Saint Dominic Savio

But his beloved teacher, Saint John Bosco, soon noticed that headlong fervor. The teacher gently took his hand and led him back to very simple, everyday things: back to the lessons in class that had to be learned by heart, to the noisy, laughing games in the schoolyard, and to the small duties of each day, done with care.

Dominic’s childhood passed in the peaceful villages of Murialdo and then Mondonio, in the commune of Castelnuovo d’Asti — the same corner of Piedmont where Don Bosco himself was born, where vine-covered hills roll on one after another, and in winter the fog hangs thick from morning until noon. The boy was bright and quick, loved to learn, got on well with children his age, and loved the village church from an early age.

In 1849, at just seven years old, Dominic was allowed to make his first confession and First Communion. At that time it was a rare exception, since the usual rule made children wait until eleven or twelve to receive the Eucharist.

In a small notebook on the day of his First Communion, the seven-year-old carefully wrote four resolutions to guide his whole life:

• I will go to confession and Communion as often as my confessor allows.
• I want to keep the feast days holy.
• My friends will be Jesus and Mary.
• Death rather than sin!

These resolutions of a seven-year-old sound very simple, but they took deep root in his soul. Dominic did not live in comfort. To get to school, he had to walk many kilometers of dirt road every day under burning sun or sleet. The home that nurtured his vocation was a hardworking home, where every book and every day of school was paid for with his parents’ sweat and tears.

Don Bosco later recalled a lovely image from that first conversation: Dominic looked up at him and said:

“Father, I am like a piece of rough cloth; you are the tailor, please cut me into a beautiful garment to offer to the Lord!”

The boy put all his trust in his teacher. He wanted to be good, and he humbly understood that he very much needed someone to show him the way.

At the end of October that year, Dominic entered the school at Valdocco in Turin. Only a few years earlier, Don Bosco had had to borrow a rickety wooden shed — Mr. Pinardi’s old storehouse — as the first chapel where the street boys could gather; by the time Dominic arrived, Valdocco had grown into a boarding house with hundreds of boys from every background, with workshops, classrooms and even a church under construction. The twelve-and-a-half-year-old stepped from a peaceful countryside into a busy world of lessons, prayers, games of tag and countless different temperaments. Here he learned more than his letters; he learned to live with others, to give way to them and to walk alongside them.

It was guidance full of fatherly love. The grown man did not exploit the boy’s innocent fervor to push him beyond his strength. Don Bosco taught him that the body too is a gift from God to be cared for, and that serving God never requires us to give up the pure joy of childhood.

Dominic took that teaching to heart. He went back to the schoolyard, ran and jumped with all his might, laughed and joked, studied hard, and always kept an eye out to help the friends around him. His devotion did not make him an odd loner; it made him a friend everyone liked, who brought peace to those around him.

The story is not telling children to rush headlong into danger beyond their strength. It shows the courage to stand apart from the crowd when the crowd is wrong, to protect one’s friends and to make peace.

At school, Dominic always noticed the weaker students and the newcomers who were still shy and bewildered and being teased. He went up to talk to them, invited them to play, and patiently went over the lessons with them.

On June 8, 1856, Dominic and his close friends founded the “Company of the Immaculate Conception” at the school. Together they promised to live as good examples and to help one another in their studies and their faith. Young people do not have to wait until they are grown up and have position or authority to start living responsibly for others.

On March 1, 1857, Dominic said goodbye to Valdocco. It broke his heart to leave the school he had loved for more than two years. He hugged each of his friends, and when he said goodbye to Don Bosco, he whispered:

“Father, I will never come back here again...”

Back with his family, his illness grew worse each day. He received the last sacraments peacefully, with his parents and the parish priest beside him.

Don Bosco grieved for his young student and wrote a moving life of him himself, published in 1859. The book became one of the founding texts of Salesian education, translated into dozens of languages and still read in Don Bosco schools around the world today.

In parishes, catechism classes and children’s movements in Vietnam, the name of Saint Dominic Savio brings to mind an older brother, a model friend for schoolchildren.