The event, held in the Church of Our Lady of the Snows, was enhanced by the presence and intervention of Fr. Giovanni Rolandi, SDB, Rector of Colle Don Bosco, and organized and sponsored by the Parish of St. Anthony Abbot of Aramengo (represented by Pastor Fr. Giovanni Villata, assisted by local historian Beppe Moiso), and the Municipality of Aramengo (represented by Mayor Giuseppe Marchese), communities that have safeguarded and handed down to this day the reputation of sanctity of Giovanni Massaglia. Obviously, the heart of the local tradition consists of the memories of the Massaglia Family (represented by sisters Angela and Maria Teresa Massaglia), which, at the level of private historical archives, curates his school materials and relics.

The various commemorative moments, which highlighted his pictorial portrait, the church where his vocation blossomed and the neighborhood where he was born and died, where a commemorative plaque was unveiled, accompanied the screening of the short film "Life of John Massaglia and Dominic Savio according to History," edited by Ornella Ceruti of Nebbiuno (Novara). Assuming that the Salesian tradition remains the fundamental and irreplaceable one, over the past decade, Ceruti has collected, documented, restored, and conjugated all the traditions that narrate the life of Giovanni Massaglia and Dominic Savio, inseparable friends. The editorial result is three books, plus a booklet summarizing them in a few pages full of illustrations, from which the short film was adapted.

The rigorous historical reconstruction, unveiling the unpublished biography of his "true friend for the things of the soul," enriches Dominic Savio's biography and ultimately brings to the forefront the Company of the Immaculate Conception, the personification of the apostolate of youth among youth, which constitutes the mature and lasting fruit of their humanly and Christianly perfect friendship.

Giovanni was the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Pietro Massaglia of Marmorito (burgh and parish of Santa Maria) and Maria Garesio of Mondonio, well-to-do and distinguished peasants as they were proprietors and educated. In 1853, at the age of 15, he could have moved from the Educandato di Cocconato, seat of the lower gymnasium, to the Collegio di Chieri, seat of the upper gymnasium. Instead, by manifesting his vocational orientation, he aroused his father's opposition, who stripped him of everything and took him to Turin, in search of a benefactor willing to settle him and sponsor his studies in the direction of the priesthood. The meeting with Don Bosco also decided Dominic Savio's future in a positive way, because it procured for him the supportive friendship, thanks to which he was able to "make himself a saint, and soon a saint." In fact, being four years ahead in age and studies and having entered the Oratory Boarding School a year earlier, Massaglia was for Savio a providential older brother. They met in 1853 in Mondonio, a common land. At Valdocco, they cohabited in the 1854/55 school year and the first half of the following one. What they had in common was "the innocence of life and perseverance in goodness to the last breath," attested to by Don Bosco, crowned by charismatic gifts, recorded and made known by Fr. Michele Molineris in a 1971 publication: "They had the same moral dispositions, I wanted to say mystical, that create precisely an altar saint."

Giovanni was a handsome young man, of good stature and strong constitution, very promising in his studies. On September 30, 1855, he was clothed in the clerical habit by Don Bosco himself at the Becchi. He left the first year of the seminary course in philosophy unfinished. Just 18 years old, he died at home from a lung disease, three months after returning to his family. Dominic, weak of lungs since childhood, joined him in Paradise about ten months later, almost 15 years old.

• Title Title
• Title Title
• Title Title
• Title Title
• Title Title
• Title Title
• Title Title
• Title Title
• Title Title
• Title Title
• Title Title
•  

Tweet