austraLasia #3259
11 August 2013 -- A document no Salesian would want to miss - but only now available in English with a complete set of notes as prepared by Fr Pietro Braido in his Don Bosco the Educator, the complete and revised English translation of which is also available. We are speaking of the Cenno storico, or Historical Outline, the first and most interesting testimony of Don Bosco's on the work that became the Oratory at Valdocco and the Salesian Congregation. Here is how it begins:
This Oratory, a gathering of young people on Sundays and holy days, began in the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. For many years during the summertime, the Rev. Fr. [Joseph] Caffasso used to teach catechism every Sunday to bricklayers’ boys in a little room attached to the sacristy of the aforementioned church. The heavy workload this priest had taken on caused him to interrupt this work, which he loved so much. I took it up towards the end of 1841, and I began by gathering in that same place two young adults who were in grave need of religious instruction. These were joined by others, and during 1842 the number went up to twenty, and sometimes twenty-five.
What do we notice? Here, and as this 11 page document continues, the work of the oratories is presented as the work of several clergy and also lay people from Turin. It is not yet a 'Salesian' work. Notice too, no mention of Bartholomew Garelli: it all began, according to this testimony, with 'two young adults...in grave need of religious instruction'.
There are many little surprises in store as you read through this document. You recognise the fact immediately that Don Bosco went back to it many years later when he was putting his Memoirs of the Oratory together, but there are many details not included in the latter: we discover, for example that a certain Savio Ascanio was the first person in the Oratory to receive the clerical habit (1848). In fact he received that at Cottolengo House - he was supposed to be at the diocesan seminary but it was closed so Don Bosco took him in. He helped Don Bosco but did not become a Salesian, though he did become a priest and was Rector at The Refuge. The Memoirs of the Oratory rightly point us to another clerical investiture of importance - Rua - a few years later.
So hopefully your appetite has been whetted. You have two choices. You can download the brief document in its English translation (it also includes some 70 footnotes by Braido), or you can download the complete PDF copy of Don Bosco the Educator, from which it is taken.
Additional single original documents now in English have been added to those placed in SDL last week: the prefaces to Don Bosco's Sacra storia (Bible History), Storia ecclesiastica, and Storia d'Italia (History of Italy); his introduction to The Companion of Youth, the Draft Regulations of the Oratory (intro only), and several interesting letters: one to King Victor Emmanuel IIasking for financial support, another to Marquis Michele Benso Cavour, and a Circular sent out about his first Lottery (by a group of 'Promoters', but clearly written by Don Bosco himself).
The 'Cenno storico' or Historical Outline
11 August 2013 -- A document no Salesian would want to miss - but only now available in English with a complete set of notes as prepared by Fr Pietro Braido in his Don Bosco the Educator, the complete and revised English translation of which is also available. We are speaking of the Cenno storico, or Historical Outline, the first and most interesting testimony of Don Bosco's on the work that became the Oratory at Valdocco and the Salesian Congregation. Here is how it begins:
This Oratory, a gathering of young people on Sundays and holy days, began in the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. For many years during the summertime, the Rev. Fr. [Joseph] Caffasso used to teach catechism every Sunday to bricklayers’ boys in a little room attached to the sacristy of the aforementioned church. The heavy workload this priest had taken on caused him to interrupt this work, which he loved so much. I took it up towards the end of 1841, and I began by gathering in that same place two young adults who were in grave need of religious instruction. These were joined by others, and during 1842 the number went up to twenty, and sometimes twenty-five.
What do we notice? Here, and as this 11 page document continues, the work of the oratories is presented as the work of several clergy and also lay people from Turin. It is not yet a 'Salesian' work. Notice too, no mention of Bartholomew Garelli: it all began, according to this testimony, with 'two young adults...in grave need of religious instruction'.
There are many little surprises in store as you read through this document. You recognise the fact immediately that Don Bosco went back to it many years later when he was putting his Memoirs of the Oratory together, but there are many details not included in the latter: we discover, for example that a certain Savio Ascanio was the first person in the Oratory to receive the clerical habit (1848). In fact he received that at Cottolengo House - he was supposed to be at the diocesan seminary but it was closed so Don Bosco took him in. He helped Don Bosco but did not become a Salesian, though he did become a priest and was Rector at The Refuge. The Memoirs of the Oratory rightly point us to another clerical investiture of importance - Rua - a few years later.
So hopefully your appetite has been whetted. You have two choices. You can download the brief document in its English translation (it also includes some 70 footnotes by Braido), or you can download the complete PDF copy of Don Bosco the Educator, from which it is taken.
Additional single original documents now in English have been added to those placed in SDL last week: the prefaces to Don Bosco's Sacra storia (Bible History), Storia ecclesiastica, and Storia d'Italia (History of Italy); his introduction to The Companion of Youth, the Draft Regulations of the Oratory (intro only), and several interesting letters: one to King Victor Emmanuel IIasking for financial support, another to Marquis Michele Benso Cavour, and a Circular sent out about his first Lottery (by a group of 'Promoters', but clearly written by Don Bosco himself).
