The Venerable Don Bosco, the Apostle of Youth/Chapter XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII
THE VENERABLE DON BOSCO'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
ADDRESSED TO THE SALESIAN CO-OPERATORS
My Generous Benefactors,
I feel that the end of my life is now near at hand, and that, at no distant day, I shall have to pay that tribute to death which is common to us all, and to go down into the grave.
But before uttering my last farewell to you upon this earth, I am anxious to discharge a debt of my own towards you, that I may so satisfy a need which I truly feel at heart.
The debt which I have contracted towards you is one of gratitude. You, in fact, have efficiently assisted me in giving a Christian education to a -multitude of poor children, and in placing them in the path of virtue and honorable toil; enabling them to become a consolation to their families, to be useful to themselves and to society at large; and, above all, to attain to eternal happiness by saving their souls.
For me, without your help, nothing of all this would have been possible. Your charity, blessed by the grace of God, has dried up many a fountain of tears and saved a great number of souls. In the many homes which we have established through your charity, thousands of orphans have found a shelter. Drawn forth from their uncared-for state, rescued from the danger of losing their faith and their virtue, they have, by means of a good education, by application to study, or by apprenticeship to a trade, become good Christians and useful members of society.
The missions, which by your generosity have been established, reach to the uttermost corners of the earth through the hundreds of apostolical labourers whom you have sent forth into the distant regions of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in order to cultivate and enlarge the vineyard of the Lord.
Printing establishments have, by your charity, been founded in several towns in different lands, whereby many millions of books and publications of various kinds, all of them consecrated to the work of defending truth, of kindling a spirit of piety and of encouraging the practice of virtue, have been circulated amongst the people; and lastly, your charity has raised up a goodly number of churches and chapels, which, through ages to come, if not even to the end of the world, will daily re-echo the praises of God and of the Blessed Virgin; and in them will salvation be found by an innumerable multitude of souls.
Convinced as I am that, after God, this your charity has effected the immense amount of good mentioned above, and also other still greater things, I feel the need of openly expressing to you my deepest gratitude for it all. This I wish to do before the number of my days is accomplished; and today I return you my thanks for all with the greatest affection of my heart.
But, in the name of that persevering generosity itself, wherewith you have come to my assistance, I beseech you to continue the same helpful support to my successor after my death.
The charitable works which, with your co-operation, I have commenced, need me no more, but have still need of you, and of all others besides, who, like yourselves, desire to promote upon earth that which is good. To you I now confide them and commend them to your care.
For your own encouragement, and for the comfort of your souls, I prescribe it as a duty for my successor, to include all our Benefactors, without exception, in the public and private prayers, which are, or shall be offered up at any time in the Houses of the Salesian Congregation. The intention which it will then be his duty always to make is this: that God may vouchsafe unto them, even in this life, for all their charitable gifts, a hundred fold, together with the blessing of health, peace and concord in their families, success in their agricultural and commercial affairs, their deliverance and protection from every kind of evil. I would also further say, that in order to obtain the forgiveness of sins and to secure eternal life, the work that is most efficacious thereto is the charity shown towards poor children, uni ex minimis, to the very least of them all, the poorest and most friendless of the poor, as Jesus our Divine Master and Lord has Himself assured us.
I pray you, moreover, to remember yet furthermore, that, in these latter times in presence of the great dearth of means and pecuniary resources for the education, either by personal superitendence or the instrumentality of others, of poor neglected children in the true Faith and in Christian virtue, the most Holy Virgin has by unmistakable signs constituted Herself in a special way their Patroness and Protectress, and that in virtue of that office, she obtains for those who are their Benefactors here, numerous and extraordinary favours, not only spiritual but temporal as well.
He who is now writing to you, and all the Salesians as well, can bear witness that many of our benefactors, whose means hitherto were very limited, have found their circumstances gradually improve, when they set themselves, with a generous charity, to succour with their alms our orphan children; insomuch that, instructed by their own experience, there are many amongst them, who, in one way or another, have oftentimes expressed themselves to me to the following effect: "I do not wish you to thank me when I give an alms to your poor children; it is I who ought to thank you for coming to ask me for it. Since the day on which I first began to assist your orphans, my fortune has become double what it was before." Another of our benefactors, Major Cotta, who frequently brought us an offering would often say: "The more money I bring you for your works of charity, the more I prosper in my own affairs. I find by experience that the Lord returns me, even in this world, the hundredfold of that which I give you for His sake." This excellent Christian was one of our foremost benefactors until, at the age of eighty-six, God called him to eternal life to bestow upon him the joys of Heaven in recompense for his charity here below.
Feeble and exhausted though I am, I feel I could never cease speaking to you and commending to your care those poor children of mine, whom I shall soon have to leave; but I must bring my words to a close and lay my pen aside.
Farewell, my generous Benefactors! my dear Co-operators, Farewell! Amongst you there are many, whom in this life, I have never been able to see. Let such find their consolation in the thought that in Paradise we shall all of us know each other, and that throughout all eternity we shall rejoice together over the good which, with the assistance of God's grace, we have been able to accomplish in this world, in behalf more especially of poor children.
If through the merits of Jesus Christ and the protection of Mary, Help of Christians, God in His Divine mercy shall deem me worthy of being admitted hereafter into Paradise, I will always pray for you; I will pray for the members of your families; I will pray for all those who are dear to you; that so the day may come when we shall all unite in praising the Majesty of the Creator, in rejoicing in His glory and in celebrating His infinite mercies in triumphant songs of joy for all eternity. Amen.
Ever your most grateful servant,
THE TOMB OF DON BOSCO at Val Salice
"Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust"