29th April 2018: Third Day: *ACTIVITY FOR GOD*
Dear St Dominic, your life, though brief was packed with ACTIVITY FOR GOD. Help me to realize it is time I too, did something for God. Never allow me to become the occasion of sin to others. Instead, imitating you, may I be a Christ-bearer to the others, by teaching them the truths of our Faith, by bringing them to Confession and Communion, and by reflecting in my life the happiness that belongs to the children of God. Amen.
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be,
St Dominic Savio, Pray for us.
*Practice*: Consecrate yourself to Our Lady: “O Mary I give you my heart: keep it yours forever.”
🙏🙏🙏😇😇
Third day
“What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul” (Mt 16, 26).
A Placard With a Programme
October 29, 1854: His mother had lovingly prepared a bundle of clothes and linen for Dominic (bags were not used yet). She had also prepared a packet of goodies for him to eat along the way. Now it was time to leave.
Dominic gave his mother a warm emotional kiss (it was the first time he was going to be away from her). He kissed his dear sisters Raimondina (9 years), Maria (7 years) and brothers John (4 years) and William (1 year). He was deeply saddened at having to leave them.
Accompanied by his father he set out along the path that led to the road where he would take the daily coach that would take them to Turin. It was October 29, 1854.
The one who suffered most at that moment was his mother, Bridget. She saw her bravest boy leave her. She knew that he was frail and delicate. She felt like any mother would. He was going to a huge city which was like a great noisy machine where her son could run the risk of getting lost. From her little house she saw her son, her little migrant, vanish from sight.
On entering Turin the last stop of the coach was Piazza Castello which was city centre. It was the capital of the little Kingdom of Savoy-Piedmont (in that year the city had only 120,000 inhabitants). Dominic arrived to the noise of bells and hundreds of carriages, colourful signs on stores and the cheerful din of Porta Palazzo where the daily market was in session.
In a quarter of an hour father and son reached Valdocco and came to the green door of the Oratory (as the work of Don Bosco was called. This included a chapel, workshops and classrooms).
They crossed a courtyard crowded with boys running around, shouting and laughing. By an external staircase they made their way to the second floor and after walking down a long corridor they entered Don Bosco’s office.
Dominic glanced around: it was a poor room but very clean: a shelf of books, a table littered with letters and cards and placard on the wall with a mysterious Latin phrase written in large letters: Da mihi animas, cetera tolle.
When his dad had left, Dominic tried to quell his nervousness and said to Don Bosco: This is the first time I am away from mum and dad but I’m not sad because I know you’ll help me.
Then after hesitating slightly he asked what those words on the placard meant. Don Bosco helped him with the translation it: “O Lord, give me souls and take away the rest.” It was the motto that Don Bosco had chosen for his ministry. Possessed with profound wit, brilliant intelligence, an excellent and witty writer, an excellent and inimitable speaker, Don Bosco renounced it all to give himself to spread the Kingdom of God among youngsters. He had told the Lord:
“Glory, riches, a comfortable life, I don’t know what to do with them. Give them to others. Grant me only to be a conqueror of souls for you.” That poster hanging on the wall of his room was the written agreement between him and God. When Dominic had understood those words they made him pause a moment in thought. Then he said:
- I understand: Here you don’t do business in money, but in souls. I hope my soul can form part of your business.
Time for Reflection
In today’s world there is little talk about the soul, saving the soul. Instead, Don Bosco talked about it all the time with the youngsters he met. One of his most repeated phrases was: “I have a soul, if I lose it I have lost everything. If I save it I have gained everything. If I gain the whole world but lose my soul, I am lost forever.” He taught that a mortal sin offends God and prepares the soul for eternal perdition. The last words he wrote before his death were: “Whoever saves his soul saves everything and the one who loses his soul, loses everything.” Dominic Savio learned this truth so well that in his Consecration to Mary he wrote: “Jesus and Mary be always my friends. But for pity’s sake let me die rather than have the misfortune to commit even one sin.” Do you often think of your soul as the most precious part of you? Do you pray to the Madonna to help you to save it, never to commit a mortal sin which makes you an enemy of God, deserving his condemnation?
Moment of Prayer
Saint Dominic Savio, who at the school of Don Bosco learned to do good and protect your soul and those of your friends, help me often to remember the words of Jesus: “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and then suffer the loss of his own soul?”
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