150. The Rich Becoming Poor, 1887
On August 9, 1887, Don Bosco narrated the following dream: I saw in a dream that many farm owners were looking for pasture for their animals and could not find any. And they said: - What shall we do since there is nothing to feed the cattle with? And others said, “We will have to kill the cattle and eat the meat. As in Joseph's time in Egypt, here the lean cows will devour the fat cows.
Then I saw some suitcases very well closed that nobody could open. Finally I was able to open one of them and it was completely full of money. And a voice said to me: “It is the money of the rich that will go to the poor, while the rich will not be able to use it. Many rich people will lose what they have and will be expropriated.
Note: There were warnings here of droughts and very big summers to come [and why are they not written here? It is not a good version of the dreams, but a much shortened version] to farmers and ranchers, and the reaffirmation of a truth that Don Bosco was preaching in those years from town to town: “If the rich do not voluntarily share with the poor by sharing generously with them their riches, one day they will violently take from them what they possess. What they could give by good will (thus gaining much reward for Heaven) and do not want to give, they will one day lose by violence, but without merit or reward for eternity”. And the history of the revolutions and of the continuous kidnappings of rich people has been demonstrating that yes this painful warning is fulfilled.
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151. The bouquet of flowers, 1886
On January 31, 1886, the students of the upper classes of the Oratory of Turin gathered together with Don Bosco and said to him: “Tell us a dream that relates to us: - Tell us some dream that relates to us.
And he answered:- One night I dreamed that I was in the courtyard walking surrounded by many students and that one of them always turned his back to me. I noticed that in his hands he was carrying a bouquet of beautiful flowers, but he kept turning his back on me. I made him see how ugly this habit was, and he answered me: “I am like the bells that invite people to go to the Temple but they never go to Mass.
I know that young man very well, but I do not say who he is.
Note: Perhaps I wanted to insist on the danger of the apostolate: to say very beautiful things to the people, but the one who recommends them does not fulfill them.
Thus fulfilling what Jesus said about the scribes: “They place heavy burdens of obligations on the shoulders of others, but they do not lift a finger to carry those burdens” (Mt. 23:4).