The sinister snake was no match for a string of Hail Marys.
St. John Bosco was a holy priest whose deep spiritual life led to frequent visions or “dreams,” as he would call them. He wrote about one of them in a letter to his students. The dream occurred on the eve of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in it a stranger came up to him and asked him to look at something on the ground.
He took me to a meadow alongside the playground and pointed to a huge, ugly snake, over twenty feet Iong, coiled in the grass. Frightened, I wanted to run off, but the stranger held me back. “Get closer and take a good look,” he said.
“What?” I gasped. “Don’t you realize that monster could spring on me and
gobble me up in no time?”
“Don’t be afraid! Nothing of the sort will happen. Just come with me.
