73. The two gravediggers 1868
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On the night of October 30, 1868, he said: I dreamed that the youths were playing in the courtyard, when suddenly two gravediggers appeared at the entrance carrying a coffin. They placed the coffin in the middle of the yard and lifted the lid. At that moment the moon appeared and circled around the church tower. Then it went around the tower again and then another half turn and stopped.
The gravediggers went around the courtyard looking at the face of each pupil and at last they saw on the forehead of one of them this word: "You will die", and they said to him: - Your turn has come. Lie down in the coffin.
The boy began to cry out: - I am too young, I am not ready, and I have not yet done the good works I should have done.
But one of the gravediggers replied, "It is not for me to find out. The truth is that just as the moon went around the earth two and a half times, so when two and a half months have passed, death will come to take him away (the moon spends almost a month to go around the earth).
Shortly afterwards the moon disappeared and the gravediggers threw the young man by force into the coffin and carried him away.
Let each of us ask ourselves: What if the next candidate to die is me? Am I prepared? If after two and a half months any of us has to die, will we be well prepared to die well? Let us remember that death comes like a thief, without warning, and when we least expect it to come.
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74. The future of a youth, 1868
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A negative vocation. Also in 1868, Don Bosco narrated: In a dream I saw one of our students in agony, lying on the ground and around him several combat weapons and several corpses. I asked him why he was like that and he answered me: - It is because I have become a murderer and they have condemned me to death.
And the Saint added: - I know that boy and I wish I could instill in him feelings of kindness and pity. But he has such a bad character that I am afraid he will not correct himself.
This young man then went to the barracks and while on military service killed his officer. He was condemned to death, but before being shot he went to confession, received communion and showed much repentance and piety.