Don Bosco’s letters to the FMA

Rome (Italy).On 31 January 2025, the solemnity of Saint John Bosco is celebrated. He is the founder of the Salesian Congregation and, with St. Mary Mazzarello, of the  Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. On the occasion of this great Feast for the Salesian Family, on 28 January, with the Conference “From Valdocco to the world… and back” at the Pontifical Salesian University of Rome, the Epistolary of Don Bosco was presented, a work in ten volumes edited by Fr. Francesco Motto, SDB, and published from 1991 to 2024 by LAS Publishers. (Video).

“Be therefore heartened: Jesus is with us. When you have thorns, put them with those of the crown of Jesus Christ. I commend you to God in holy mass; you pray for me that I may always be there in Jesus Christ. Your most humble servant, Sac. Giovanni Bosco.”

This is the end of the letter addressed to Sister Maddalena Martini, FMA, dated 8 August 1875, one of 4,682 collected and published by Fr. Francesco Motto in the Epistolary.

Taking care of correspondence was a constant occupation of Don Bosco. He dedicated himself to this in the evening, at the end of strenuous days offered for listening to young people and adults, meeting with benefactors and authorities and more. The curator, who concludes this work after forty years of research and studies, assures us that:

“The entire  epistolary collection of the Saint constitutes an indispensable instrument for knowledge of Don Bosco, his personality and his ideals, which are taken up in the folds of his daily action. We would say a ‘Don Bosco day by day’, of the hard daily toil, who plans, who opens horizons, who works, who suffers, who fights, who lives for the young, is with them, grasps their problems, and without any fear begins to write at his desk to contact anyone in the world (authorities, groups, and individuals),to help resolve them.”

They are handwritten letters, without much attention to style, since practical and urgent matters required rapid action: request for funding, gratitude for the help received, wishes or condolences, recommendations, advice, exhortations, invitations, reports, but also the defence of their rights. Don Bosco himself, in his ‘spiritual testament’, recommended: “If ever you happen to print some of my Italian letters, pay great attention to the meaning and to the doctrine, because most were written hastily and therefore with the danger of many inaccuracies.”

This quote, appropriately placed by the curator in the epigraph to the tenth volume, is an important key for reading. The letters tell us about life, document the thought and vision of a man who has spent himself for young people “until his last breath”. Although they have been written hastily and for precise and various aims, their style is incisive, simple, engaging. There is a similar structure among them. The opening where the Saint puts himself into dialogue with the interlocutor, picking up personal aspects; the reason for the letter, expressed concisely and directly; the conclusion, with the assurance of prayer and the invitation to look to heaven.

Among these letters, some have as recipients the FMA: Sister Maddalena Martini, Mother Caterina Daghero, his great-niece Sister Eulalia Bosco, the whole Institute. In them, the Father and Teacher of youth, expresses characteristics of his relationship with the FMA.

He points out the path of holiness as an authentic response to the vocation, and is concerned with advising and encouraging, reassuring and urging because “the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians… needs Sisters… desirous above all of becoming holy, not by means of extraordinary actions but through common works, so that they may be to others and especially to young women, a stimulus and attraction for the Christian virtues” (E ix, 4333).

Image taken from the painting by Silvia Allocco – Chapel in the Central Headquarters of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Rome.