Spiritual Talk – Fr. Ho talks about St. John Bosco (6)

by Vince Liu
2016-10-08

As a child, St. John Bosco once found a nest occupied by a mother nightingale and her chicks. He observed them for many days, waiting for the chicks to grow feathers so he could raise them as pets. One day, a cuckoo suddenly killed the whole nest of nightingales, and laid its own egg inside, only to be torn apart by a cat soon afterwards. The father nightingale returned to the nest and, thinking the cuckoo egg to be its own, proceeded to incubate it. The chick that came out was visibly not a nightingale but the father nightingale still loved it like its own chick. When it grew feathers, John Bosco caught it and placed it in his cage. The bird gave much joy to the boy and his family until John Bosco forgot to feed it for two days. He rushed to the cage, but it was too late. In its desperation to find food, the cuckoo had tried to escape the cage but trapped its neck in the birdcage and suffocated to death. His mother Margherita used this opportunity to teach John Bosco an important life lesson: a tragic ending awaits those who inherit unjustly-obtained inheritance; he ought to imitate his father, who was an upright man and justly earned every bit of the inheritance he passed on.

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