In Michael Magone's 'Life', Don Bosco presents a broad list of preventive and therapeutic meansof an ascetic and religious nature: the seven guardians of chastity.988
This concise pedagogical treatise on a defensive preservation of chastity, often reduced to simple and
difficult contin ence, is enriched by indications on how to get rid of bad thoughts, a renewed appeal to
follow the ideals of a youthful and generous life trusting in the power of grace, and “modesty”.989 Naturally, primary importance as far as the education and re-education of the young is concerned, is given to supernatural means, namely to the sacraments of penance and communion, devotion to the Blessed Virgin and prayer. In the Chronicles of the 1860s and more so in those of Father Barberis between 1875-1879, we find recorded several and various descriptions, Good Nights, talks dedicated to the topic of chastity such as its importance, its models, the dangers it is exposed to including holiday time, scandal, ways to preserve it. Prevention also seems to admit of one or two'repressive'
possibilities, such as threat of expulsion. Apparently, there is not much room accorded to a specific enlightening process and education to human love.
3. Pedagogy of vocational choice
According to Don Bosco, the choice of a state of life should not be left to the free will of an individual. Fundamentally, we are dealing here with a vocation and this comes from God. Vocation, therefore, is first of all a discovery and a response. A vocation, then, needs to be formed within the inevitable triangle: God, the educator who could be an individual or a community, and the young person himself who needs to be helped to see the 'signs' of God's plans for him.
While we have time, let us beg the Lord to teach us the path we need to take.990
We have a ser ies of Good Nights given by Don Bosco in December 1864 (Dec. 5, 10 and 12) to the
boys at the Oratory. They deal with ways of discovering one’s vocation reduced to three main ones: the test of good deeds, the corroborating testimony of others, the positiveopinion of the Confessor.991 The story of Valentino or an obstructed vocation is a dramatic presentation of a vocation, an ecclesiastical vocation. Three distinct chapters are dedicated to describing the three crucial moments of this vocation: its genesis in a favourable educational setting, difficulties encountered, its “demolition and dissolution” with the consequent moral ruin of the protagonist.992 In chapter 5 of the same story there is ample talk of the signs of a vocation, which Don Bosco had explained on several occasions to boys and their teachers: moral uprightness, knowledge and an ecclesiastical spirit.993The usual warning about the renunciation that ecclesiastical vocation demands is always present, along with the firm will
to “champion the glory of God, win souls for him and, most importantly, save one's own soul”.994 The talks on vocation assumed wider dimensions with the rapid development of the Congregation and the arrival of the missionary project of the 1870s and 1880s. The Good Night on December 7, 1875, is one example of this: Don Bosco first gave to the boys an account of the departure of the first missionaries from Genoa and then went on:
988G. Bosco, Cenno biografico sul giovanetto Magone Michele..., Chap. IX Sua sollecitudine e sue pratiche per
conservare la virtù della purità, pp. 43-47, OE XIII 197-201.
989Cf. Regolamento per le case..., part II, Chap X Della modestia, pp. 78-80, OE XXIX, 174-176.
990G.B. Lemoyne,Cronaca 1864ff, Good Night of 5 December 1864, p. 38-39; Cf D. Ruffino, Cronache dell'Oratorio di
S. Francesco di Sales, No. 1 1860, p. 11, 28; Cronache.... No. 2 1861, pp. 22-23
991G.B. Lemoyne, Cronaca 1864ff, Good Night of 5 dec. 1864, pp. 38-39; otherstestify to him speaking to the boys on the
evening of 10 Dec. 1864, pp. 40-41 (the lay assistants could be the bad advisers, p. 43); on 12 Dec. pp. 44-46 he speaks
of the confessor; comes back to this again on 5 March 1865, p. 114.
992Cf G. Bosco, Valentino...., Chap V La vocazione (pp. 25-29, OE XVII 203-207), VI Le difficoltà (pp. 29-34, OE XVII
207-212), VII Una guida fatale (pp. 35-40, OE XVII 213-218).
993G. Bosco, Valentino....,pp. 26-29, OE XVII 204-207.
994G. Bosco, Valentino...., p. 29, OE XVII 207.