Don Bosco's Harrowing Dreams
By Carolyn Ferguson
Don Bosco, the extraordinary priest of the 1800s who revolutionized education for boys, had vivid prophetic dreams throughout his life that he often used as instructional lessons to his students.
In one such dream, he envisioned his students in church when hideous cats with horns emerged behind them with nooses. He went on to interpret this dream as a consequence when we make poor confessions. "With these nooses," the cat growled, "I drag nine-tenths of mankind into hell."
It is not enough to simply "show up and share." When we participate in the Sacrament of Confession, we are invoking the Lord's mercy on the entire world. It's understandable how we are tempted to make confession all about "us" and "our sins" when in fact, it's so much greater than that! Therefore, it deserves to be treated with due honor and respect.
To help his students understand this, Don Bosco shared the following lessons from this dream on the frequent mistakes we might make:
1) Never hold anything back or conceal anything in confession. If it is a mortal sin that we are too embarrassed to speak of, all of our Eucharists will be invalid.
2) It is of the upmost importance to be truly sorry for our sins. It is not enough to merely share what we have done, but rather have true repentance and remorse.
3) We must follow through with our penance, otherwise, and take to hear the confessor's advice. We must have a firm resolution to never commit that sin again. This isn't easy, and odds are we will slip up and fall into that same vice, but we must never give up.
