37. The players. 1862
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On January 31, 1862, Don Bosco was walking along the corridors with some youths during recreation, and suddenly he stopped and called the seminarian John Cagliero and said to him: "I hear money ringing. Some of them are there playing money. You will go around the building and look for the boys NNNs (and he told him three names).
Cagliero started to walk through corridors and corners and could not find them. Suddenly he saw one of the three coming and said: - Where did you come from? Where were you? I was looking for you! - I was playing with N and N.
- And you were playing money, weren't you? The young man could not deny that it had been so.
Cagliero went back to tell Don Bosco the result of his inquiries and the Saint told him that the night before he had seen in a dream three boys playing money. (And playing money is forbidden to young people because it can lead them to theft and many other evils).
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38. Announcement of a death. 1862
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On March 21, 1862, Don Bosco, in his little sermon which he used to give to the youths before they went to bed, and which he called "Good Night", told them: "I am going to tell you a dream. I dreamed that during a recess in which the youths play and run all over the place, I was leaning out of the window of my room observing how happily the boys were running all over the yard.
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Suddenly I heard a great clatter at the entrance, at the porter's lodge, and looking there, I saw a personage of tall stature, with a broad forehead, strangely deep-set eyes, a long beard, very white and thinning hair that fell over his shoulders from his bald head, enter the courtyard. He was wrapped in a black cloak like those that are placed at funerals, and he pressed the cloak against his body with his left hand, while in his right hand he carried a torch whose flame was of a blackish blue color. This personage walked slowly around the courtyard, observing carefully as if looking for something he had missed.
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He passed through the midst of all the students and suddenly stopped in front of a boy, and bending down and looking him fixedly in the forehead he said: "This is the one."
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Then he took out from between the folds of his cloak a small piece of paper and presented it to the young man to read. The boy began to read it and to turn very pale and to ask: "When will it be? - When will it be? Will it be soon? Or will it be later? And the old man said to him in a sepulchral voice: "Come, it is time for you.
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The boy asked again: "Can I continue playing? And the old man replied, "Even during the game you can be caught."
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With this he announced a sudden death.
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The young man trembled. He wanted to speak but could not.
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Then the specter, pointing with the tip of his hand to the entrance door to the courtyard, said to him: - Do you see that coffin? It is for you.
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And there in the porch there was a coffin for a dead man to be laid in.
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The young man began to shout: "I'm not ready! I'm too young!"
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But the specter, without saying anything, ran out of the courtyard and disappeared.
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I began to think who it was who had come to announce such a death, and at that moment I woke up.
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This is a warning that one of those who listen to me should prepare himself because Our Lord is going to call him very soon to eternity.
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I, who witnessed that scene, know very well who he is. I saw him. I knew him clearly, when the personage gave him the little paper, but I will not tell his name to anyone, before he has died.
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However, I will do all I can to prepare him to die well.
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Now: let each one think seriously whether he is prepared to die today. Let no one think, "That is for someone else," and let death come to him without being properly prepared."
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I warn you clearly, lest one day Our Lord should say to me: "You dumb dog, why did you not bark, you saw the danger coming and did not warn?
Let each one think seriously whether his accounts with God are in good standing.
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Let us make special prayers during these days for the one who is going to die, and may we all say every day the prayer: "Hail, Holy Queen, Mother," for the one who is going to die first. Thus when he dies he will find many Hail Marys prayed for him.
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Explanation: The young people asked Don Bosco if death would be very soon. He said it would happen before there were two feasts beginning with P. They understood that it would be before Easter [in Italian: Pasqua della Resurrezione] and Pentecost had passed.
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In those days there were very many who made a general confession and began to behave as exceedingly well as if they had to die very soon. Numerous boys went to ask the Saint if it was one of them that the personage had pointed out in the dream, but Don Bosco changed the subject of conversation.
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In those days a young boy by the name of Fornasio went to beg Don Bosco to hear his confession. He made a very fervent confession and then he felt unwell and was taken to one of his relatives and died there. He was 12 years old. On April 16, Don Bosco announced the death of Fornasio to the entire student body, but he warned that the boy was not the one that the character in the dream had announced that he was going to die suddenly and soon.
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And he recommended them to think about that phrase of Jesus: "Be ready, because at the hour when you least expect it, the Son of Man will come".
The students kept insisting that he tell them at least the first letter of the last name of the one who was going to die. He told them: "It is the letter with which Mary's name begins".
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But in the Oratory there were more than 30 students whose last name began with M. And besides, in the infirmary there was a very sick, and seriously ill, boy, whose last name was Marchisio, and the suspicious ones said, "If the one who is going to die first is Marchisio, it takes no wise man or dreamer to know that the last name of the dead man begins with the first letter of the name of Maria."
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But Marchisio did not die on that occasion.
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The one indicated by the dream was the young Victor Maestro. Don Bosco met him one day on a stairway and said to him: "Maestro, do you want to go to Paradise? - Yes, yes! The 13-year-old boy answered.
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- Well then, get ready! - said the Saint to him.
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The young Maestro asked Don Bosco to let him go and spend a few days with his family, and he thought to himself: "Whoever has to die now, will die here in the Oratory. Therefore, if I go to my family, I will not have to be the one to die this time.
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Don Bosco gave him permission.
The next day Maestro woke up a little tired and stayed in bed, and to some companions who went to visit him he told them that he was happy because that day he would go to visit his relatives.
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At nine o'clock in the morning, the nurse came to announce that the doctor would arrive shortly to give him the authorization to go and spend a few days with his relatives. A few minutes later another student arrived to call him to talk to the doctor and said: "Maestro, Maestro, the doctor is here! And when he did not answer him, he went to his bed and took him by the arm and shook him. But Maestro remained motionless.
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The other young man was filled with fright and shouted: - Maestro is dead! Maestro is dead! The news spread throughout the house. Father Rua came immediately to give him a blessing and all the schoolboys were greatly impressed.
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That night Don Bosco in the Good Night said to them: "The young boy to whom I saw that in the dream a personage handed him a little paper announcing that he would die suddenly, was the one who died today: Victor Maestro. We can rest assured that this child went to confession very well and received communion every day. He had carefully prepared himself to pass into eternity."
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The second feast that began with P, the feast of Pentecost, had not yet arrived.
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And another curious detail happened: When the gentlemen of the funeral home arrived, they did not enter with the coffin to the back of the courtyard, as they did other times, but they stayed in the porch with the coffin box. And although Cagliero told them to go on ahead, they stayed there by the gate. And when Don Bosco went out to his window, he said to Francesia: "Look, how strange! They are with the coffin waiting, in the same place where I saw them on the night of the dream".