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Read: Mark 5:1-20 |
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Today marks the death of Saint John Bosco who was a poor child led by the spirit to do great things. St. John Bosco became a priest (not an easy feat for one from poverty) and dedicated his life to helping poor children, especially delinquent boys. In honor of Frances de Sales, he established the Salesians – an order that exists today and still focuses on youth centers and schools, orphanages and homes, and nurseries. In one of those God-incidences that happens so often as I start to write a reflection, my mail today contained information from the Salesian Missions. I must admit to reading it much more thoroughly than ever before and seeing in the works listed with homes all over the world, that St. John’s work still lives on. He had great faith that through gentleness, love, and sharing the word of the Lord that the youth would be receptive to change. He gave them hope for the future and showed them the love that many had never known. In today’s mailing, there was a prayer card entitled Hope. The prayer is full of words that echo the connection between hope and faith – hope used synonymously with faith in reaching out to God and the knowing that He is there. While this date honors St. John because it is the anniversary of his death, the readings fit perfectly with this message of hope, faith, and serving others. In the first reading, the final paragraph clarifies for us that through our faith, there is something far better for us than anything on this earth. Those mentioned in the reading accomplished great acts through their faithfulness but would not see all the rewards of that faith until later. The responsorial psalm clearly emphasizes hope (faith) and the comfort that is included in such belief. More than any physical offerings, hope is what allows one to persevere and look toward the future. I believe that even today so much of the unrest of the youth and others struggling with their plight in life springs from their total lack of hope for anything else. If what the world gives me today is all there is then why bother. It is the light of hope that drives one to greater good. Hope that there can be a different outcome, faith that that outcome will happen because God is great and all powerful. The hope and faith that the “best is yet to come” although it will be in God’s time not our time. Even the gospel today echoes the promise of hope. The man possessed by Legion still runs to Jesus and prostrates himself – clearly a sign of hope and faith. As I read these passages of the gospel, I couldn’t help but think of the demons we all carry – our pride, our fears, our unwillingness to fully embrace the messages of Jesus. Sometimes these demons are so strong we forget that if we prostrate ourselves (literally or figuratively) that we will not have to fight them alone. While they may not be driven into swine, they can, indeed, be driven from us and replaced with hope of what is to come. The last line of the prayer card from Salesian Missions sums it nicely: Hope is striving for God’s love to uphold you day and night! |
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We dedicate this website to the Generous Heart of Mother Mary |
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Today’s Bible Reading
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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
Email to: mojcounselor@missionofjesus.com or mojcounselor@gmail.com or mojcounselor@hotmail.com or mojcounselor@yahoo.com |
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DAILY HIGHLIGHTS |
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“Unclean spirit, come out of the man!” - Mark 5:8 |
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Prayer of St. Gertrude the great dictated by Our Lady to release 1,000 Souls from Purgatory each time it is said. The prayer was extend to include living sinners which would alleviate the indebtedness accrued to them during their lives. “Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy Souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the Universal Church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.” St. Gertrude the Great was born in Germany in 1263. She was a Benedictine Nun, and meditated on the Passion of Christ, which many times brought floods of tears to her eyes. She did many penances, and Our Lady appeared to her many times. Her holy Soul passed away in 1334. November 16 is her Feast Day. |
