Ask my Mother for my name

At the age of nine, I had a dream that remained deeply etched in my mind all my life.

In this dream, it seemed to me that I was near our house in a very spacious courtyard where a crowd of children were playing. Some laughed, many blasphemed. Hearing these blasphemies, I immediately threw myself in the middle of them, using my fists and voice to silence them. At that moment, there appeared an imposing man, nobly dressed. His face was so bright that I could not look at it. He called me by name and said to me:

"It is not with blows but with sweetness and charity that you will have to make of them your friends. So begin immediately to tell them about the ugliness of sin and the value of virtue." Intimidated and afraid, I answered that I was a poor, ignorant child.

... I asked: "Who are you to order impossible things?" - "It is precisely because these things seem impossible to you that you will have to make them possible by obeying and acquiring knowledge." - "How can I acquire knowledge?" - "I'll give you a teacher. Under her guidance, you can become learned." - "But who are you?" - "I am the Son of this Woman whom your mother taught you to pray three times a day. Ask my mother for my name." 

Saint John Bosco

Biographical Memoirs