St. John Bosco

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Feastday: January 31
b. 1815 d: 1888

What do dreams have to with prayer? Aren't they just random images of our mind?

In 1867 Pope Pius IX was upset with John Bosco because he wouldn't take his dreams seriously enough. Nine years earlier when Pope Pius IX met with the future saint who worked with neglected boys, he learned of the dreams that John had been having since the age of nine, dreams that had revealed God's will for John's life. So Pius IX had made a request, "Write down these dreams and everything else you have told me, minutely and in their natural sense." Pius IX saw John's dreams as a legacy for those John worked with and as an inspiration for those he ministered to.

Despite Scripture evidence and Church tradition respecting dreams, John had encountered skepticism when he had his first dream at the age of nine. The young Bosco dreamed that he was in a field with a crowd of children. The children started cursing and misbehaving. John jumped into the crowd to try to stop them -- by fighting and shouting. Suddenly a man with a face filled with light appeared dressed in a white flowing mantle. The man called John over and made him leader of the boys. John was stunned at being put in charge of these unruly gang. The man said, "You will have to win these friends of yours not with blows but with gentleness and kindness." As adults, most of us would be reluctant to take on such a mission -- and nine year old John was even less pleased. "I'm just a boy," he argued, "how can you order me to do something that looks impossible." The man answered, "What seems so impossible you must achieve by being obedient and acquiring knowledge." Thenthe boys turned into the wild animals they had been acting like. The man told John that this is the field of John's life work. Once John changed and grew in humility, faithfulness, and strength, he would see a change in the children -- a change that the man now demonstrated. The wild animals suddenly turned into gentle lambs.

When John told his family about his dream, his brothers just laughed at him. Everyone had a different interpretation of what it meant: he would become a shepherd, a priest, a gang leader. His own grandmother echoed the sage advice we have heard through the years, "You mustn't pay any attention to dreams." John said, "I felt the same way about it, yet I could never get that dream out of my head."

Eventually that first dream led him to minister to poor and neglected boys, to use the love and guidance that seemed so impossible at age nine to lead them to faithful and fulfilled lives. He started out by learning how to juggle and do tricks to catch the attention of the children. Once he had their attention he would teach them and take them to Mass. It wasn't always easy -- few people wanted a crowd of loud, bedraggled boys hanging around. And he had so little money and help that people thought he was crazy. Priests who promised to help would get frustrated and leave.

Two "friends" even tried to commit him to an institution for the mentally ill. They brought a carriage and were planning to trick him into coming with him. But instead of getting in, John said, "After you" and politely let them go ahead. When his friends were in the carriage he slammed the door and told the drive to take off as fast as he could go!

Through it all he found encouragement and support through his dreams. In one dream, Mary led him into a beautiful garden. There were roses everywhere, crowding the ground with their blooms and the air with their scent. He was told to take off his shoes and walk along a path through a rose arbor. Before he had walked more than a few steps, his naked feet were cut and bleeding from the thorns. When he said he would have to wear shoes or turn back, Mary told him to put on sturdy shoes. As he stepped forward a second time, he was followed by helpers. But the walls of the arbor closed on him, the roof sank lower and the roses crept onto the path. Thorns caught at him from all around. When he pushed them aside he only got more cuts, until he was tangled in thorns. Yet those who watched said, "How lucky Don John is! His path is forever strewn with roses! He hasn't a worry in the world. No troubles at all!" Many of the helpers, who had been expecting an easy journey, turned back, but some stayed with him. Finally he climbed through the roses and thorns to find another incredible garden. A cool breeze soothed his torn skin and healed his wounds.

In his interpretation, the path was his mission, the roses were his charity to the boys, and the thorns were the distractions, the obstacles, and frustrations that would stand in his way. The message of the dream was clear to John: he must keep going, not lose faith in God or his mission, and he would come through to the place he belonged.

Often John acted on his dreams simply by sharing them, sometimes repeating them to several different individuals or groups he thought would be affected by the dream. "Let me tell you about a dream that has absorbed my mind," he would say.

The groups he most often shared with were the boys he helped -- because so many of the dreams involved them. For example, he used several dreams to remind the boys to keep to a good and moral life. In one dream he saw the boys eating bread of four kinds -- tasty rolls, ordinary bread, coarse bread, and moldy bread, which represented the state of the boys' souls. He said he would be glad to talk to any boys who wanted to know which bread they were eating and then proceeded to use the occasion to give them moral guidance.

He died in 1888, at the age of seventy-two. His work lives on in the Salesian order he founded.

In His Footsteps:

John Bosco found God's message in his dreams. If you have some question or problem in your life, ask God to send you an answer or help in a dream. Then write down your dreams. Ask God to help you remember and interpret the dreams that come from God.

Prayer:

Saint John Bosco, you reached out to children whom no one cared for despite ridicule and insults. Help us to care less about the laughter of the world and care more about the joy of the Lord. Amen

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13 Comments

michael arceno
June 5th, 2008 2:56 am
thankz to this prayer...
Dino Marco D. Dizon
July 5th, 2008 6:29 pm
very informative! viva bosco!
brine
August 13th, 2008 7:43 pm
help us and guide us or our future life...st. john bosco; pray for us
brent
September 25th, 2008 9:43 am
may we pray to God for help and guidence every day
Jacquelin McCoulough
February 12th, 2009 6:20 am
It was really helpful! He is my patron saint for Comfirmation!!
neeley
March 20th, 2009 8:04 pm
saint john bosco you are so interesting
Aleah Hepp
April 21st, 2009 11:40 am
i love this saint i love his dreams toooooo!
Jenna Dooling
April 22nd, 2009 7:03 am
this saint is such a good roll model because he is so kind and helps people!
Ella
May 20th, 2009 6:15 pm
This saint is one of my favorite saints he is awsome!!!!!
Xolile Samson Galata
August 1st, 2009 8:30 am
how to join the salesian priest hood
Connie Morales Drury
November 22nd, 2009 3:06 pm
I have experienced the gift of dreams myself. I have found my answers, purpose, and guidance through some of my dreams. I'm so glad I found St. John Bosco story because I didn't know what to about the dreams I was having, until in one of my dream I saw a an old painting of a priest in my dream. I told my mother about my dream and she told me to look up two saints, which one was St. John Bosco, and to my surprise as I looked up St. John Bosco I found the painting that was in my dream! It was this exact painting of St. Bosco. I got goose bumps!
AnaLisa Rodriguez
June 21st, 2010 9:33 pm
Wow.! I never heard of st John Bosco before. My mom E-mailed me this website. I always have dreams and I always seem to remember every single one in very details. Wow I started to wright my dreams down in my own dream book since this year wow.! This is so cool Thank you Jesus.!
carmen vazquez
August 31st, 2010 8:19 am
Today, August 31, 2010, some remains of St. John Bosco, my favorite saint and the patron saint of the church I attend every week, arrived to Monterrey, México after several weeks traveling through the country, so our city is being blessed with his presence today, there will be many religious events in his honor..there are several Salesians schools in our city so students and teachers are so happy with this outstanding event...One of the many St.John's advises was to be always joyful, always smiling...let's takes his advise and be happy all the time, no matter what! Tomorrow his remains will be traveling to the US where they will visit several cities..I invite you to look for info, maybe they will be in your city.. St. John Bosco, pray for all the Mexican and American boys and girls, I know you love them with all your heart...

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