austraLasia #3270
24 August 2013 -- Don Bosco has treated us to the story of Severino and his wanderings, not only geographical, but also religious and moral, and we have gained some interesting insights into Waldensians and others of that ilk, plus an entertaining interlude on the Great Saint Bernard Pass. He then gave us the story of Peter, a 'home body' who would have liked to have spent his days around Valdocco and the Oratory, but there was a war to be fought on the Crimean Peninsula. Now he gives us the story of Valentino, and this is a true rollercoaster ride, in religious and moral terms, with more than one of its characters teetering between heaven and hell.
Valentino ends up being one of Don Bosco's shadier characters, not just in terms of what he got up to, but also in terms of who he was, where he came from, where he went to school... though to be fair, himself writes towards the end, saying "I have never been, nor am I even now a wicked person. I am an unhappy young man, an unfortunate one, but not a perverse one."
Could he have been an Oratory boy, in fact, whom Don Bosco wanted to protect in some way, by making him hard to trace? We are certainly not dealing with a figment of Don Bosco's imagination here - his opening sentence to this shortest of 6 young 'Lives' makes that clear enough: "Because I am writing about something that really happened and that refers partly to people still living, I judge it better not to mention names of people and places referred to in this story". That said, he feels free to mention any number of Christian names, like Valentino, Osnero, Mari... One wonders if Valentino was possibly one of the lads he met during his prison ministry.
You will enjoy this story. A reader of austraLasia wrote recently, commenting on his satisfaction at having become aware that there were some more 'normal' characters amongst Don Bosco's boys; more normal than Dominic, Francis and Co., he meant. If Don Bosco wrote about Valentino for the Oratory boys (he may have aimed it more at parents and other adults) it was possibly because there were boys there who had something to learn from Valentino.
Ostensibly the story of Valentino is about "a vocation obstructed" - by his father in the first instance, by the first school he went to, by a 'family friend' who is a demon in disguise, and maybe by his own fault too. Poor dad ends up very badly, as indicated by the final lines dedicated to him in the story: "he became delirious again and with a violent shudder, died.", whereas the 'demon' is given kinder treatment: "Mari left this mortal coil to enter into eternity where we hope he found mercy in the Lord’s sight".
So all in all Don Bosco wrote six stories of boys, all of whom we believe he had direct contact with during his priestly ministry (chances are that Valentino fits this category somehow, though we don't have the evidence). We need all six to get the 'big picture'. So, should you be interested in having them all in a single collection, such a collection is now available in a pdf download under the title 'Seen in Action'. Feel free to take a copy.
24 August 2013 -- Don Bosco has treated us to the story of Severino and his wanderings, not only geographical, but also religious and moral, and we have gained some interesting insights into Waldensians and others of that ilk, plus an entertaining interlude on the Great Saint Bernard Pass. He then gave us the story of Peter, a 'home body' who would have liked to have spent his days around Valdocco and the Oratory, but there was a war to be fought on the Crimean Peninsula. Now he gives us the story of Valentino, and this is a true rollercoaster ride, in religious and moral terms, with more than one of its characters teetering between heaven and hell.
Valentino ends up being one of Don Bosco's shadier characters, not just in terms of what he got up to, but also in terms of who he was, where he came from, where he went to school... though to be fair, himself writes towards the end, saying "I have never been, nor am I even now a wicked person. I am an unhappy young man, an unfortunate one, but not a perverse one."
Could he have been an Oratory boy, in fact, whom Don Bosco wanted to protect in some way, by making him hard to trace? We are certainly not dealing with a figment of Don Bosco's imagination here - his opening sentence to this shortest of 6 young 'Lives' makes that clear enough: "Because I am writing about something that really happened and that refers partly to people still living, I judge it better not to mention names of people and places referred to in this story". That said, he feels free to mention any number of Christian names, like Valentino, Osnero, Mari... One wonders if Valentino was possibly one of the lads he met during his prison ministry.
You will enjoy this story. A reader of austraLasia wrote recently, commenting on his satisfaction at having become aware that there were some more 'normal' characters amongst Don Bosco's boys; more normal than Dominic, Francis and Co., he meant. If Don Bosco wrote about Valentino for the Oratory boys (he may have aimed it more at parents and other adults) it was possibly because there were boys there who had something to learn from Valentino.
Ostensibly the story of Valentino is about "a vocation obstructed" - by his father in the first instance, by the first school he went to, by a 'family friend' who is a demon in disguise, and maybe by his own fault too. Poor dad ends up very badly, as indicated by the final lines dedicated to him in the story: "he became delirious again and with a violent shudder, died.", whereas the 'demon' is given kinder treatment: "Mari left this mortal coil to enter into eternity where we hope he found mercy in the Lord’s sight".
So all in all Don Bosco wrote six stories of boys, all of whom we believe he had direct contact with during his priestly ministry (chances are that Valentino fits this category somehow, though we don't have the evidence). We need all six to get the 'big picture'. So, should you be interested in having them all in a single collection, such a collection is now available in a pdf download under the title 'Seen in Action'. Feel free to take a copy.
