3 4 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 4 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 8 1 Loving Kindness in the Prophecy Dream The first time little Johnny Bosco was given an educational mission to achieve spiritual change in a group of boys was in a dream when he was nine. It is to be found in the wellknown text Memoirs of the Oratory (Bosco 1877). A noble stranger told him in the dream: “You will have to win these friends of yours not by blows but by gentleness [note It. mansuetudine] and love. Start right away to teach them the ugliness [note It. brutezza] of sin and the value [note It. preziositá] of virtue” (Bosco 2011, 4). We can highlight three very important words: “friends”, “gentleness” and “love”. When the nobleman says that the boys are Johnny’s “friends” that is a radically different interpretation from that presented by Johnny. The same boys who were fighting and swearing a few minutes before could not be beaten into silence. The fact that the boys he used to beat into shape were his friends required a new approach. The principle of justice that “evil needs to be corrected justly” must be replaced by a new principle, which surpasses it. It is impossible to make friendship on the basis of justice. The new principle passed on to little Johnny was the principle of gentle love. Here love represents a new objective towards which Bosco’s action should head. His mission is not redemption, or the end of evil, but the value of virtue. Love represents the main aim and the essence of the new educational approach entrusted to him. How is 2 Loving Kindness in The Preventive System in the Education of the Young In his workThe Preventive Systemin the Education of the Young (1877) John Bosco presents loving kindness in the context of two educational systems. These systems present two paths to the same destination and have one fundamental principle. The aim is a godly life and the principle is love. An essential difference is just in the way this aim is achieved. It means two forms of education. Bosco calls the first one “repressive”. It “consists in making the law known to the students and then supervising them in order to detect transgressions, inflicting, wherever necessary, the merited punishment. Using this system, the words and the appearance of the Superior must always be severe, and somewhat menacing, and he himself must avoid all friendly relationships with his dependents. To give greater weight to his authority, the educator would need to be seen but rarely among his subjects, and generally speaking only when it was a question of punishing or threatening.” (Bosco 1877). The second one, which he calls “preventive”, “consists in making the law known to the students and then supervising them in order to detect transgressions, inflicting, wherever necessary, the merited punishment. Using this system, the words and the appearance of the Superior must always be severe, and somewhat menacing, and he himself must avoid all friendly relationships with his dependents. To give greater weight to his authority, the educator would need to be seen but rarely among his subjects, and generally speaking only when it was a question of punishing or threatening.” (Bosco 1877). gentleness related to it? In a way we can say that this concept expresses a unique definition of love. Gentleness expresses meekness, and thus refers to one of the main virtues – mildness. The task of mildness was to deal with anger the right way. Anger was causing a reaction to evil and thus prevented the awareness of the presence of good. Thus, gentleness expresses the power of love when love is expressed even in conflictual situations. Friendship expresses the quality of the relationship. Love is the first principle upon which friendship can exist and be developed. Gentleness expresses a specific way love can be shown. The distinction between love expressed by gentleness and that which is not means that not every love has the power to change a human being. The power and the effectiveness of gentleness is depicted in what happens to the group of boys. At the beginning of the story the boys fight and swear, then they gather around the noble man, subsequently around the noble woman and in the end, they change into lambs and bleat joyfully around them. Gentleness attracts and brings about change. It is the kind of love that is able to change a human being effectively. Gentleness embodies love that has the potential to bedazzle and result in desire. These ideas are fully developed in other key texts of Don Bosco, The Preventive System in the Education of the Young (Bosco 1877) and The Letter from Rome (Bosco 1844).
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