86. Patagonia, 1872
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The following is the dream that encouraged Don Bosco to send his Salesians as missionaries to the extreme south of America.
He first told it to Pope Pius IX. Later he told it several times to his Salesians.
I dreamed that I was in a wild region, totally unknown. It was a completely uncultivated plain, in which no mountains or hills could be seen. Only at its farthest limits were to be seen rugged mountains. I saw many groups of men walking through them. They were almost naked. They were of extraordinary height and stature, fierce looking.
Their hair was long and coarse. The color of their skin was dark and blackish and on their backs they wore cloaks of animal skins. They used as weapons a long spear and a sling to throw stones.
These groups of men scattered here and there were engaged in various activities. Some ran after wild beasts to hunt them. Others fought among themselves, tribe against tribe; and a third battle group against arriving white soldiers. The ground was littered with corpses.
Then several groups of missionaries from different religious communities appeared at the end of the plain and dedicated themselves to teach the Gospel to those savages, but they threw themselves against the missionaries with diabolical fury and killed and dismembered them, and then continued fighting among themselves.
I thought: How to convert these wild people? But then I saw another group of missionaries appear. They approached the savages with a cheerful face and preceded by a group of boys.
I was trembling, thinking: They are going to kill them too! I approached them and I could see that they were our Salesians. The first ones to arrive were very familiar to me. The others were people who would come later and whom I did not get to know.
I wanted to stop them from approaching the savages because they could kill them, but then I saw with admiration that their arrival filled with joy those savage tribes, who left their weapons, changed their ferocity into kindness and received our missionaries with the greatest demonstrations of good will.
And I saw that the Salesian missionaries approached the savages and taught them the Gospel and they accepted it very willingly; and that they readily learned the religion they were taught and paid attention to the warnings and admonitions that the evangelizers gave them.
And I saw with emotion that our missionaries prayed the Holy Rosary with those savages who responded with fervor to their prayers.
The Salesians placed themselves in the middle of the crowd of savages that surrounded them, and knelt down. Those men, once so fierce, now placed their weapons at the feet of the missionaries and knelt down and prayed.
And they all began to sing a hymn to the Virgin Mary with a voice so loud and so strong that... I woke up.
This dream made a great impression on me and I was convinced that it was a warning from Heaven. I did not understand all its meaning at that moment, but I did understand that it was about a place where our missionaries should go, a mission that I had been thinking about for a long time with great illusion.
Explanation: At first Don Bosco thought that the place where he should send his Salesian missionaries was Ethiopia; then Hong Kong; later he thought it was Austria or India, but the people of these countries were not as he had seen them in the dream. Finally, in 1874, two years after having the dream, he received an invitation from Argentina to send missionaries to Patagonia, in the extreme south of America, and when he got to know how the Indians of that region were, he could verify that they were like the ones he had seen in the dream and he sent his Salesians there.
The Indians of Patagonia had already martyred several missionaries from other communities, but "the Salesians arrived with great joy and preceded by a group of young people", that is to say, with the system of kindness and winning over the youth first, and alongside the boys their parents arrived and they left the wars and acquired great esteem for the Catholic religion and the Salesians. All that region is now full of works of the followers of Don Bosco.
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87. Message to Pope Pius IX, 1873
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On a dark night when the people could not distinguish which was the way to return to their villages, I saw a splendorous light appearing in Heaven that illuminated the steps of the travelers as if it were the noonday sun.
At that moment I saw an immense crowd of young and old, of women and men, of priests, nuns and monks who, with the Supreme Pontiff at their head, were leaving the Vatican and lined up as if for a procession.
Then a terrible storm broke out, causing several of the people in that group to flee in fright. The procession went along a path for two hundred sunrises. Although at times they were discouraged, they nevertheless gathered around the Pontiff to help him as much as possible.
Immediately some angels appeared carrying a banner and went to take it to the Pontiff saying to him: - Receive the banner of that combat and disperse the strongest enemy armies. The faithful beg him not to depart from the Holy City.
On the banner was written on one side: "Mary Conceived without original sin" [they changed it, I remember that it said: "Mary Immaculate", and on the other side: "Mary, Help of Christians"]. The Pontiff took the banner in his hands and when he saw that there were few who followed him, he was saddened, but a voice said to him: "Write to Catholics all over the world that a reform of customs is necessary and that to achieve this it is necessary that the Word of God be preached everywhere. Let the children be taught catechism. That the elderly be taught to detach themselves generously from material goods. That vocations to the priesthood and religious life be sought among the peasants and simple people and the working class. May what the Psalmist said continue to be fulfilled: "The Lord raises up the poor from the garbage and places them among the princes of his people".
When the Pontiff heard this message, the group of his followers began to increase.
And the Holy Father burst into tears when he saw the desolation among the citizens and how the land was as if swept away by a hurricane or by a hailstorm, and the people ran from one place to another, moved, saying: "God has shown that he is with his people" [NOT: it said, "God has visited his people"].
The sun reappeared in splendor and the Pontiff arrived at St. Peter's Basilica and intoned the hymn of thanksgiving to God, the Te Deum.
Between the time when the Supreme Pontiff and his followers went out in the procession in the midst of the storm and the time when the sun reappeared in splendor, the sun rose two hundred times.
Between the time when the Supreme Pontiff and his people went out in the procession in the midst of the storm and the time when the sun reappeared in splendor, the sun rose two hundred times. The person who had this vision is the same one who announced what was going to happen to France, a year before it happened, and everything was fulfilled to the letter.
This message was communicated by Don Bosco to Pope Pius IX, as coming from Heaven. It announced to him that after the bombardment and the capture of Rome by the enemies, there would come a time of certain peace. At that time, Don Bosco succeeded in dialoguing with the anti-Catholic government of Italy to allow the Supreme Pontiff to appoint bishops for many dioceses that had already been without a bishop for years.
In the past, vocations were sought preferably among the well-to-do and educated families. The message recommends that vocations be sought among peasants and working-class families, and so the number of priests and religious increased greatly.
Pope Pius IX always kept among his personal papers this message that Heaven sent him through Don Bosco.
When frightened people told the Pope to leave Rome and flee, our Saint wrote him the following: - The sentinel, the guard of Israel must remain at his post and stand guard before the Holy Ark to defend it "with the strength of God".
The Pope never forgot these words and although many Catholics were of the opinion that Pope Pius IX should leave Rome, the Pontiff stayed there, even in grave danger, since the city had been taken by the enemies.
And the Pontiff found the words of Don Bosco so encouraging that one day during one of his visits he asked him: "Don Bosco, would it be very difficult for you to come to Rome to collaborate closely with me here (he wanted to make you a Cardinal)?
Don Bosco answered him: "Holiness, to take me away from Turin would be the death of my work in that city.
And so he managed not to be named Cardinal. And while he was having fun with his students he would say to them: Would you dare to approach Don Bosco dressed in red, Don Bosco Cardinal?