St John Bosco Community College, Kildysart will celebrate its feast day on Friday, 31 January.

The Bishop of Killaloe,  Most Revd Kieran O’Reilly SMA will visit the school and celebrate Mass these at 11am on the feast day. Past students and all members of our parish are very welcome to attend the Mass with the Bishop and join in the celebrations.

John Bosco (Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco; 16 August 1815 – 31 January 1888), known as Don Bosco, was an Italian Catholic priest, educator and writer. He dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth and employing teaching methods based on love rather than punishment, a method known as the Salesian Preventive System. A follower of the spirituality and philosophy of Francis de Sales, John Bosco dedicated his works to him when he founded the Salesians of Don Bosco. 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. In 1875 he published the Salesian Bulletin. The Bulletin has remained in continuous publication, and is currently published in 50 different editions and 30 languages. He also established a network of organisations and centres to carry on his work. Following his beatification in 1929, he was canonised as a saint by Pope Pius XI in 1934.