St. John Bosco

While attending mass recently, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was the feast day of one of my favorite saints, St. John Bosco.

The life of the saint is fascinating. Raised by his widowed mother, he had a natural affinity for the Catholic faith. At age nine, he had a dream in which he met Jesus and Mary who told him that he would “conquer” a group of delinquent boys who also appeared in the dream. This dream foreshadowed his life’s work: rescuing boys from the streets of Turin, Italy, and molding them into respectable members of society.

Interestingly, there’s a parallel between the day’s gospel and St. John Bosco’s life. The gospel related the story of Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed. As you most likely recall, the mustard seed is the “smallest of all the seeds on earth” but grows into a very large plant.

And so it was with St. John Bosco. Starting by taking in six homeless boys, he was looking after 600 within five years. He eventually founded the Salesian order. The beauty of St. John’s selfless dedication to God and the poor boys of Turin is wonderful in itself, but there’s another message in his life, in my opinion: that a single person, with grit and determination and God’s help, can really make a difference in the world.

While we can’t claim to be saints, this, in a small way, is what we try to accomplish at Catholic Investment Strategies.

We use the leverage we have as investors to lead corporations to conduct their businesses in accord with the principles of the Catholic faith. Hopefully, by changing corporations, we can reverse the societal decay we see all around us and build a better world.

Post from: Insights