John Bosco (Don Bosco)

You don't win people over with pressure, you win them with your heart, and you go to them instead of waiting for them to come to you. That is exactly how John Bosco lives: a boy from a poor childhood who, at the age of nine, is shown in a dream what he is called to do. As a priest in Turin he gathers the street boys around him, he even learns to juggle and walk the tightrope to win them for prayer. His Oratory becomes their home; his Preventive System rests on reason, religion, and loving-kindness, not on punishment. So that the work will outlive him, he founds the Salesians. His youth ministry draws its life from the sacraments, not from programs. So here is the question: who would you go after when everyone else has given up on them?