In March 1854 on a feast day, after evening prayer Don Bosco gathered all the pupils in the back sacristy saying he wanted to tell them about a dream. Among others present were young Cagliero, Turchi, Anfossi, clerics Reviglio and Buzzetti. Our narration is based on their accounts. All of them believed that Don Bosco’s dreams were true supernatural revelations. Don Bosco spoke as follows:
I was with you in the playground, delighted to see all of you so lively and happy, jumping, shouting, and running about. Suddenly, however, one of you came out of the building wearing some sort of top hat and began strolling around in the playground. The transparent headgear was lit from the inside and revealed the picture of a moon with the number ‘22’ in its center. Amazed, I was about to walk up to the boy and tell him to cut off that nonsense when suddenly all of you stopped playing as if the bell had rung and lined up as usual on the porch by classes. It was now semi-dark. While all of you looked frightened, nearly a dozen of you were deathly pale. I passed in front of these pale ones for a closer look, and among them I saw the boy with the top hat. He was even paler than the rest, and a black drape-like those used at funerals was hanging from his shoulders. I was about to ask him what his strange garb meant when a grave and dignified-looking stranger stopped me and said: “Wait! Know that this boy has only twenty-two moons to live. Before these are over, he will die. Take care of him and prepare him!” I wanted some explanation of this message and his sudden appearance, but the stranger had already vanished. My dear boys, I know who that lad is. He is right here among you.
Terror gripped all of the boys. This was the very first time that Don Bosco had ever predicted the death of anyone in the house publicly and so solemnly. He could not help noticing their fear, and so he continued: “Don’t be afraid! True, I know that boy, and he is here now, but this is a dream, as I have said, and you know that dreams are only dreams. One thing is certain, though-we must always be prepared, just as Our Divine Savior has warned us in the Gospel, and never commit sin. If we follow this rule, death will not frighten us. Put your conscience in order, therefore, and resolve not to offend God anymore. On my part, I shall look after the boy of the twenty-two moons. These moons signify twenty-two months. I hope that he will die a good death.”
Understandably, this announcement frightened the boys, but in the long run it did them good because their attention was focused on death as they kept themselves in God’s grace and counted the months. Now and then when Don Bosco would ask: “How many more moons?” they would reply “Twenty” or “Eighteen2″ or “Fifteen” and so on. Sometimes those who paid the closest attention to
everything he said would tell him that so many moons had already gone by, attempting at the same time to make their own predictions or guesses, but Don Bosco would say nothing. When [John Baptist] Piano entered the Oratory as a young student in November, 1854, he heard his companions say that nine moons had already passed. He then found out about Don Bosco’s prediction and he too began keeping track of the moons.
The year 1854 went by, and so did many months of 1855, and then came October, the twentieth month. At this time the cleric [John] Cagliero was in charge of three adjoining rooms in the old Pinardi house. They served as a dormitory for several boys, including Secundus Gurgo a handsome, healthy, seventeen-year-old from Pettinengo (Biella) who seemed destined to live to a ripe old age. His father had asked Don Bosco to take him in as a boarder. The youth, an excellent pianist and organist, studied music assiduously and earned good money by giving lessons in town. From time to time during the course of the year Don Bosco had asked Cagliero about the conduct of his charges with more than routine interest. In October he called him and asked: “Where do you sleep?”
“In the last room,” Cagliero answered. “From there I can keep an eye on the other two.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you moved your bed into the middle room?”
“If you say so, but I think I’d better tell you that it is rather damp because one of its walls is actually the wall of the church tower, which is still very porous. Winter is coming and I might get sick. Besides, I can watch all the boys in the dormitory quite well from where I am!”
“I know you can,” Don Bosco replied, “but it would be better if you moved into the middle room.” Cagliero complied, but after a while he asked Don Bosco’s permission to move his bed back to the last room. Don Bosco did not let him do so. “Stay where you are and don’t worry,” he told him. 2You won’t get sick!”
Cagliero felt at ease again. A few days later Don Bosco summoned him again. “How many sleep in your room?”
“There are three of us: Gurgo, Garavaglia, and myself-four, if you include the piano!”
“Good,” Don Bosco said. “You are all musicians and Gurgo can teach you to play the piano. Make sure that you look after him well.” That was all he said, but Cagliero’s curiosity was aroused.
Suspecting something, he tried to question Don Bosco, but he cut him short, saying: “You’ll know in due time.” The secret, of course, was that the boy of the twenty-two moons was in that room.
One evening, at the beginning of December, after night prayers, Don Bosco mounted the podium as usual to give the Good Night and announced that one of the boys would die before Christmas. We must note that no one at the Oratory was sick at that time. Naturally this announcement, coupled with the fact that the twenty-two moons would soon be over, made everyone jittery. There was much talk about what he had said as well as fear that it would come true.
During these days Don Bosco once more sent for the cleric Cagliero. He asked him how Gurgo was behaving and whether he returned to the Oratory punctually after giving his music lessons in town. Cagliero replied that the boy was doing fine, as were the other boys. “Good,” Don Bosco said. “See that they keep it up, and let me know if anything goes wrong.”
About the middle of December Gurgo had a sudden attack of abdominal pains so violent that the doctor, who had been summoned at once, recommended that the boy receive the Last Sacraments. The pains continued for eight days, but, thanks to Dr. Debernardi’s care, they at last began to subside and Gurgo was able to get up again. The trouble apparently vanished, but – in the doctor’s opinion – the boy had had a narrow escape. Meanwhile, his father had been informed. No one had, as yet, died at the Oratory, and Don Bosco wanted to spare the boys the sight of a funeral. The Christmas novena had begun and Gurgo – now almost completely recovered – was planning to go home for Christmas. Nevertheless, Don Bosco seemed to doubt the good news of the boy’s recovery. His father arrived and, finding his son in good condition, asked permission to take him home for some further convalescence. He then went to book two seats on the stagecoach, intending to leave on the next day for Novara and Pettinengo. It was Sunday, December 23 [1855]. That evening Gurgo felt a craving for meat, although the doctor had forbidden it. Thinking that it would help to build his strength, his father went out to buy some and cooked it in a little pot. The boy drank the broth and ate the half-cooked meat-perhaps to excess. At bedtime his father retired for the night while Cagliero and the infirmarian remained with the boy. Sometime during the night Gurgo suffered another very severe attack of colic. “Cagliero, Cagliero!” he gasped. “I’m through giving you piano lessons.”
“Come now, don’t say that!” Cagliero protested.
“I’ll never see home again. Pray for me. Oh, what pains. Pray to Our Lady for me.”
“Of course I’ll pray, and you do likewise.”
Cagliero began praying but, overcome by fatigue, he soon fell asleep. He was suddenly awakened by the infirmarian who pointed to Gurgo and ran out to cail Father Alasonatti whose room was next door. He came immediately, but within minutes Gurgo was dead. That morning Cagliero met Don Bosco as he was coming down the stairs on his way to say Mass. He had been informed of
the death and looked very, very sad.
The whole Oratory was stunned. The twenty-second moon was not yet over. By dying shortly before dawn on December 24 Gurgo had also fulfilled Don Bosco’s second prediction-namely that one of the boys would die before Christmas.
After lunch, the boys and the clerics silently gathered around Don Bosco. The cleric John Turchi asked him point-blank whether Gurgo had been the boy of the moons. “Yes,” Don Bosco replied, “it was he; he was the one I saw in my dream.” Then he added: “You may have noticed that some time ago I had him sleep in a special room. Into that same room I also moved one of the best clerics, John Cagliero, so that he could look after him constantly.” As he said this, he turned to Cagliero and said: “The next time you’ll know better than object to Don Bosco’s arrangements. Do you understand now why I did not allow you to leave that room? I did not let you have your way because I wanted Gurgo to have someone to look after him. If he were still alive, he could tell you how often I spoke to him of death in a roundabout way and prepared him for it.”
“I understood then,” Bishop Cagliero later wrote, “why Don Bosco had given me those instructions. I learned to appreciate more and more his words and fatherly advice.”
“I still remember,” Peter Enria stated, “that on the evening of that day-Christmas Eve-at the Good Night Don Bosco was looking about as though searching for someone. After a while he said: ‘Gurgo is the first boy to die here at the Oratory. He was well prepared and we hope he is now in heaven. I exhort you to be ever ready. . .’ He could say no more, so great was his grief at the loss of one of his boys.”
(BM V, 243-247)
