St. John Bosco

Father and Teacher of the Youth (1815-1888)
MEMORIAL FEAST DAY: January 31

St. John Bosco, popularly known as Don Bosco, was an Italian priest, educator and writer of the 19th century. Born in 1815, he followed the spirituality and philosophy of Saint Francis de Sales and was an ardent Marian devotee of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title “Mary Help of Christians”. He found God’s message in his dreams since the age of nine, sharing them with the most neglected boys to remind them to maintain a good and moral life. In one dream he saw the boys eating four kinds of bread — tasty rolls, ordinary, coarse, and moldy bread, representing the state of the boys’ souls, and used the occasion to give them moral guidance. He died on January 31, 1888, and was canonized in 1934 following his beatification in 1929. St. John Bosco is the patron saint of Christian apprentices, editors, publishers, schoolchildren, young people, magicians and juvenile delinquents. (Josielyn G. Sunga)