Holy Father: A man who is innocent or in God's grace possesses the greatest treasure, the greatest honor ever to be found in this world.760

There is no doubt that Don Bosco shows evidence of a certain kind of literature, particularly by Charles

Gobinet, not far from Janseni st tones. But it is hard to spell out in practice what degree of inspiration

Don Bosco received from theological sources and how much he allowed himself to be guided by more

positive, practical considerations translated into trust and hope.

761

At any rate, D on Bosco vigorously states the necessity and possibility of an effective collaboration with

God’s grace. “Jesus preaches”, and announces a happy and eternal life, that is heaven, but his real desire is that this happiness should be reached by dint of effort, by the practice of virtue and avoiding vice”.762

More closely related to experience are Don Bosco's oft-expressed beliefs about the family setting where the young live. Don Bosco certainly does not fail to refer to the positive influence provided by parents for the growth of the young. Don Bosco often sheds light on the different impact produced by mother and father on the young, and especially in his Lives of his boys. We only have to think about Dominic Savio's exemplary parents as well as Besucco's, about the holy and religious mothers of Peter in The power of a good education (l855) and Valentino (l866); about the father of Severinus (l868). Countless are the motherly and fatherly figures we find in the lives of the Saints and in the various history texts he wrote:Bible History, Church History; the History of Italy and the Lives of the Popes. But since Don Bosco defends the cause of poor and abandoned youth, youth at risk and risky, he does not fail to underscore the responsibilities of their parents, some of them either inept or incapacitated or perverse.

With regard to the social environment, Don Bosco's judgments are prevalently negative. People responsible for the social environment becoming dangerous are adults who act as the agents of corruption through books, newspapers, immoral shows and bad example of impiety and dishonesty. But bad companions are no less a cause of evil and scandal, especially when it is a question of companions who have reached the lowest stage of consummate malice. When confronted with them, the true allies of the devil, there is no other defence than to reject them and flee from them.

In the world of the invisible Don Bosco constantly marks out the Devil as the fully active tempter. He knows from his faith that the Devil isnever idle. Don Bosco has had direct experience of the presence of the Devil both in the harassments which, at certain times, tormented hi763m, and also and especially during various stages in the lives of his young people.

The talks about his dreams are fu ll of references of this kind, as are his retreat talks and the Monthly

Exercise for a happy death. The Devil and his Court appear disguised as various types of monsters and

animals: big cats perched on the shoulders of the boys making their confession and preventing them from making a good and sincere confession, pigs, mad dogs, lions, tigers, elephants trampling boys under their paws,snakes that wrap themselves around and paralyse the boys. The Devil finds servants, helpers, and friends all over: in those who give scandal, in those who are corrupt, in teachers of malice. The 'wiles' which Don Bosco writes about in his Companion of Youth are the wiles of the Devil. The 'snares' laid out by the enemy of the human race to trip up the young, reveal the Devil's creative and unbounded cunning.

760G. Barberis Cronichetta, exercise book I, pp 4-6

761Ct P. Stella Don Bosco nella storia della religiosità... Vol II pp 232-236; J. Scheppens, Human nature... pp 278-281. 762G. Bosco, il mese di maggio.... p. 30, OE X 324.

763In the early stages, according to Bonetti's cronache, it seems to reach a peak in 1862 (cf Annali II 1861-1862, pp 17-22

ff.). In September he would write a short work in the Catholic Readings entitled, La podestà delle tenebre ossia

Osservazioni dommatico-morali sopra gli spiriti maledci.