Sunday, 8 June 1856: Dominic Savio founds the Immaculate Conception Sodality

By Research of CIN Province

160 years ago was launched the DNA of the Salesian Youth Movement. It's healthy to read again the Salesian sources for our inspiration and deeply roots in the Charismatic history. From the Biographical Memoirs of Don Bosco (volume V, pages 312-318).

One fine day at the Valdocco Oratory, towards the end of the morning Mass, noticing Don Bosco’s dismay at seeing no one coming to the altar rail to receive Holy Communion, Valdocco Oratory boarders Celestino Durando and Giuseppe Bongiovanni took the initiative to distribute among themselves and a few other companions the reception of Holy Communion during the daily community Mass celebrated by Don Bosco in the church of St. Francis de Sales. The companions that joined them in this so meaningful initiative were: John Bonetti, Louis Marcellino, Joseph Rocchetti, Victor Vaschetti, and the cleric Michael Rua.

When he came to know this, Dominic Savio “eagerly joined this group and, acting upon a suggestion of Don Bosco, planned to make it permanent. […] After consultation with his friends, and with the assistance of Joseph Bongiovanni, Dominic drafted a set of regulations.” In his Vita del giovanetto Savio Domenico, Don Bosco continues: “After much careful thought, on June 8th 1856, nine months before he died, he went with his friends before the altar of Mary Most Holy and they read it over together.”

The first weekly sodality meeting, lasting half an hour, was held during the Novena of Our Lady of Consolation (11-19 June). This Feast of the Patroness of Turin fell on June 20th. In their first meeting, by unanimous consent, the cleric Michael Rua was elected president. “The sodality meetings were authorized by the Superiors, but they were conducted and controlled by the boys themselves, even when some cleric of priest attended. […] The weekly sodality meetings […] opened with a short spiritual reading; a secretary took down the minutes. At these meetings the boys discussed the manner of celebrating novenas of the more solemn feasts, designated the specific weekdays on which members were to receive Communion, and assigned to each member those of their schoolmates who needed greater moral assistance”. The second and third items above were suggested by Don Bosco, the second item confirming the original initiative of Celestino Durando and cleric Joseph Bongiovanni. How truly Mystics in the Spirit and Servants of the Young were these early Oratory boys! Of the 18 Salesians who, with Don Bosco, founded the Salesian Society on 18 December 1959, 17 had been members of the Immaculate Conception Sodality!

Fr. Giovanni Battista Lemoyne ends his Biographical Memoirs report noting: “The Immaculate Conception Sodality – the nursery of the first members of the Salesian Society – was founded in the same year that Pius IX extended the feast of the Sacred heart of Jesus to the whole Church with its proper office and Mass, and in the same month that is dedicated to the Sacred Heart.” St. Dominic Savio’s Immaculate Conception Sodality with the Salessian Youth Movement that it began was certainly an outpouring of Jesus’ love from his Sacred Heart!

Happy 160th Anniversary of the Feast of the Sacred Heart! Happy 160th Birthday of the Salesian Youth Movement!

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