John
Bosco was born on the 16th of August 1815, in Becchi, a hamlet
belonging to the municipality of Castelnuovo d'Asti (today
Castelnuovo Don Bosco). He came from a family of poor farmers. He
lost his father, Francesco, at the age of two.
His mother Margherita raised him with tenderness and energy. She
taught him to cultivate the soil and to see God behind the beauty
of the heavens, the abundance of the harvest, the rain which
showered the vines. Mamma Margherita, in the church, learned to
pray, and she taught her children to do the same. For John, to
pray meant to speak with God on his knees on the kitchen pavement,
to think of him while seated on the grass, gazing at the heavens.
From his mother, John learned to see God also in other faces,
those of the poor or those of the miserable ones who came knocking
at the door of the house during winter, and to whom Margherita
gave hot soup, mended shoes. |
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Don Bosco hears the Confession of young Paul Albera |
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