On a sunny spring day, Don Bosco was in Lanzo, Italy, paying a visit to one of the schools he had founded. When he arrived, seven boys were in the infirmary, quarantined with smallpox. Sick or not, their faith in one they believed a saint was so great they were sure that if Don Bosco, as they called him — Don being Italy’s title for priests — would only come up and bless them, they would be healed and not have to miss the fun and entertainments scheduled for his visit. From their sickroom, they sent out an urgent request that the visiting priest come see them.
With his usual total unconcern for his own well-being — he once snapped at a hovering woman, “Madame, I did not become a priest to look after my health” — the saint entered their off-limits quarters. With cheers and roars, all the boys began to clamor, “Don Bosco, Don Bosco! Bless us and make us well!” Boys were never too raucous for this saint. He only chuckled at their exuberance. Then he asked if they had faith in Mary’s intercession, for like all saints, Bosco never attributed his cures to his own prayer power.
“Yes, yes,” they chorused. If Don Bosco was praying, they were full of faith.
“Let’s say a Hail Mary together then,” he proposed. Perhaps he reminded them that, as at Cana when Jesus worked His first public miracle at her request, when Mary asks her Son for a favor, she gets it. At any rate, only after the prayer which asked for the cure through Mary’s prayers, not Bosco’s, did he bless the sick students in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, from whom all healing comes.
As their hands completed the answering Sign of the Cross, the boys began reaching for their clothes. “We can get up now, right?”
“You really trust our Lady?” “Absolutely!”
“Then get up!” He turned and left, and six boys, ignoring the deadly pustules that still covered them head to foot, hopped into their clothes and raced out to the festivities.
For the imprudent, roof-raising rascals who dashed out to the fun and games with complete confidence, their pustules began to disappear as they played. The only near-casualty of that day in May 1869 was the poor conscientious school physician, who almost had a heart attack when he saw the smallpox patients “infecting” the entire school with an often fatal illness. While he was understandably furious, in fact no one caught the disease.
Many years later, as clean, decently clad, well-mannered adults, long deflected from incipient delinquency into honest workingmen and stalwart Christians, the same pair and hundreds like them, plus many slightly better off boys like those seven at Lanzo, would recall Don Bosco with a fierce love.
Another well-authenticated cure by Don Bosco took place at Lanzo in the same place where the boys were healed of smallpox. It occurred about 5 p.m. on May 16 1867, the evening of Pentecost, in the Church of Mary Help of Christians, which Don Bosco built next to his complex of homes and schools for boys in Turin. Maria Stardero, a blind girl of ten or twelve, was led by her aunt into the church, where dozens of boys were standing about or kneeling in prayer as they waited for Don Bosco to arrive for confessions. Fr. Francis Dalmazzo, one of the first Salesians, spoke to the woman. In his testimony he later recalled, “I was grieved to see that the young girl’s eyes had no corneas and resembled white marbles.”
When Don Bosco arrived, he questioned the girl about her condition. She had not been born blind, but as a result of eye disease her sight had been completely lost two years earlier. When he asked about medical treatment, the aunt began to sob that they had tried everything, but doctors could only say the eyes were “beyond hope.”
“Can you tell whether things are big or small?” the saint asked.
“I can’t see a thing.”
He led her to a window. Could she perceive light?
“Not at all.”
“Would you like to see?”
“Oh, yes! It’s the only thing I want,” and she began to sob about how miserable she was.
“Will you use your eyes for the good of your soul and not to offend God?”
“I promise I will, with all my heart!”
“Good. You will regain your sight,” the man whose own vision was in need of help assured her. With a few sentences he encouraged the visitors to have faith in the intercession of Mary. With them he recited a Hail Mary and another prayer to Mary, the Hail, Holy Queen. Then, urging them to have absolute trust in the prayers of the Mother of Christ, he blessed the girl. After that he held a medal of Mary Help of Christians, in front of her and asked, “For the glory of God and the Blessed Virgin, tell me what I’m holding in my hand.”
“She can’t . . .” the elderly aunt began, but Don Bosco paid no heed, while the girl after a few seconds shouted, “I see!” Immediately she described the detailing on the medal. When she stretched out her hand to receive it, however, it rolled into a dim corner.
The aunt moved to retrieve it, but Don Bosco motioned her back.
“Let her pick it up to see if the Blessed Virgin has thoroughly restored her sight,” he insisted. Unerringly the girl bent into the shadows and picked up the tiny object. As the many witnesses looked on, awed and profoundly moved, Maria, beside herself with joy, bolted for home, while her aunt thanked Don Bosco profusely with sobs now of joy.
Unbelievers were also among those healed by the saint. A prominent doctor came to visit Don Bosco. After a few social remarks, he said, “People say you can cure all diseases. Is that so?”
“Certainly not,” the saint answered.
“But I’ve been told —” The well-educated man was suddenly stammering. Fumbling in his pockets, he pulled out a tiny notebook. “See. I’ve even got the names and what each one was cured of.”
Don Bosco shrugged. “Many people come here to ask favors through Mary’s intercession. If they obtain what they seek, that’s due to the Blessed Virgin, not me.”
“Well, let her cure me,” the doctor said agitatedly, tapping the notebook on his well-clad knee, “and I’ll believe in these miracles too.”
“What’s your ailment?”
“I’m an epileptic.” His seizures, he told Don Bosco, had become so frequent during the past year that he couldn’t go out any more. In desperation, he was hoping for help beyond medicine.
“Well, do what the others do who come here,” Don Bosco said matter-of-factly. “You want the Blessed Virgin to heal you. So kneel, pray with me, and prepare to purify and strengthen your soul through confession and Holy Communion.”
The physician grimaced. “Suggest something else. I can’t do any of that.”
“Why not?”
“It would be dishonest. I’m a materialist I don’t believe in God or the Virgin Mary. I don’t believe in miracles. I don’t even believe in prayer.”
For a space the two men sat in silence. Then Don Bosco smiled, as only he could, at his visitor. “You are not entirely without faith — after all, you came here hoping for a cure.”
As the saint smiled at him, something welled up in the doctor. Don Bosco knelt, and he knelt too without another word and made the Sign of the Cross.
Moments later, he began his confession.
Afterward, he declared, he felt a joy he would never have believed possible. Time and again he returned to give thanks for his spiritual healing.
As for the epilepsy, that simply vanished.
Source: “Nothing Short of a Miracle”, by Patricia Treece
