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AFW Salesian Brothers on Pilgrimage to the tomb of St Joseph Cafasso. |
This year 2010 is the 150th anniversary of St Joseph’s Cafasso’s death; he died at just 49 years of age on 23 June 1860. That means he passed away just six months after the foundation of the Salesian Congregation. It was an undertaking which Don Bosco must surely have discussed at length with him, not only on the practicalities of the project, but more importantly on discerning God’s will in the foundation of a new Congregation. It was Joseph Cafasso who was initially instrumental in directing Don Bosco in working with youth in difficulty, who continued to direct him in his weekly confession, who advised him to take up lodgings with Don Borel at the Refuge, who worked closely with him in the foundation of the Oratory, giving him financial support and convincing others to fund his charitable foundation and, when necessary, to defend him from critics even from the clergy. Here we see what a wise spiritual director Fr Cafasso was, and how his guidnace in the first few years of Don Bosco as a priest proved to be crucial.
Fr Joseph Cafasso exposed the young priests who came to the Convitto under his care to the challenging pastoral realities of a city fast becoming industrialized. Don Bosco was no exception, and in reading the Memoirs one can see the impact that Don Bosco’s visit to the prisons left on him: “It was Fr Cafasso who first took me into the prisons, where I soon learned how great was the malice and misery of mankind.”
