HIDDEN MORTAL SINS DEVOUR THE HEART

In preparation for St John Bosco's feast day which falls on January 31st, I have been revisiting the accounts he gave of his mystical dreams which I find riveting and as enlightening now as they were when John Bosco first received them in his sleep, when he was alive in the 1800s. T'was the case that the Holy Spirit spoke to John Bosco in his dreams and instructed him how he was to care for the boys who were in his care. 

In his day, John Bosco was a famed educator who was controversial in clerical circles in his native Italy, and also many decades ahead of his time. Many of his ideas on how to educate youth by being slow to punish became very popular in the 20th century, when these same methods were implemented by narcissistic teachers who sought to be liked rather than to employ them as Bosco had, which was to show Christian kindness to boys who were falling into sin so that they could feel at ease in confessing sin and arriving at being sin-free.  John Bosco, the priest in charge of the souls of so many young boys, was given spectacular supernatural visions as to the devastation wreaked on the heart of one who holds onto mortal sins. 

Once John Bosco had a dream where he saw the heart of one of the boys in his school. The boy's heart was being picked apart by worms, all the while the boy tried to pluck out the worms. John Bosco paid no mind to this dream, until he had a second dream wherein he saw the same boy with a gigantic, savage dog straddled over him and the beast was feasting on the boy's heart. John Bosco felt badly for the boy whose heart was being ravaged - he knew the ravenous worms and the savage dog were signs of the mortal sins that the boy had not confessed. 

As soon as he could, John Bosco had a word with the boy. 

"Would you do me a favor?" he asked of the young chap. 

"Sure, if I can."

"You can, if you want to."

"What is it?"

"Will you really do it?"

"Yes, I will."

"Tell me, have you ever kept anything back in confession?"

The boy squirmed and began to back away, but John Bosco questioned him, "Why don't you confess this and that?"

When the boy heard John Bosco vocalize the sins he had omitted, he wept and admitted, "It's true, it's years since I wanted to confess that, but I'm too scared."  John Bosco was kindly to the young chap, he consoled him and assuaged his fears by telling him he would get right with God by making a full account of his sins in confession without leaving anything out. 

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The book that informed this post is 40 Dreams of St John Bosco which is available in the Spirit Daily bookstore.