My Daily Eucharist - Reflection for May 6, 2024
Before his First Communion, Dominic Savio made four promises... 1) I will go often to confession and I will go to Holy Communion as often as I am allowed. 2) I will try to give Sundays and holy days completely to God. 3) My best friends will be Jesus and Mary. 4) Death, but not sin.
Don Bosco and the boys at the Oratory had been anxiously awaiting word of Dominic. His father's letter arrived; it began, "With my heart full of grief I send you this sad news. Dominic, my dear son and your child in God gave his soul to God on March 9th after having received with the greatest devotion the Last Sacraments and the papal blessing."
Dominic's friends were the first to realize his sanctity. They began praying to him, and soon reports of a cured toothache or a passing mark on an exam were brought to Don Bosco. In 1876, Dominic appeared to Don Bosco in one of the saint's vivid dreams. At this time he made several predictions, and when asked, told Don Bosco that he was in Heaven. Dominic himself was beautiful and glorious, and he appeared in the company of many other blessed souls. He gave Don Bosco three slips of paper; in one the priest saw the faces of Oratory boys who were living in their baptismal innocence. In the second he saw those who had fallen but were trying to rise from their sin. When he opened the third paper (boys living in mortal sin), it gave off such a disgusting and nauseating stench that Don Bosco abruptly awoke; he found that the disgusting odor still clung to his clothes.
"The Oratory has had many saintly boys, some of whom have practiced virtue as heroically as St. Aloysius." These words of Don Bosco were proven in the case of Dominic Savio. Dominic's cause was officially opened in 1908. He was beatified in 1950, and canonized in 1954.
Ann Ball