Blessed Michael Rua

Michele Rua (English: Michael Rua; 9 June 1837 – 6 April 1910) was an Italian Catholic priest and professed member of the Salesians of Don Bosco. Rua was a student under Don Bosco and was also the latter's first collaborator in the order's founding as well as one of his closest friends. He served as the first Rector Major of the Salesians following Bosco's death in 1888. He was responsible for the expansion of the Salesians and the order had grown to a significant degree around the world at the time he died. Rua served as a noted spiritual director and leader for the Salesians known for his austerities and rigid adherence to the rule. It was for this reason that he was nicknamed "the living rule". The process of Rua's beatification opened after his death and resulted in Rua being beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1972. Michele Rua was born in Turin on 9 June 1837 in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Turin. Rua was the last of nine children to Giovanni Battista and Giovanna Maria Rua. His father - the supervisor of a weapons warehouse - died on 2 August 1845. He lived with his widowed mother in their apartment in the warehouse which she was able to keep and where she would begin work. His father was widowed with five children prior to his marriage to Rua's mother. Rua attended a school that the Brothers of the Christian Schools managed. It was not long following this that he met Giovanni Bosco who was working to improve the lives of the children of the neighborhood and who had just built his "oratorio" (oratory) of Francis de Sales in Valdocco. Rua was among the first with whom Bosco had shared his idea of founding a religious congregation and he joined the "oratorio" on 22 September 1852 to finish his education. One morning in 1847 Bosco was handing medals to passing children and extended his open left hand to Rua and made the gesture with his other hand of cutting the left in half and offering it to Rua.