifying the text so as to make it flowing and clear.

Don Bosco’s handwriting is more immediate and neat when he tells stories often narrated orally, or when he describes some of his dreams with abundant detail. He relates the dream made at nine like a film script: the personages are detailed with essential indications, the dialogues are racy and synthetic, his own sentiments are hardly alluded to, while unruly children, wild animals and meek lambs form the background to the scene.

The dialogues are drafted in a very flowing form, even in the handwriting. The original lacks uncertainties: Don Bosco writes rapidly and without second thoughts: the dialogue comes straight out of his memory, always on cue. He was evidently cut for this genre, as an expression of his mind. The MO’s documentation is abundant.

At times the dialogue is designed to portray pastoral and educational attitudes dear to Don Bosco, like his meeting Fr Calosso at 15, the highly symbolic meeting with Bartholomew Garelli, and his enticing the most reticent boys to confession.⁹³ At times apologetics becomes his main aim: the conversation becomes demonstration and debate, like Jonah’s crisis, the confrontation with Jonah’s mother and the argument with the nameless characters who tried to dissuade him from publishing the Catholic Letters.⁹⁴ The genre is dear to Don Bosco, who made repeated use of it starting in 1853.⁹⁵ But when he relates events that risked jeopardizing the very existence of the Oratory or its identity, the dialogue becomes passionate and down to earth. The inspiring values stand out. When arguing with the two parish priests, Don Bosco expounds his pastoral view of things; when resisting the injunctions of the Head of Police he convincingly argues in favour of the social efficacy of education as imparted by the Oratory; with the Marchioness of Barolo he brings out the certainty of a divine mission, which prompts him into abandoning himself in God despite ill-health or the uncertainty of human resources.⁹⁶ Don Bosco’s writing skills appear in every topic he tackles: The dialogue with Fr Cafasso about the choice of a priestly job after a stint in the priests’ residence is dominated by high spiritual values; the dialogue with Pinardi for the purchase of the property, one of the many scenes of typical Turin life, is peppered with expressions of popular culture.⁹⁷

Some character descriptions, brief but very effective, border on the caricatural, such as the physical appearance of Jonah’s mother and the woman servant of St Peter in Chains;⁹⁸ one is drawn to laughter at the scrap with stern teacher Cima, at young Bosco’s defence of shy Comollo, the flabbergasted tailor Cumino and the prudent Canon Burzio, the half-drunk peasants at the picnic, the failed attempt at having him taken to the mad house, the misunderstanding of “oratory” with “laboratory” by stammering Pancras Soave, the archbishop’s mitre hitting the low ceiling of the Pinardi chapel and the hot argument with the washerwomen of Porta Nuova.⁹⁹

He is also good in relating brief but full adventures, like the challenge to the acrobat, the fall from a horse on the road between Cinzano and Bersano, the attempt at poisoning him at the Golden Heart tavern or the raining blows in the room of a false sick woman.¹⁰⁰

But all this skill at characterization, with all its tones and shades of meaning, is entirely placed at the service of a narration of great symbolic and operative intensity. The MO are a typical 19^th century sample of writing: it is not great literature but not second rate either.

2.3.5.2. Structure of the text

As regards the order of the narration, the MO show the same difficulties that affect all similar writings, but with some extra complications.¹⁰¹ In fact, the events here are not imagined, as happens in works of fiction, where fantasy links them up. They are lived history. Their author experienced the memories, stories, emotions and sensations personally, albeit at different times. On choosing the Oratory of St Francis de Sales as a central topic, Don Bosco mentally links all the events to it.

A careful analysis of the text, however, reveals a firm foundation below the superficial division in Decades and chapters. It is the sum total of Don Bosco’s values, convictions and mental schemes that acts like a filigree to the text.

Don Bosco introduces the MO with the criteria chosen to organise his material: «I have divided these Memoirs in periods of ten years each, for every ten years our institutions underwent a notable and perceivable development».¹⁰² This may be called the “macro structure” of the whole text. Within each decade, the individual chapters bring out either the formation itinerary of the main character, or the progressive appearance and consolidation of the characteristic elements of the Oratory.

Importance is given to the spaces where the action took place. The localities can be traced as in a symbolic map: the rural home of his birth with the threshing floor and the meadow, the Morialdo chapel, the village of Castelnuovo, the town of Chieri with its houses, schools, the Pianta café, the Porta Torinese avenue and the Cathedral, the seminary and its environment, the city of Turin with its streets, squares, churches, prisons, charities, suburbs and outlying open spaces; finally the Valdocco Oratory with its chapel under the canopy, the little school rooms and the yard for times of break; all this variety and succession of places becomes an important principle for organising the narration, besides chronology and themes.

Together with spaces, we find values, educational and spiritual experiences. Moving from one location to another is akin to a pilgrimage to the promised land of the Oratory, its mission and identity. The Oratory is “inspired” in the mysterious intimacy of a dream. There is a long preparation for it: first the years of childhood, adolescence and youth of the narrator, then the years of the fruitful staying at the priests’ residence, then moving from one place to another in the city of Turin, growing and acquiring its peculiar characteristics, to end up in the fixed abode of Valdocco, «the place with the inscription seen in a dream: Haec est domus mea, inde gloria mea».¹⁰³ It is interesting to follow the moves from the titles of some chapters from 1841 onwards: The Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the beginning of the Oratory; Move to the Refuge; The Oratory at St Martin by the Mills; The Oratory at St Peter in Chains, The Oratory at Fr Moretta’s, The Oratory in an open space, Move to the present Oratory of St Francis de Sales in Valdocco; The Oratory in its stable location in Valdocco.

The superficial structure of the account acquires shape as time, space and the various themes intersect.

Below the events, personages, observations, comments and notes, there lies a deeper structure that organises them all. It is Don Bosco’s mentality, culture and world view, his civic, educational and moral convictions, his spirituality and his project of formation. Semiotics scholars would perhaps distinguish an intentio operis wider in scope than an intentio auctoris, both declared in the initial programme.¹⁰⁴ The man Don Bosco is at the basis of the work. His whole universe tends to emerge everywhere. The message of the MO is made not only of what its author meant to say, but also of what it actually says.

Such a deep, lively element of the MO gives it polysemic value and preciousness for both the historian interested in cultural anthropology and the disciple intent in catching the spiritual-pedagogical extent of the message. The latter will also understand the interior dynamics of the Oratory model, beyond its simple operations.

Surface and deep structure enrich the background with a variety of glimpses and perspectives, shades and tones likely to interest a wide gamut of readers. The success, both ancient and recent of the MO, has shown how much this “history” has succeeded in fascinating Salesians and youths, and readers, however inexpert or however informed.

2.3.6. Reading approaches and levels of interpretation

Like any author, Don Bosco writes to be read and to communicate a message. The fact that he selects those he is writing for alerts us to some things we need to consider. In the first place the “dear Salesian children” to whom the author addresses himself are people who not only share his values in an existential sense, but who have his language, mentality and culture in common. The ideal readers whom Don Bosco had in mind when he was writing were mainly the Salesians of the ‘70s in the 19th century, with well-defined mental habits, and equipped with a bagful of interpretative tools identical to his own. So, when he uses terms like “confidence” in God, “ritiratezza” (withdrawal from the world, aloofness from worldly things) and “will” of God, or expressions like “giving oneself completely to the Lord” and “exact fulfilment of one’s duties”, still found today in dictionaries and in linguistic usage, we suppose they were an accepted kind of spirituality well understood then for its theology and anthropology and its ascetic elements, typical of the environment in which he and his interlocutors were formed, but which almost certainly is not the same for readers of today.

Similar reflections can be made for some religious viewpoints, that more or less openly clash with our theology of reference (for example a crucial expression for translators in recent decades: “the merciful Lord hit us with a sad bereavement”¹⁰⁵) or for pedagogical terms like “educate”, “look after”, “instruct”, “assist” and “loving-kindness”, whose meanings immediately, with socio-cultural changes and the development of pedagogical thinking, have undergone some not unimportant shifts in meaning.

Then, any reading of the text, which at first sight seems easy to interpret, could instead require a degree of preparation, an awareness of the historical framework and the acquiring of a lexicon and an appropriate encyclopaedia to fully understand the author’s intentions.

2.3.6.1. The interpretative "topics"

We are aware of a problem relating to the interpretation of writings like this. We will try, however, to propose certain ways of simplified reading, starting from the belief that the text itself offers sufficient indications for understanding the general direction of the message it aims at transmitting. We will go along with the narrative strategy of Don Bosco which is geared to accompanying us along well-defined paths.

In the MO we can in fact select both the general interpretative key of a providential history directly led by God, and a series of more particular indicators, left us by the author, which signal paths and guesses about our interpretation. In semiological studies the term topic is used to indicate the topic, argument spoken of: It is an interpretative hypothesis, established by the reader, who deduces it from the overall coherence of the text or from the key words or guiding expressions explicitly contained in it¹⁰⁶. Once identified, these guesses can help us to formulate determined conclusions on the topics the text deals with, or also gain access to levels of "hidden structure" for trying to understand, together with the surface message, the mentality and beliefs which are dear to Don Bosco.

To select our interpretative topics without forcing them, we need to maintain the literal meaning of the text as our first and fundamental interpretative concern, because it is only on this basis that we can articulate other possible readings. It would be good to also add that it is not so much the descriptive method that guarantees a correct reading of the text, as it is the keen awareness we have of the socio-cultural circumstances. In short, we have to note the criterion of textual coherence, on which basis our guesses as to interpretation will be proven¹⁰⁷.

Here we indicate two possible approaches, amongst others: The spiritual dynamics at work and the model of the pastor. For any interpretation relating to pedagogical method we can refer to Pietro Braido’s essay: “Memorie del futuro”¹⁰⁸.

2.3.6.2. A spiritual journey

The keys which Don Bosco offers for an explicit reading in his introduction to the Memoirs invite a spiritual interpretation of the text in the first instance. Here we choose two directions for interpretation (which constantly cross over and intertwine): confidence in God; giving oneself to God, fleeing from "dissipation", and "(ritiratezza) or drawing aside".

A) To interpret confidence in God, we begin with the death of his father, Francis, an event where the account gives all the drama of the impact on the young child¹⁰⁹. The family’s main support is now lacking, but the dying father refers to the providence of the heavenly Father and recommends to his wife and mother of his children that she have “confidence in God”. The meaning of the expression is set out by the author in a perspective of faith and trusting abandon, but also courageous initiative. The episode of the mother, facing up to famine without anguish, recalling her husband’s recommendation and translating it into action, resolves the problem and opens up possibilities for the future¹¹⁰.

A series of events that follow serve to further describe the complex of attitudes which, in the author’s mind put "confidence" into action, beginning with the exemplary presentation of Margaret, who brings together in herself trust in providence, practicality, a spirit of sacrifice and frugality¹¹¹.

Also the complex narrative construction of the dream when he was nine years old implicitly recalls confidence in the God who indicates both the mission and the directions which will make it happen.

Nevertheless the more meaningful narrative situation suggested by this hypothesis - in which confidence in God is opposed to faith in human resources – is that of the singular relationship with Don Calosso. Here the main character experiences calm and security deriving from a reassuring fatherly presence, which he gives himself completely to: “I idolised Don Calosso”¹¹². The error in this view of things emerges with the “irreparable disaster” of the death of this second father, which creates a strong affective imbalance, but is finally understood by the main character: “At that time I had another dream. In it I was sorely reproached for having put my hope in men and not in our good heavenly Father.”¹¹³

The narrative thread ultimately outlines the achieving of trust in God experienced in a mature and total way. The dialogue with Marchioness Barolo, worried about Don Bosco’s health, is constructed with the evident purpose of presenting his refusal of employment and the stipend as an act of total abandonment to God in the unchangeable decision to follow his vocation: “But how will you be able to live? - God has always helped me and he’ll help me also in the future.... My life is consecrated to the good of young people. I thank you for the offers you're making me, but I can't turn back from the path which Divine Providence has traced out for me..... I accepted my dismissal, abandoning myself to whatever God's plan for me might be.”¹¹⁴ Then follows the description of a situation of isolation (lack of understanding by parish priests, civil authorities and his most intimate friends), exhaustion and uncertainty as to his future, all faced with that hard-headed trust in his own vocation. The dramatic tension with which the narrative presents the prayer formulated in the Filippi field, seems to depict a spiritual situation of total abandon and heroic confidence:

On that evening as I ran my eyes over the crowd of children playing, I thought of the rich harvest awaiting my priestly ministry. With no one to help me, my energy gone, my health undermined, with no idea where I could gather my boys in the future.. I was very disturbed …. As I walked I looked up to heaven and cried out, "My God, why don't you show me where you want me to gather these children?? Oh, let me know! Oh, show me what I must do!¹¹⁵

It is precisely then in this moment of strong tension that Pancrazio Soave arrives on the scene with his offer of “a place to build a laboratory”. This slip of the tongue has the effect of highlighting the intervention of Providence which resolves all problems as a response to the act of our main character’s unconditional faith.

We should still note that the path to confidence in God is linked, in Don Bosco’s account, with the experience of confidence in those nearest to him. His relationship with Mamma Margaret and Don Calosso, his relationships with Lucia Matta, Fr Maloria, his friend Louis Comollo and his spiritual director Don Cafasso, are presented as being marked by complete, transparent trust, and, above all, by obedience. A movement of submission that reaches its climax in the dialogue with Don Cafasso: “Because I want to see the will of God in your choice, and I don't want my desires in it at all.”¹¹⁶

The Oratory only finds its definitive shape when Don Bosco sets up at Valdocco, with no other security than confidence in God. The situation of absolute financial uncertainty is met with his mother’s support. She does not only abandon her own peace of mind to follow her son and his mission, but also deprives herself of her “wedding trousseau, which up till then she had jealously kept intact” to “make [...] amices, purifiers, surplices, albs, and towels”. This detachment and renunciation of things dear to her which reminded her of her beloved husband, in order to provide for the Oratory chapel, takes on an intensely symbolic meaning. In Margaret’s joyful generosity the account outlines the complete fulfilment of her husband’s dying wish. Now confidence in God is absolute, beyond all human resource and affection. The “strong lamentation” and “consternation” of earlier times becomes a smile and a song: “Woe to the world if it should learn. That we are just penniless strangers” ¹¹⁷.

B) In order to follow up this interpretation of giving oneself to God, through “drawing aside” and fleeing all dissipation, we need to start from his first communion, whose meaning we find in the words of Mamma Margaret – “I am convinced that God has really taken possession of your heart. Now promise him to be good as long as you live”.). Here the interpretation aims to retrace the ways and forms of a spiritual opening set out as a gradual "conversion", involving trust and giving of oneself to God, detachment - from his own desires and from "worldliness". According to the Memoirs, this is one element at the centre of the spirituality of the pastor-educator at the Oratory. This hypothesis is also justified when considering those to whom the account is addressed and the involvement of Don Bosco over these years in the ascetic and religious formation of his Salesians.

There are many indications "outside the text" of the importance Don Bosco gives to such a spiritual attitude. The appeal to "give oneself" to a virtuous life, spelt out from 1847 in Il Giovane Provveduto¹¹⁸, taken up again at other times, over the course of years finds its complete formulation in the expression “giving oneself totally to God”, especially in the Lives of Dominic Savio, Michael Magone and Francis Bessucco. The Memoirs introduce this theme explicitly in the dialogue with Don Calosso: “(The first sermon) was about the necessity of giving oneself to God in good time and not putting off one's conversion”¹¹⁹.

This meaningful element in fact signals the beginning, in the story, of the inner journey, with its description of a first step, trusting in a spiritual guide: “I put myself completely into Fr Calosso’s hands ... I bared my soul to him. Every word, thought and act I revelaed to him promptly ... It was then I came to know what it was to have a spiritual director, a faithful friend of one’s soul ... From then on I began to savour the spiritual life”¹²⁰. The following stages are noted from the point of view of his submission, either in his “great good fortune” in choosing a stable confessor during his studies in Chieri¹²¹, or his “complete confidence” in his exemplary friend. Louis Comollo: “I let him guide me where and how he wished”¹²².

An important spiritual passage which marks a turn in his giving of himself to God, is explained in the description of the not so easy vocational discernment at the end of his studies at Chieri. The thought of entering the Franciscans, based on personal considerations, is not effective. Only his trust in Comollo and his uncle the priest, in order to discern God’s will, gets rid of the uncertainty and frees the way forward¹²³.

His clothing, “seriously” prepared for, also involving a change of lifestyle (“I ceased acrobatics and dedicated myself to reading good books”), is seen as a major gesture and a decisive one for giving of himself to God:

Oh how much old clothing there is to cast off. My God destroy in me all my old habits [...]. Yes, Oh my God, I henceforth lead a new life in complete conformity with your holy will, …may justice and holiness be the constant objects of my thoughts, words and actions. Amen. O Mary be my salvation”¹²⁴.

The symbolic relevance and oblationary intention of this gesture is remarked on by the narrator with a reflection, in reference to the patronal feast at Bardella to which he was taken by the parish priest: “Could such people, such society ever identify with one who that very morning had put on the robe of holiness to give himself entirely to the Lord? ». Giving oneself to God and the consequent change of life, in “withdrawal”» and the radical reforming of his life, is mixed in with the resolutions he makes on that occasion and which he pronounces in front of the statue of the Virgin with a “formal promise [...] to observe them no matter what the cost”¹²⁵.

The formative journey of the seminarian follows on along these lines, with his commitment to an exact carrying out of his duties “with all my soul”, through mortification and self-denial (renouncing his games of Bara rotta and tarot cards), vigilance over his tendency to vain glory, his reconfirmation of “a retiring lifestyle” after the holiday experience¹²⁶.

The theme of “withdrawal”, often mentioned in the Memoirs, as a necessary consequence of completely giving of oneself to God, takes on a specific sense. In his account of his first communion, he indirectly alludes to this by reconstructing the atmosphere of recollection his mother wanted in order to avoid “dissipation”¹²⁷. The attitude and words of the cleric Cafasso are an implicit reminder to indicate the inner and outward behaviour which marks the good ecclesiastic (“One who was taking no part in the festivities [...]. A cleric gives himself to the Lord. Nothing in the world must be more important to him than the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls. “)¹²⁸. Fr Comollo’s advice is something he presents as vocational perseverance (“He must not fear to lose his vocation because aloofness from the world and earnest piety will help him overcome every obstacle”.)¹²⁹, and this is translated into practice in his lifestyle (“I applied myself seriously to those things which would help prepare me to take the clerical habit. […]. When I got home for the holidays, I gave up acrobatics. I dedicated myself to reading good books”)¹³⁰. Finally, the explicit and key advice he puts on the lips of Fr Borel – “A vocation is perfected and preserved, and a real priestly spirit is formed, by a climate of recollection and by frequent communion.”¹³¹ -, taken up as a programme for the final year of theology¹³², clearly directs the meaning towards ascesis.

The giving of oneself is finally shown in the description of the role taken by Cafasso as his spiritual director whether at the beginning of his stay at the Pastoral Institute (Convitto) (“If I have been able to do any good, I owe it to this worthy priest in whose hands I placed every decision I made, all my study, and every activity of my life”; “I talked this idea over with Fr Caffasso. With his encouragement and inspiration I began to work out in my mind how to put the idea into practice, leaving to the Lord's grace what the outcome would be”¹³³) or at the conclusion to this period of formation (“She can do what she wants with me I understand the Lord’s will in the advice”¹³⁴).

Here too, the journey of detachment and giving oneself to God raches its climax in the prayer at that difficult moment in March 1846, which also expresses how his confidence had matured: “why don't you show me where you want me to gather these children? Oh, let me know what I must do!” Here, since it leads us to keep the general context of the account, it almost seems that our protagonist, after having battled so strongly not to give up in the face of difficulties standing in the way of the mission he has been given, he adds such a degree of self-giving and detachment that he is ready to declare himself willing to give up even the Oratory in order to fully carry out God’s will; ready to step aside from a vocation which he perceives ever more clearly as an authentic one and up till then obstinately loved, defended and pursued, in order to adhere to the raw call of God, unconditionally ¹³⁵.

2.3.6.3. A model of the priest-pastor:

The Memoirs have a dynamic wholly given over to illustrating a mission and a pastoral model. The Oratory, as we see it outlined in the narrative thread of the text, is a complete pastoral work: Those who will benefit, mission, method and formation contents, “workers” and characteristic activities, spirit and atmosphere of relationships, all are shown and all given their particular meaning. The concern to hand down to his “dear Salesian children” a family heritage that which is not just a bagful of experiences, but an identity and a method, emerges in a didactic and representational style. The author brings in roles and actors, ideal and negative behaviours, with the aim of presenting the characteristic features of a unique role, the pastor of the Oratory according to his typical pastoral view and method.

We list here, in outline, just a few of the textual items which we can find useful for the work of analysing the model of the pastor which emerges.