In his autobiography Gandhiji narrates an incident which happened during the first year of his high school studies when he was about thirteen years old. Mr. Giles, the Educational Inspector who came to the school, gave a spelling test. Gandhi misspelt the word “kettle.” The class teacher poked him with his boots prompting him to copy the spelling from his neighbour’s slate. But Gandhi could not bring himself to copy. The result was that all the boys except Gandhi were found to have spelt all the words correctly. And Gandhi appeared stupid. Speaking of his school days Gandhi remarks: “I do not remember having ever told a lie … either to my teachers or to my school-mates.”
When John Bosco, more popularly known as Don Bosco, was fourteen years old he had to leave home because of the unfriendliness of his stepbrother and work as a farmhand on the farm of the Moglias in another village. Every Saturday evening he would ask permission from the Moglias to go to Moncucco, a nearby town, early in the morning on Sunday. As the Moglias had seen John attend the Holy Mass to which they went later during the day, Mrs. Dorothy Moglia was curious to find out what John was doing in the town so early in the morning. So, one Sunday she went to the town ahead of John and took up a position from where she could watch him unnoticed. She found him coming to the town, entering the Church and making his confession to
Fr. Francis Cottino, the parish priest. Then he attended the first Mass and received holy communion. Then he waited to attend the later Mass also. In those years (1829), it was not a common practice to receive holy communion frequently. But every week John was going to confession and receiving communion all on his own initiative.
Jose Kuttianimattathil, sdb
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