Sickness and Recovery
Planning to Stay at Valdocco
My many commitments in the prisons, the Cottolengo Hospital, the Refuge, the Oratory, and the schools meant I had to work at night to compile the booklets that I absolutely needed. On account of that, my already frail health deteriorated to such a degree that the doctors advised me to stop all my activities. Doctor Borrelli, who loved me dearly, for my own good sent me to spend some time with the parish priest of Sassi. I rested during the week and went back to work at the Oratory on Sunday. But that was not enough. The youngsters came in crowds to see me; the boys from the village came too. So I was busier than in Turin, while I was causing a great deal of inconvenience to my little friends.
Not only those who attended the Oratory hastened, one could say, every day, to Sassi, but also the pupils of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. This episode is one of many. A retreat was being preached to the students in the St Barbara Schools, which were under the care of these same religious. As I was confessor to a great number of the boys, they came in a body to the Oratory looking for me at the end of the retreat. Not finding me there, they set out at once for Sassi, two and a half miles from Turin. It was raining. The boys were not sure of the way and went wandering about the fields, meadows, and vineyards looking for Don Bosco. Eventually about four hundred of them, all worn out by their hike and by hunger, bathed in perspiration and covered with dirt, and mud too, showed up and asked to go to Confession.
We’ve made the retreat, they said. We want to be good. We all want to make a general Confession. So we got our teachers’ permission to come here.
They were told to return at once to their college in order to keep their teachers and families from worrying, but they insisted that they wanted to go to Confession. The local school master, the parish priest, his assistant, and I heard as many as we could, but we would have needed at least fifteen confessors.
But how to restore, or rather to appease, the appetite of that multitude? That good parish priest (it was Dr Abbondioli) gave those pilgrims all the food he had: bread, polenta, beans, rice, potatoes, cheese, fruit – everything was provided for them.
Imagine the consternation when the preachers, teachers, and some prominent persons invited for the closing of the retreat arrived for Mass and found not one pupil in the college! It was a real mess. Measures were taken to ensure that it would never happen again.
Back home again, I was exhausted and took to my bed. I had bronchitis, combined with coughing and violent inflammation. A week later, I was judged to be at death’s door. I had received holy Viaticum and the anointing of the sick. I think that just then I was ready to die. I was sorry to abandon my youngsters, but I was happy that before I departed I had given a solid foundation to the Oratory.
When the news spread that my illness was grave, the show of widespread, serious regret could not have been greater. Constant streams of tearful youngsters came knocking at the door to inquire about my health. The more they were told, the more they wanted to know. I heard the conversations between them and the housekeeper, and I was deeply moved by them. I heard later what their affection for me had moved them to do. Without prompting they prayed, fasted, went to Mass, and received Holy Communion. In turns they prayed all night and day for me before the image of Our Lady of Consolation. In the morning they lit special candles for me, and until the late evening large numbers were always praying and imploring the august Mother of God to preserve their poor Don Bosco.
Some made vows to recite the whole rosary for a month, others for a year, some for their whole lives. There were some who promised to fast on bread and water for months, years, and even their whole lives. I know that some bricklayer apprentices fasted on bread and water for entire weeks, without lessening from morning to evening their heavy work. In fact, when they had any bit of free time they rushed to spend it before the Most Blessed Sacrament.
God heard their prayers. It was a Saturday evening, and it was believed that it would be the last night of my life. So said the doctors who came to see me, and so was I convinced myself. I had no strength left because of a continuous loss of blood. Late in the night I grew drowsy and slept. When I woke I was out of danger. Next morning when Doctor Botta and Doctor Cafasso examined me, they told me go thank Our Lady of Consolation for the grace received.
My boys could not believe it, if they did not see me. They saw me in fact soon after, when I went with my walking stick to the Oratory. The emotion can be imagined but not easily described. A Te Deum was sung. There were a thousand acclamations and indescribable enthusiasm.
One of the first things to be done was to change into something manageable all the vows and promises which many had made, without due thought when my life was in danger.
This illness overtook me at the beginning of July 1846, just at the time I was due to leave the Refuge and move elsewhere.
I went home to Murialdo to spend some months of convalescence with my family. I would have stayed longer there in my home town, but the youngsters began to turn up in crowds to see me, indicating that it was no longer possible to enjoy either rest or tranquility.
Everyone advised me to get away from Turin for a few years and go to some unknown place to recover my former health. Fr Cafasso and the archbishop were of this opinion. But that seemed too drastic to me; it was agreed that I could return to the Oratory provided that for a couple of years I would refrain from hearing Confessions and preaching. I disobeyed.
When I got back to the Oratory, I continued to work as before, and for 27 years I had no need of either doctors or medicine. This leads me to believe that work does no damage to bodily health.