Saint John Bosco loved young boys and young boys loved him. He loved them because he knew they were God’s children and capable of great things, and they loved him because he loved, encouraged, taught and disciplined them and believed that they were capable of great things.

In the mid 1800s many boys had no families, or had nowhere to live. Often they stole to eat, and people would chase them away or beat them because they were dirty thieves. But John Bosco saw that even the worse of these boys, the filthiest, the most hardened thief was still God’s child and had something of worth in him, even if it was really hard to see.

So, John Bosco decided to help these poor neglected boys. He began to talk to them and teach them about God, using stories and examples that the boys understood. He started boarding schools where they could live and learn a trade (a skill to make a living.) Many people thought he was crazy to spend time on a bunch of noisy dirty boys. Some of his friends tried to drag him away to a doctor.

But Saint John Bosco persisted. More and more boys came. They learned to print, or build, or lay brick, and they got hired for jobs! Not only that, and far more important than that, they began to live good moral lives. Many of ‘John Bosco’s boys’ have also become saints. Eventually, Saint John Bosco founded the Society of Saint Francis de Sales (S.S.F.S.) Sometime later the name of his society was changed to the Salesians of Don Bosco, or the Salesians for short. These priests still work with and educate boys, under the protection of Our Lady Help of Christians, and Saint Francis de Sales.

When poor uncared for girls began to come to his homes, with the help of a friend named Saint Mary Mazzarello, he founded the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (FMA) to care for them in the same way that he cared for and taught boys.

Practiced Families

Saint John Bosco was born on a poor farm in Italy. At a very young age, he began to work on the farm, mainly tending sheep out in the hills. Even though the family was poor, and needed his help, when John announced at the age of nine that he wanted to become a priest, he was allowed to go. He walked four miles a day to get to school, he could only go for half of the year (Fall and Winter) but John finally was ready to enter the seminary.

His early life was an indication of how he would eventually fulfill his vocation in the priesthood. As a young man, John Bosco would present one-boy shows of tricks learned from circus performers; after his performance, while he still had an audience of boys, he would repeat the homily he had heard earlier in church. This combination of play and teaching would serve him well in later years.

He worked as a tailor, baker, shoemaker, and carpenter while attending college and the seminary. When he was about the enter the seminary, his mother told him that seeing him dressed in his clerical dress filled her heart with joy. She urged him to remain faithful to his vocation, and if he ever doubted it to leave at once rather than stay to become an indifferent or neglectful priest. It was a charge that Saint John Bosco honoured and followed for the rest of his life. The words of motto of the order he founded attest to this: “Give me only souls and keep the rest.”

As a priest, the plight of the many ‘street boys’ caught his attention. He worked with these youths, and learned their needs. He found places where these neglected boys, whose lives had forced them to abandon their childhoods could meet, play and pray. He understood that playing was as important as praying and that playing could be a way of teaching the boys about Who they were praying to.

He wrote short treatises aimed at explaining the faith to children in ways they could understand, and then taught children how to print them. He bought a run down farm and taught the boys to restore the buildings and learn to garden and raise produce. Slowly but surely, the boys grew and developed in this atmosphere of love,help and acceptance. They began to work, to pray and to learn.

How many times have we turned away from someone who was noisy, unruly, or dirty? How many times have we dismissed the poor or the indigent as being worthless or beneath our notice? Or how many times have we, like Saint John Bosco, seen past the exterior and loved the interior child of God?

Saint John Bosco founded the Society of Saint Francis de Sales (S.S.F.S.), later known as the Salesians of Don Bosco, priests who still work with and educate boys, under the protection of Our Lady Help of Christians, and Saint Francis de Sales. With the help of a friend named Saint Mary Mazzarello, he also founded the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (FMA) when the demand for a girls school arose. Finally, he founded a lay movement called the Salesian Cooperators, who bind themselves to the Salesian way of life by promise rather than vow.

Saint John Bosco died at the age of seventy-two in 1888 and was canonized in 1934.

Without fail a tentative hand will be raised asking about how we would answer the issue of rape and abortion?  We believe that pupils ask this question because after having discussed the horror of abortion and sometimes seen what happens to an unborn baby during an abortion they need to think of the worst thing that could happen to a girl ie. rape to make her consider an abortion.

But here’s the bottom line,

That means that the incidence of pregnancy from rape and ending in abortion is extremely rare.  Even so abortion for rape is still the taking of an innocent human life!

Here is a video http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/2012-its-time-to-turn-the-tide-on-abortion from the U.S.  made by the Students for Life which reminds us not to settle back and accept the abortion law, but to keep on fighting !

The same is true for our society when it comes to it’s attitude towards sex and its consequences.  Firstly there is a lack of education not information , she says

I have said it before: abortion does not exist in a vacuum. As long as teenagers are encouraged to believe that they are mature enough to have sex, that sex is “no big deal,” that being promiscuous is cool, that birth control pills are harmless and fail-safe, and that condoms make all your problems go away, we are going to keep seeing unplanned pregnancies.

….. We need to begin to make young women understand that being slutty is not synonymous with being cool, funny, and smart. We need to show them that in today’s culture, not rebelling against traditional morality is the truly rebellious thing.

Ten year old model, Thylane Blondeau

Kristen goes on to argue,

Organizations like New Wave Feminists seek to reach young women before they have sacrificed their intelligence, self-respect, and virtue at the altar of MTV. We need young women who remain chaste until marriage, who uphold and affirm the sanctity of life, and who view marriage and motherhood as sacred vocations. In order to see more of those young women, we need to change the perception that teenage girls who are intelligent and chaste are miserable, unpopular, naive, and brainwashed.

You can be smart, funny, and cool while having morals. I’ve seen it happen.

It won’t be easy to accomplish this, but it is possible. Radical mainstream feminism turned women on themselves. By trying to be just like the boys, women ended up using their sexuality as a weapon or a commodity. If you don’t believe me, watch a Rihanna video.

I would like to see a day when the average 16-year-old rolls her eyes in disgust at a booty-shaking Barbie on MTV. I would like to see a day when women don’t engage in baby-making activities until they have a diploma or degree in one hand and a ring on the other. I would like to see a day when young men have to work for young women’s attention again, because said women are too busy going out into the world and doing splendid things to shake their rumps in some club.

And it’s a chain reaction: those young women will raise strong daughters whose daddies showed them enough love that they don’t need to give anyone a lap dance to feel worthy, and whose mothers showed them enough discipline that they can tell boys “no” without feeling like the world is going to end.

That is the New Wave of feminism: virtuous, intelligent, and unapologetic. It’s not just for women, either. Men are not incapable of virtue; they’ve just been convinced they are by the media.

Speaking of which: the media is our greatest enemy in this fight for the minds and hearts of youth. Being promiscuous, dumb, and reckless is easy, flashy, fun, and on every single channel. New media is the key to getting our message across. And we have to do it now. There is no time to waste. I saw a roughly 11-year-old girl the other day walking around at the mall wearing a Playboy bunny T-shirt. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what you call rock bottom.

There is hope for the younger generations. We have to lead by example among our peers and those who look up to us. We have to show them that leaving behind ego and instant gratification doesn’t mean leaving behind your brain or your sense of fun.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, and no matter how we change the perception of virtue among young people and reestablish the idea of sexual standards, people will fail to meet them, and unwanted pregnancies will happen.

Here,here.

Talks on the methods of abortion, the Catholic Churchs’ stance on abortion and the work of The Cardinal Winning Pro-life Initiative linked in to the R.E. syllabus they are covering at the moment in S5 & S6.  A presentation was also given to pupils in the Hearing Impairment Unit with the help of a signing teacher.

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By its very nature, abortion requires a violation of a woman’s body. Her cervix, which nature has designed to remain closed to protect the developing human fetus, must be forcibly opened. Then, her womb, which is designed to nurture life, must be penetrated, suctioned, and scraped. For many women, this experience is nothing less than their first intimate encounter with death. (Forbidden Grief, Theresa Burke, p 114).

“The building up of a culture of Life must flow first and foremost from a loving, courageous, and humble heart — yes, in imitation of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.”
– Archbishop Timothy Dolan

written by Robert Colquhoun