125. Journey through South America 1883 (M.B. 16,324).
On September 4, 1883, Don Bosco narrated a dream that is a dramatic representation of what awaited the disciples of the Saint in South America. It announces a future of epic grandeur and comes to contradict those who were saying that the work of Don Bosco was a simple work of men that would end when he died. He narrated it like this: On August 29, I dreamed that I was traveling at very great speed, and I heard some unknown gentlemen talking about very interesting subjects. One of them said: "It is a pity that Europe, being a Catholic continent, is not more concerned about sending missionaries to evangelize the mission territories. It is a pity that there are few who want to go on mission to those people who were also redeemed by the Son of God, by Jesus Christ.
And another added: "What an enormous number of people are still without knowing the true religion, and that only in South America. The geographers of our time imagine that the Cordilleras of the Andes are simply very high mountains. But they have many valleys and immense jungles, forests, animals and precious stones that are rarely found elsewhere. In the Andes there is much coal, oil, iron, copper, silver and gold, hidden in great mines among those mountains. The hand of the Creator has placed them there for the benefit of mankind. Oh Cordilleras of the Andes: what great riches they possess and have hidden!
The guide. Then a young man of about sixteen years of age appeared to me, with a very beautiful presence, surrounded by a great light and accompanied by many other young people, very bright. I recognized him as the young Luis Colle who had recently died. He introduced me to his companions and told me: - These are friends of the Salesians and their works.
The air trip. Then I saw that we were arriving in the city of Cartagena, Colombia; and that from there we were taking a trip in a train that flew through the air, and we traveled through all of South America. There I learned beautiful things about the fauna, flora and topography of all those immense regions.
From the window of the train flying through the air I saw parading forests, mountains, plains, immensely long rivers that I had not imagined would flow so far away from the place where they were born. Thousands and thousands of kilometers of unexplored virgin forest. There I saw the mountain ranges of Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Brazil and Bolivia.
The interior of the mountains. And I managed to see what is under the mountains: immense riches that one day will be discovered.
Many mines of precious metals. Very large coal mines; oil deposits as rich and abundant as have not yet been found elsewhere.
And a voice said to me: "When the riches hidden in these mountains are exploited, these lands will be as rich as the Promised Land that flowed with milk and honey. They will have incalculable wealth.
We arrived in La Paz, Bolivia. Then we moved on to Uruguay. I thought that the Uruguay River was small but I saw that it is a very plentiful river. From there we went to the province of Mendoza in Argentina. Then we traveled to the Pampas and Patagonia. Everywhere in this country we could see that civilization was advancing rapidly. Finally we reached the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of America. My friend showed me large quantities of coal and timber to be exploited in the future.
With the Salesians. We got off at Punta Arenas and I went to the Salesian College. But no one knew me there and I did not know anyone either. Everyone looked at me in amazement as if I were a stranger. I said to them: - But don't you know me? I am Don Bosco.
- Oh Don Bosco? We have heard him mentioned a lot and we have seen him in pictures. But we had never met him in person.
- And Father Fagnano, Father Lasagna, Father Costamagna and Father Milanesio, who founded these missions, where are they? - We have not met them. We have been told about them, but they have been dead for many years.
And I was able to contemplate the marvelous progress that the Catholic religion is going to make in those regions in the future and I thanked God for all of this, especially for using the Salesians to do so much good in those lands.
We again boarded the train that was flying through the air and as we passed over Patagonia, I realized that this territory is much less wide than geographers have so far imagined.
As we passed over a jungle we saw a group of savages killing a white prisoner and cooking and eating him. We also saw many ferocious animals in those jungles that surrounded interminably long rivers.
And Luis Colle told me: - In all these regions there will be the Salesians, taming very fierce people.
Then he showed me a very exact map of all the regions of South America, pointing out to me with degrees and precise data all those places visited, and announcing me that the members of our community will be working there (and there follows a very detailed description of all the places with their degrees of latitude).
Immediately I heard a bell ringing and... I woke up.
Explanation: Don Bosco added: "With the kindness and goodness of St. Francis de Sales we will be able to do much good in all those regions of South America".
Writing to Luis' parents, he said: "What we saw and traveled through in the dream is being fulfilled more and more. This is now becoming the focal point of the works we are undertaking".
And speaking to his Salesians, he told them: "When the mineral wealth in South America becomes known, these territories will have an immense commercial development. There are many mines of very valuable metals there".
In this dream Don Bosco learned many geographical facts about South America that he had not been able to learn either from books or from consulting experts.
In the south of Argentina, in Comodoro Rivadavia, Don Bosco saw in the dream large oil deposits. That was in 1883. Well, in 1910, when government employees were digging wells in search of drinking water, they found oil there and there are already nine hundred oil wells in that region.
Don Bosco spoke of great oil deposits in these countries, and many years later many and very large oil wells were discovered in Venezuela and Colombia.
He also saw in this dream great coal mines. It is enough to remember the immense coal mines discovered in Cerrejón in Colombia at the end of the 20th century. One hundred years after the dream.
In this dream the Saint wrote down many very precise geographical data, and some 40 years later the wise geographer De Agostini, who traveled all over those lands, wrote a book verifying that everything the Saint saw in his dream was completely in agreement with reality. Undoubtedly, a power that surpasses human limits intervened here, because a lot of data that he managed to know during the aerial trip were not known by the wise men of his time.
In each of the places where his "flying train" stopped, there is now a Salesian House.
With reason, the Geographical Society of France awarded him a decoration for all these data.
126. The niche in St. Peter's in the Vatican .
I dreamed that I was in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, inside a niche there at a great height, under a cornice and above the place where the famous statue of St. Peter stands and above the portrait of Pope Pius IX.
I didn't know how I had ended up there and I couldn't figure out how to get down from such a height. I looked around to see if there was a way to get down, but I saw nothing to help me. I called and shouted, but no one answered. Finally, full of fright and anguish... I woke up.
Explanation: If at that time someone had said that this was a prophecy, an announcement of the future, people would have laughed. But 50 years later, Pope Pius XI ordered the great sculptor Canonica to make an image of Don Bosco and had it placed precisely in that niche, above the statue of St. Peter and a little above the mosaic containing the portrait of Pope Pius IX. And there Don Bosco is, up there, without him knowing how.