JANUARY 11

Sometimes the boys used to ask Don Bosco to foretell the number of years they would live. In those cases Don Bosco would content them, by telling them and at the same time he was only joking. But here we think it right and opportune to tell you before hand that the instruction and education imparted at the Oratory excluded every kind of superstition, and that in the forty three years the Oratory that some of the boys spent there they had always admired that simple and pure faith which abhorred every kind of deceit． 

Don Bosco used to make the boys open their hands and he would commence to gaze at the lines on their palms especially those which were in the middle and seemed to form the letter 'M'. This letter would give him occasion to note how every man carries about him a constant reminder, as it were, of death towards which he is going. (Mors = Death) Then he would ask: "How old are you?" One would shout out "twelve" another "seventeen"; while others would shout out confusedly "fourteen"; "eighteen" etc. Then after some reflection he would add with a mysterious air to this one or that "before you will be thirty years old... when you will reach your thirty first... Oh! If you reach your fortieth year...who knows...We shall see something will happen." Then he would again begin to consider those lines with affected seriousness, accompanied with strange and amusing signs and jokes seasoned with some good thought At length he would add, saying to one: "now listen attentively. You are fifteen years old, aren't you? All right, add this up: fifteen plus ten, minus seven, plus three, plus twelve, minus nineteen and add up the total. Find it" Thus he would continue to mix them up, varying the numbers and giving to everyone present his horoscope. But one would not be able to follow a complicated arithmetical operation another would have forgotten a number and would insist on Don Bosco repeating it, a third would ask for a pencil and a piece of paper to note down his answer.

Some of the brighter boys would succeed in working out that mix up and would ask Don Bosco to confirm their result Then he would always add a 'but' and 'if or 'we shall see' or 'provided you remain good,' all of which would destroy the result Then he would laugh. Most of the boys would join him, but a few however would seem a little vexed, others thoughtful. All would not like to believe that Don Bosco did this as a pastime, but they remained obstinate in the thought that by means of the gift he only wished to hide the grace granted him of knowing the future. Therefore they would take note of all that had been said concerning them. All the more so because as the boys themselves testified, his prophecies, were more than once not only apparent, but really fulfilled to the letter. The fact is however, that, as all esteemed him, a saint. Even those, who wanted to seem not only indifferent, but even skeptical, were seen to keep the words of Don Bosco so impressed in their minds. After forty or fifty years they seriously prepared themselves for death as the time foretold by Don Bosco to be the end of their lives. Indeed even to some priests this was a great grace.