Don Juan Bosco

Don John Bosco was a different kind of Don Juan. He was a juggler, tight rope walker, jongleur de Dieu in the Franciscan tradition. When the northern Italian cities were like something out of a Dickens novel, Don Bosco worked with the Oliver Twists–bringing them homes, hilarity and hope.

Like a cavalier for Christ he stood up to the rich and crossed swords with knaves. Like a little Italian Don Quixote he tilted at the windmills of socialism and showed the bureacrats what it really meant to love the poor and provide for them. Like all the saints, he is an example of grace at work in the world to change the world.

Don Bosco is one of our mentors, models and brothers at St Joseph’s Catholic School. We follow his Bosconian model for discipline–‘Love, Explain, Prevent.’ It works!

When we celebrated his life at Mass today I, for one, could sense a benevolent, powerful and totally joyful presence. He is there as part of that ‘great cloud of witnesses, and we praise God for Don Juan Bosco.