New Special Cover on Don Bosco

 

Special Cover on the occasion Bi-Centenary Birth Celebration of St. Don Bosco released on 16th August 2015

The 200th birth anniversary of St Don Bosco was celebrated at the Ravindra Bhavan, Margao on 16th August 2015 with fervour and joy. To celebrate the occasion, the Don Bosco community had organized the programme. A special cover was released on the occasion at the hands of Chief Minister of Goa Shri Laxmikant Parsekar by Postmaster General, Goa Region Shri Vinod kumar Verma (Special Cover approval no. MH/25/2015). Fr Ian Figuerado, provincial of Panjim and Konkan Region, Fr Savio Gomes, principal of Don Bosco College, Panjim; Sister Agatha, Dias vice-Province and Dias vice-Province were also present at the celebration.

St. John Bosco (b. 16 August 1815 – d. 31 January 1888), popularly known as Don Bosco, was an Italian Roman Catholic priest of the Latin Church, educator and writer of the 19th century. While working in Turin, where the population suffered many of the effects of industrialization and urbanization, he dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth. He developed teaching methods based on love rather than punishment, a method that became known as the Salesian Preventive System. A follower of the spirituality and philosophy of Saint Francis de Sales, Bosco dedicated his works to him when he founded the Salesians of Don Bosco, based in Turin. Together with Maria Domenica Mazzarello, he founded the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, a religious congregation of nuns dedicated to the care and education of poor girls. In 1876 Bosco founded a movement of laity, the Association of Salesian Cooperators, with the same educational mission to the poor. Don Bosco established a network of organizations and centres to carry on his work. Following his beatification in 1929, he was canonized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI in 1934.

Courtesy – Indian Philately Digest