Don Bosco Dream about Oceania (Come, Help us!)

Don Bosco’s Missionary Dream about Oceania (2 July 1885)

 

BM 17 (pp 594-596)  SHORTEN for Artist Interpretation

 

It seemed that I stood before a high mountain. At the summit, a magnificently radiant angel who lit up the remotest corners of the horizon stood. A giant crowd of unknown people had gath­ered all around the mountain.

The angel held a sword that blazed like a flame in his right hand, and he pointed out the surrounding countryside to me with his left.

A wonderful crowd of angels, whose names I did not know or cannot remember, surrounded him. Among them, I saw Louis Colle who was surrounded by a crowd of younger people. He was teaching how to sing the praises of God, which he himself was singing.

A great number of people lived all around the mountain and on its slopes. They were talking among themselves, but I did not know their language and could not understand them.

Throughout this pilgrimage and in the face of this mountain, I felt as if I were being elevated above the clouds and that an infinite void surrounded me. Who could find words to describe that height, the spaciousness, the light, the radiance, or the vision before me?

Finally, I thought I was in Australia. Here, too, there was an angel, but he had no name. He shepherded and marched, urging the people to march toward the south. Australia was not a continent, but a number of islands grouped together, whose inhabitants varied in temperament and appearance. There was a big crowd of children living there who tried to come toward us, but could not because of the distance and the waters that separated them from us.

Nevertheless, they held out their hands towards Don Bosco and the Salesians, saying, "Come and help us! Why do you not fulfil what your fathers have begun?" Many held back, but others made every possible effort to push their way through wild animals to reach the Salesians, who were unknown to me, and they began to sing.

A little distance away, I could see groups of many islands, but could not distinguish any details. I felt that all this indicated that Divine Providence was offering part of this evangelical field to the Salesians, but for some future period. Their efforts will bear fruit, for the hand of God will be constantly out­stretched over them, unless they become unworthy of His graces.

 

Painting, Papua New Guinea

PGS (Papua New Guinea-Solomon Islands) SDB provincial house entrance

PGS (Provincial house entrance Mosaic of Don Bosco Dream) - composition