Don Bosco, Confessor, 1888 A.D.
by VP
Posted on Saturday January 31, 2026 at 12:00AM in Saints
Don Bosco la Torino in 1880
- "At Castelnuovo, where there was a family gathering and great rejoicing, his mother said to him, what he calls "these memorable words": "You are a priest. In saying Mass henceforward you are then nearest to Jesus Christ. Remember, however, that to begin to say Mass means to begin to suffer. You will not realize it at once, but little by little you will see that your mother has told you the truth. I am confident that every day you will pray for me, whether I am living or dead: that is enough for me. Henceforward, think only of the salvation of souls, and don't be troubled in mind about me." Source: R.F. O'Connor Venerable Don Bosco The American Catholic Quarterly Review ..., Volume 46 1921
"Only two means are left to save Her (the Church) amidst so much confusion: Frequent Communion and Devotion to Mary most holy, making use of every means and doing our best to practice them and having them practiced everywhere and by everybody."
"When speaking of public scandals: Don’t be surprised at anything. People and waywardness go hand in hand. The Church has nothing to fear because even if all were to conspire to overthrow Her, the Holy Spirit would still uphold Her."
- Don Bosco, Apostle of the Papacy:
"The Pope!", says Fr. Lemoyne, biographer of Don Bosco, "there is the theme that Don Bosco wished to develop without ceasing, in order that the supremacy and the glory of the Vicar of Jesus Christ might stand uppermost in the mind of the faithful." The American Ecclesiastical Review, Volume 147 edited by Herman Joseph Heuser 1962
Prayer for Imploring Holy Popes
Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison! Kyrie
eleison! Lord Jesus Christ, You are the Good Shepherd! With your
almighty hand you guide Your pilgrim Church through the storms of each
age.
Adorn the Holy See with holy popes who neither fear the powerful of this
world nor compromise with the spirit of the age, but preserve,
strengthen, and defend the Catholic Faith unto the shedding of their
blood, and observe, protect, and hand on the venerable liturgy of the
Roman Church.
O Lord, return to us through holy popes who, inflamed with the zeal of
the Apostles, proclaim to the whole world: “Salvation is found in no
other than in Jesus Christ. For there is no other name under heaven
given to men by which they should be saved” (see Acts 4:10-12).
Through an era of holy popes, may the Holy See—which is home to all who
promote the Catholic and Apostolic Faith— always shine as the cathedra
of truth for the whole world. Hear us, O Lord, and through the
intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of the Church,
grant us holy Popes, grant us many holy Popes! Have mercy on us and hear
us! Amen.
+ Athanasius Schneider Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana
- SPIRITUAL, MORAL AND EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS (Don Giovanni Bosco as an Educator By Carola E. Kopf-Seitz 1926)
"Among all the means which Don Bosco used in education, by far the most important is religion. Even at the Sunday-Oratories so great a part of the time was given to religious exercises that one might feel inclined to think that Don Bosco required more than might be justified. On the other hand, the continual increase in the number of those coming to the Oratory from all quarters showed that the time given to religious exercises was not considered excessive by his auditors, especially since Don Bosco knew how to make them always attractive and entertaining.
In the institutions, the whole life of the community came under the influence of religion. Don Bosco taught the children to offer the first moment of the day to God. After the morning prayer all assisted at Holy Mass during which, besides other prayers, the rosary was to be recited. At every Mass, the children were to have an opportunity for confession and communion. Every task during the day was to be begun and ended with prayer. Special value was placed upon an occasional visit, some time during the day, to the Blessed Sacrament. No day was to pass without spiritual reading. To avoid distractions during the sermons, these were to be short, practical and rich in illustrations. Don Bosco admonished the children never to leave after a sermon without having made some firm resolution which could be carried out during the occupation which followed. He also considered the short address, given in the evening just before retiring, of great importance. Evening prayers in common concluded the day.
Monthly pious exercises, such as the exercise of a holy death on the first Sunday of each month, the solemn celebration of the feasts of the Church, processions and the like, were used by Don Bosco to accustom the children to the frequent reception of the Sacraments and to inspire them with renewed zeal. Frequent confession and communion were in his eyes probably the most important of all the factors of education. In spite of this, probably just because of this, he did not want to see constraint used under any circumstances. In order that the children, in receiving the Sacraments, might obtain their full benefit, he urged them to select a constant confessor to whom they might reveal every corner of their heart.
In order to keep alive the zeal of the children, and in a sense to organize the exercise of their good works, he established several fraternities, for example, the fraternity of St. Aloysius and the Sodality of the Immaculate Conception, in the latter of which only the best and most deserving boys could be received. For the St. Aloysius fraternity, he himself drafted the constitutions, in which he urged upon the members chiefly: frequent communion, the avoiding of evil companions, mutual encouragement to piety, a zeal for duty, obedience towards parents and superiors, and the practice of charity towards neighbors.
By teaching and example he sought to awaken and to cultivate in his protégés a love of prayer; he warned them against listless or inattentive prayer, saying it would be better not to pray at all than to pray poorly. He also warned them of "too much prayer"; they should not take up new devotions without the permission of their father confessor and should go by the words of St. Philip Neri: "Non vi caricate di troppo divozioni, ma siate perseveranti in quelle que avete prese." ( Do not burden yourselves with too many devotions, but be persevering in those you have taken.)
The importance attached by Don Bosco to
the religious life, as a factor of education, is evident also from the
fact that he added to his Regolamento a special chapter about conduct in
the house of God, that he appointed a special catechist to supervise
the religious exercises of the students and that he specified at length
in the Regolamento the duties of this office."
Septuagesima Time
by VP
Posted on Saturday January 31, 2026 at 12:00AM in Tradition
"Septuagesima Time lasts three weeks. The first week is called Septuagesima Week, the second Sexagesima Week, and the third Quinquagesima Week ; names taken from the Sundays beginning each week.
(...)
The
number seven is found in numberless places in the Bible, and here the
holy Church invites us to stop and ponder on this number, and on these
seasons of the year. Let us go back to the olden times of the fathers of
the Church. St. Augustine says "there are two seasons, one the time of
our trials and of our temptation during this life, the other the time of
our happiness and of our glories in the other life. We celebrate these
times, the first before Easter, the second after Easter. The season
before Easter represents the trials of the present life, the season
after Easter signifies the happiness we will have in heaven. Such is the
reason we pass the first of these seasons in fasting and in prayer,
while the second season is consecrated to canticles of joy, and then
fasting is not allowed."
The Church, the guardian and the
interpreter of the Holy Bible, tells us that there are two places
relating to the two seasons spoken of by St. Augustine. They are Babylon
and Jerusalem. Babylon is the symbol of this world of sin and of
temptation, in the midst of which the Christian must pass his time of
trial ; Jerusalem is the heavenly country where the good Christian rests
after his trials and his labors of this life. Of these two cities, the
one worldly, the other heavenly, St. Augustine writes in his immortal
work, " The City of God." The people of Israel, whose history in the
Bible is but a grand figure of the history of the human race, were
exiled from Jerusalem and were held as captives in Babylon. Their
captivity in Babylon lasted for sixty-six years, and according to the
great writers on the Liturgy of the Church, the seventy days of fasting
and of prayer, from Septuagesima Sunday to Easter, recall the captivity of the Jews in Babylon.
Seven
is a mystic number. In six days, God made the world and he rested on
the seventh day. The most ancient traditions of Christianity tell us
(...) that the race of man upon the earth is divided into seven great
epochs. The first dated from the creation of Adam to the Flood, the
second from Noah to the calling of Abraham, the third from Abraham to
Moses, the fourth from Moses to David, the fifth from David to the
captivity in Babylon, the sixth from the captivity to the coming of the
Savior, and the seventh from the time of our Lord to the end of the
world. Thus the age of man on the earth is measured by these great
epochs. During these different times the Lord prepared the race to
receive their Redeemer, and to come into the Church He established for
their salvation. In the first epoch, from Adam to Abraham, all justice,
all goodness, all godliness, which look down from heaven and was planted
in the heart of man, was driven out by sin. In the second, from Abraham
to Moses, God called the people of Israel and made of them his chosen
race, to receive the prophecies relating to His Son. In the third, from
Moses to David, God commanded the tabernacle to be made, the Rites and
Services of the Jewish law to be carried out, to prefigure the Services
of our Church. In the fourth, from David to the Captivity in Babylon,
the nation of the Jews were ruled by kings, the temple of Solomon stood
grand and gorgeous, and the world saw the greatest glories of the people
of God. In the sixth, from the captivity to the days of our Lord, the
Jewish people were the prey of conquering nations; the Maccabees alone
could restore in part their departed splendors. In the seventh, from
Christ to the end of the world, the Church, founded and established by
our Lord, shines out before the nations called to the faith. Its glories
are far greater than those of the tabernacle of Moses. The cathedrals
of Christendom exceed in splendor Solomon's temple. The ceremonies in
our sanctuaries are more sublime than the most gifted imagination of the
Jewish priests could fancy. (...)
Thus the number seven is
deeply planted in the works of the Creator of the universe. Thus for
seven weeks we bow our heads in prayer and fasting before the coming of
the glorious day of Easter, and in joy and praise we raise our heads for
seven weeks during the glorious Paschal time following Easter. The
seven weeks of sadness for our sins before the passion of our Lord, are
followed by the seven weeks of happiness following His resurrection.
Thus after having fasted and prayed like the Savior in the desert, we
rejoice with Him as we rise from the sackcloth and ashes of Lent. We
rise with our souls filled with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit
imprinted in our souls. This is what the mystic writers on the
ceremonies of the Church tell us. They say that the seven weeks before
Easter, and the seven weeks following Easter, are according to the
mystic number seven, revealed to man from heaven.
The seven weeks from Septuagesima
to Easter yearly come and go, while the years of our lives, like the
waters of the rivers, flow onward to be lost in the vastness of the
ocean ; thus our years pass rapidly on toward the boundless ocean of
eternity. The Church, our mother, tells us each year to stop and to
think of the Babylon of this world in which we live as strangers, exiled
from our home. She tells us to hang our harps on the willows growing on
the banks of the Euphrates, like the Jews of old held captives in
Babylon, and to prepare for our call to our heavenly Jerusalem above,
which is our home beyond the skies, and whose glories we celebrate
during the joyful time which follows Easter. She wishes us to sing the
canticles of joy in her services, and that while we live here, far from
our home in heaven, yet to keep our thoughts on God while in this world,
lest attached to earthly things we may be exiled for ever from
everlasting bliss with him, for our unfaithfulness while here below,
yet,"How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land?"
Following thus the inspired Book, the songs and hymns of gladness are
hushed in the Church Services during this time of penance, signifying
our exile here below. At other times of the year the heavenly Alleluias
are often repeated, now they are heard no more, for exiles in the
Babylon of this world of sin, we are traveling onward toward the
Jerusalem which is above, for "we are travelers far from the Lord."
(...)
The
joyful forty days of the Christmas season have passed. With happiness
have we celebrated the birth of God on earth. Now the Church enters the
sad and solemn time when we prepare for the mysteries of the suffering
and the dying Savior. All around us in the Church are the sombre signs
of penance. We are entering in amid the three weeks of our baptism of
penance, that we may well and worthily celebrate the Lord's baptism of
blood in his sufferings for us on Calvary's cross. We are leaving
Bethlehem and going to Calvary. We are leaving the infant God in his
mother's arms, and following his steps to see him fasting in the desert.
We are leaving him in the manger, and looking for him in Gethsemane.
The Illuminating Life of the Christmas time has passed, and the
Preparing Life of the Septuagesima time
has come. We have seen him in his sweetness as a child; we are going to
see him in his weakness as a man, fasting in the desert. But we must
pray God for his light, in order to see his Son as each year the Church
shows him to us. We must ask for grace to look first into ourselves, and
see the sins which dim the brightness of our souls and keep us from
seeing the truths of religion. We must ask the light of God to clearly
understand how the human race had fallen when our parents sinned by
eating in the garden, and to realize the deep wickedness of our sins and
the deeper mercy of God in becoming man to save us from being lost
forever.
The Septuagesima
Season, then, is the time of the year for the deepest thought. In the
words of a great writer of the eleventh century, the Apostle says, " We
know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now ;
and not only it, but ourselves, also, who have the first fruits of the
spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption of the sons of God, the redemption' of our body. ' That
creature which groans is the soul looking at the corruption of sin which
weeps to be still subject to the vanities of this world in this exile
of tears. It is the cry of the Royal Prophet, " Woe is me that my
sojourning is prolonged." Thus holy David desired the end of his exile
in this vale of tears. The Apostle who was wrapped up to the third
heaven says, "I am straightened between two, having a desire to be
dissolved and to be with Christ."St. Paul wishes to be taken from this
world of sorrow and to be with Christ.
Such are the thoughts which the Church brings before her children during this holy time of Septuagesima, that all may be prepared to celebrate well and worthily the holy Season of Lent. "
Source: The Festal Year, Or, The Origin, History, Ceremonies And Meaning Of The Sundays, Seasons, Feasts And Festivals Of The Church During The Year, Explained For The People by Fr. James L. Meagher 1883
