CONFESSION: Quotes from St. John Bosco
"Be brave and try to detach your heart from worldly things. Do your utmost to banish darkness from your mind and come to understand what true, selfless piety is. Through confession, endeavor to purify your heart of anything which may still taint it. Enliven your faith, which is essential to understand and achieve piety."
"Not all confessors have the skill, experience, and means to search consciences and flush out the foxes that gnaw at the heart. A priest may be an excellent confessor for adults, but not for boys. For the fruitful confession of young people, a priest would find it helpful to go to them, to mingle with them, to come to know their inclinations, and even, on occasion, make an examination of conscience for them. A confessor for boys should be able to see the relationship between their misdeeds and their character flaws. He must, because the boys do keep things back in confession; indeed they do. Their two great enemies are shame and fear of losing their confessor's esteem."
"Do you want to become saints? Here is the secret: confession is the lock; confidence in your confessor is the key. This is how you open heaven's gate."
Any attempt to explain the popularity of the Oratory among the classes to which Don Bosco devoted his life would fail without an appreciation of his spirit which was its life. For his earliest intercourse with poor boys he had never failed to see under the dirt, the rags, and the uncouthness the spark which a little kindness and encouragement would fan into flame. In his vision or dream which he is said to have had in his early boyhood, wherein it was disclosed to him what his life work would be, a voice said to him: "Not with blows, but with charity and gentleness must you draw these friends to the path of virtue."
On Sundays excursions, Don Bosco would say Mass in the village church and give a short instruction on the Gospel; breakfast would be eaten, followed by games; and in the afternoon Vespers would be chanted, a lesson in Catechism given, and the Rosary recited. It was a familiar sight to see him in the field surrounded by kneeling boys preparing for confession.
Don Bosco was an indefatigable confessor, devoting days to the work among his children. He recognized that gentleness and persuasion alone were not enough to bring to the task of education. He thoroughly believed in play as a means of arousing childish curiosity - more than this, he places it among his first recommendations, as for the rest he adopted St. Philip Neri's words: "Do as you wish, I do not care so long as you do not sin."
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