332. A saint among us: Luigi Guanella
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| The Alpines take the casket with the Saint to the church |
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| The church in Cordignano |
Basically this blog is for those who have never seen a saint, and for those who have gone to a shrine who may remember the occasion with mixed feelings… but to have a saint arrive in your town square in a little, anonymous white van is just something else!
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| In-mates at the House of Saint Pius X founded by the Saint |
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| Waiting for the casket containing the Saint |
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| The doors of the van were opened |
Saint Luigi Guanella was born in 1842 in Sondrio, a hilly town north east of Milan towards the Swiss border. He died of a paralysis 73 years later in 1915 at Como, again near the Swiss border. The 9th of 13 children he was ordained priest in 1866. He founded a women’s religious order called the Daughters of St Mary of Providence in 1890 and the male counterpart, Servants of Charity, in 1908. Throughout his life time he took care of the sick, destitute, uninstructed, the mentally and physically disabled and anyone ill-treated or abandoned by their family, be they young or old. With the religious congregations he founded various homes for this purpose one of which is the home for the aged in my neighbouring village of Cordignano, in the Province of Treviso. And it is precisely here in the square of Cordignano that Saint Luigi Guanella came to visit us in that white, anonymous van on Sunday 30th September 2012.
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| The blessing of the casket |
But what is to be a saint? What is
holiness? What does it mean to be the last in a world where only the first are rewarded? What does it mean to turn upside
down concepts where it is important to be somebody, to have money, power, to count
in society, doing things just because there is a return, a payback? Looking at
how St. Louis Guanella lived his life, I think that holiness is an accumulation
of little things done well that lead to great things done just as well, because
of great things, Saint Luigi Guanella
had done so many- the reality of these great things can be seen simply by looking at the dozens of
wheelchairs of invalids from the nursing home Pius X, founded by the Saint, who
have come here to welcome him.
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| The procession heads towards the church |
And what a welcome! But neither was he to show himself to be any less- here among his people, Saint Luigi Guanella wanted to make his presence felt. Perhaps it was in this moment itself that the climax was reached: when he arrived- when the doors of the van where the casket had been placed- opened, and an immense silence surrounded us, enveloping the square gradually until not even a breath of air could be felt breathe. And when you think that in that square there were rows of altar boys, mayors and authorities, the Alpine corps, the local band, dozens of wheelchairs with the disabled, and the crowds which because of being Italian are famed for being boisterous... well, with all that, it seems impossible to imagine that there can ever exist a moment of silence-and yet, indeed, there was!
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| Entering the church |
I then thought about the time when talking about the disastrous condition of humanity, past and present- the abandoned youth, the sick, the elderly, those without food, the uncared for, which, if we look closely, in many cases it is also what is happening at the moment- but I remember on such occasions, if anyone was there for them- it was the church which had always been present, at the upper front in caring- and as someone said- are you surprised to discover it is so? Who else ever came to help in the case of the needy if not the priests?
At the end of the Mass, when the church
was emptying I approached the casket of
the saint which was surrounded by some children, talking among themselves, when
I heard one of them ask:
"Is he alive?"
"No," said another, "Can’t
you see he's dead?"
"There are only bones." Said a
third.
"There is more than that," the
other one said, "Can’t you see he’s all waxed up?"
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| The youth choir |
This conversation made me smile to think that for them it was just an
adventure. But maybe one day they will realize how beautiful the experience is of
feeling the presence of a saint who came, but not only physically, if only for
a while, to visit us.
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| A round of applause |
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| The Saint |
