Metaphors for Work used by Don Orione (Part Three)

 The theory becomes true: “God’s laborers”

            A concrete example of the meaning of work for Don Orione was the building of the shrines of Our Lady of Safe-keeping in Tortona and of Our Lady of Caravaggio in Fumo, where his religious worked side by side with the builders.

        On the occasion of the start of the building of the shrine of Our Lady of Safe-keeping on 23rd October 1926, Don Orione called his seminarians together and gave them a new name: God’s laborers, and he organized a procession of the boys, carrying tools. In his book, Papasogli said:

 “He spoke to them about Our Lady later. From the very first day, in his idealism, he handed them spades, hoes, shovels and buckets of whitewash. It was a new honor for them, and he called them ‘God’s laborers’

         The master builders would have been there, of course, but these seminarians were performing the most humble tasks, fetching and carrying what was needed up and down the makeshift ladders, always higher and higher, over and over again. How many times?

            Those boys were fifteen, eighteen, twenty years old. Tasks and tools had to be given according to the strength of each. But the real strength was one which could not be seen and which was not limited by any age: it was faith, simple strong faith, ideas and a routine that was manageable but strict on them, too. It was a strength which became all the greater by being used.” [1]

            Talking about the building of the Fumo shrine, Don Orione wrote in a letter: "At the new shrine, the poor priests of Divine Providence work energetically side by side with skilled masons. Our priests mix the lime, carry bricks and stones, toiling like true porters of God, as they already did at Tortona." [2]

 In a speech to a group of newly ordained priests who had worked on the building of the shrine of Our Lady of Safe-keeping, Don Orione praised Our Lady: “Oh, our Mother, from their first steps along this new path, always protect these priests of yours, laborers and porters at Your Shrine” [3]

         The testimony of “God’s laborers”, a concrete image of the Orionine work, touched  people’s hearts, even of those against the Church: “The wife[4] of a certain Pattarelli, an ardent Socialist who had broken the crucifixes in the Bishop’s Palace, said: ‘Even my children married in Church after they saw Don Orione’s priests at work.’”[5]

Living Examples of the Orionine Work

        Many religious understood what work meant to Don Orione, embodying the Founder’s teaching in their lives. 

 We can find an enlightening example of Orionine work in the then blind seminarian Cezar Pisano, who was later to become Brother Ave María. He even worked at night on the construction of the Grotto of Lourdes in the formation house in Villa Moffa: "Everyone got involved enthusiastically (...) Recreation time was entirely dedicated to that heartwarming and bold effort. Seminarian Pisano even spent time on it at night. He was able to use pick, spade and wheelbarrow with a confidence resulting from practice and the compensatory development of his other senses."[6]

Together with him, we should also remember the religious who worked on the construction of both the shrines of Our Lady Of Safe-keeping and Caravaggio, and others who were true workers of God, as the Founder wished. 

 

Conclusion

            The images used by the Founder are not only a definition of his own vocation, but an expression of his work and ministry, too.

            Don Orione wanted to serve the poor and the Church by doing the simplest and most humble work, following the example of many saints and our Lord: “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance.” (Philippians 2:6-7).

            The Orionine sense of work would also be a precious inheritance, a concrete way of following Jesus, and a constant challenge to those who desire to follow in the footsteps of God’s porter, Don Orione.

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[1] G. PAPASOGLI, A Life of Don Orione, St Paul, London, 2000, p. 333.

[2] Letter to a distinguished gentleman, (distinto signore, he did not specify who the addressee was). Tortona, 26^th July 1938. Scritti 47,242.

[3] Speech to a group of newly ordained priests. Tortona, 18^th December 1938. Scritti 95, 253.

[4] In the English edition there is a mistake: the Italian word moglie which means “wife” was translated as “mother”. Cf. G. Papasogli, Vita di Don Orione, Gribaudi, Turin, 1974, p. 373.

[5] G. Papasogli, A Life of Don Orione, St. Paul, London, 2000, p. 345.

[6] d. sparpaglione, “Frate Ave Maria. L'eremita cieco di S. Alberto” Messaggi di Don Orione 40, 1978, 15-16.

Metaphors for Work used by Don Orione (Part Two)

 A rag (straccio)[1]

           The Italian word “straccio” can be translated as a rag, cleaning cloth, duster, and floor cloth. It is a piece of quite worthless cloth, frequently torn, generally used for the roughest and dirtiest jobs. Don Orione used this image to refer to his children, especially to the Sisters, and sacrificial obedience. 

         In 1913, Don Orione visited Sr. Maria Benedetta Frey in Viterbo to ask her advice about the foundation of a female congregation. On that occasion, Sr. Maria Benedetta Frey said to him:

“Give me that “straccio”(rag), pointing to an old rag lying on the table.

She picked it up, and squeezing it in her hands, encouraged him to be like a rag in the Lord’s hands, and allow Divine Providence to direct him. Then she added: “When you found a female congregation, tell them that they must be like “stracci” (…)

“They must be as humble as stracci, like the rags that wipe away the tears of the poor and the afflicted.” [2]

Don Orione told a young person who wanted to join his congregation, that it was “the Congregation of God’s ragamuffins” (“straccioni di Dio”). In this text, Don Orione described how people use rags:

      “If therefore, my dear Ripetti, you sincerely desire to rid yourself of your imperfections, to deny yourself in everything, to love God and the Pope (...) then this is a sign that you are called to join this very small and poor Congregation, which is just a rag at the service of Our Lady and the Church of Rome.

        So you must become a rag, bearing in mind that our Congregation is the Congregation of the ragamuffins of God.

            Do you know what people do with rags?

            They use them for dusting, washing floors and scrubbing, removing cobwebs and cleaning shoes, and then they trample on them and put them to the humblest and meanest of tasks.

            So, my dear boy, if you wish to be one of God's rags, a rag under God's feet, or under the immaculate feet of Our Most Blessed Lady; if you wish to be a rag under the blessed feet of Holy Mother Church in the hands of your superiors, this is your place.  We are, and desire to be nothing other, than poor rags; in a word and leaving metaphors aside, in total self-sacrifice,  both in exterior matters and in the interior life, the sacrifice of your intellect, your reasoning and your entire self.”[3]

             Speaking of this Orionine characteristic, Fr. Flavio Peloso said: “There is a typical expression that characterizes the spiritual Orionine experience among a group of essential virtues, and the one that stands out is obedience: the readiness to serve as rags. Don Orione lived it, continually insisting on this as a practical rule of life.”[4]

Based on the idea of a “straccio”, Don Orione would invite his sons and daughters to total abandonment and offering themselves to God, the Church and the poor with humility and docility; an ability to adapt to the needs of circumstances, fearlessly sacrificing themselves in the humblest work and then remaining anonymous. 

The Porter (facchino)

In the homily at Don Orione’s Beatification Mass, John Paul II referred to the Founder as “il facchino di Dio”  (God's porter)[5]. The image of the porter is one of the best known and probably most used by Don Orione, always referring to labor.

 In Italian the word “facchino” (“facchini” in plural) refers to someone who carries heavy things, doing hard, manual, unskilled work. It can be translated as a luggage handler or a porter.

            For Don Orione, the image of a porter would become a definition of his own vocation and that of his children: “Pray a lot and humbly that God may have mercy on us, that we may be the carriers of faith, the porters of God and Holy Church, bearers of the souls which Jesus Christ bought with his divine blood.” [6]

            In a letter to his friend, Bishop Malfatti, he expressed the same idea: “Yes, I am a poor sinner and really unworthy to be a priest, but by the grace which I hope for from the Lord and the help of the most holy Virgin, our Mother, I desire to work as a porter for God, the Holy Church and the most holy Mother of the Lord; as a porter of souls…” [7]

On the occasion of seminarian Basilio Viano’s death, Don Orione explained that a “seminarian” means porter: “He [Viano] had quickly understood that, in the Houses of the new-born Congregation, a vast field of work is open even to seminarians, and that with us a seminarian is not only a student, or even less a young gentleman, but rather a porter, a porter of souls.”[8]

 In a letter to seminarian Gismondi, Don Orione said that by working we follow Jesus: “Always remember that Jesus did not avoid  work, neither did he become a foreman, making others  work, but he himself worked with his own arms, his own hands, with his own sweat, and that is what we need to do if we want to be true servants of Jesus Christ, true Sons of Divine Providence, true porters of God!” [9]

            For him, work would be something essential to our vocation, to the point of saying: “We, my dear sons, must be great workers: workers of humility, of faith, of charity! (…) But, did I say workers? No, that is too little, much too little! We must be God’s porters! Anyone who does not have this desire, and is not a porter of Divine Providence, is a deserter of our flag.” [10]

            Being “God’s porter” is not only a definition of the Founder´s vocation, but also an expression of his work and ministry. The various adjectives modifying the noun “porter” lend differing nuances and implications to our vocation and mission.

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[1] cf. the licentiate thesis of Sr. M. A. Kedziora, PSMC, on this topic, “Come stracci”. L’obbedienza sacrificale nella spiritualità di Don Orione, Piccole Suore della Carità, Rome, 2003, 78 ss.

[2] Don Orione alle Piccole Suore Missionarie della Carità. Tipografia San Giuseppe, Tortona, 1979.

[3] Letter to Repetti. Rome, 13^th October 1914. Scritti 103,098 and 103,135.

[4] F. Peloso, “Una spiritualità delle maniche rimboccate” (“a spirituality of rolled-up sleeves”), Messaggi di Don Orione 77, 1991, 45-47.

[5] cf. Homily at the Beatification Mass, 26^th October 1980.

[6] Draft of a letter to his religious (who were on their annual retreat). Rome, 1^st August 1914. Scritti 75,46.

[7] Letter to Bishop. Pietro Malfatti. Turin, 3^rd December 1918. Scritti 9,15 and 9,18.

[8] Circular letter on occasion of seminarian Basilio Viano’s death. Tortona, 19^th April 1920. Scritti 62,70 and 62,117

[9] Letter to then seminarian Gismondi. Tortona, 20^th December 1922. Scritti 32, 203.

[10] Letter to his religious in Palestine. Rome, 7^th February 1923. Scritti 4,263.

Metaphors for Work used by Don Orione (Part One)

In some of his writings, Don Orione used different images to describe his concept of work.

Sometimes he explained these images, but not always. But images are more meaningful than academic definitions, because an image opens up an idea, while a definition makes a closure.

In this article, I will try to analyze some of the metaphors used by Don Orione such as ants, a donkey, a straccio (rag), porters and labor, as well as some examples he mentioned of the Orionine sense of work, and of religious who embodied the Founder’s ideals by bearing witness.

Ants

            The Founder usually used this image of ants with reference to the Sisters and their way of working; for example, in the famous “begging letter for vocations”, he wrote: 

           “But that is not all, as I also have the Sisters. Divine Providence is at play, placing and developing in my hands in recent years a new Congregation of Sisters, called the Missionaries of Charity (…) I do not know how many of them there are, but I do know that in general they may very well be compared to ants; they give of themselves so totally, growing and multiplying like ants. However, there are never enough of them to meet our needs because there is such a constant demand for them”. [1]

            In a letter addressed to a Sister Superior, he even said that the Sisters are more diligent than male religious: “I have always said that you are like ants and get things done more quickly than we do.” [2]

            While he told his religious that it is necessary to work for vocations, we are not to become discouraged: “If we fail in our attempt, we will start all over again a second, third, fourth, tenth or hundredth time: never let us get discouraged, always returning to the attack, like ants.”[3]

To understand his thoughts, let us reflect on the cultural image of the ant: “In many cultures, including the Jewish, the ant is a symbol of diligence, constancy, efficiency, intelligence and planning for the future, as well as representing the very antithesis of lazy.”[4]

 We also find this idea in the well-known fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper”, attributed to Aesop, which compares their conduct: the ant works while the grasshopper is idle. As the Book of Proverbs says: “Go to the ant, O sluggard, study her ways and learn wisdom; for though she has no chief, no commander or ruler, she procures her food in the summer, stores up her provisions in the harvest.” (6:6-8)[5]

            Knowing the cultural background of the ant, it is easy to see that Don Orione wanted his Sisters to be diligent and very hard workers, to have a sense of community and to maintain a spirit of their own nothingness.

The Little Donkey of Divine Providence

The Founder applied the image of the donkey, a pack animal, to himself as well as to his children.

During his first meeting with Don Orione, young Ignazio Silone,[6] the famous Italian writer, heard from the Founder’s own mouth: “My vocation in life – and now I'm letting you into a great secret! – is to learn how to live like one of God's little donkeys, a real little donkey of Divine Providence!”[7]

            In several letters about the very beginning of the mission in Sáenz Peña, Don Orione used the following expression: “If there were no horses, donkeys would take their place”, to say that he had agreed to go to Sáenz Peña, because others had refused to. In a letter to Abbot Caronti, then Apostolic Visitor of the Congregation, he wrote: 

             “I think the others did not agree to go because of the unbearable heat and the great poverty there; but we want to be poor and to exist for the poor. I thought that, if Your Lordship had been here, you would have given me your blessing, and I thought of all those souls and of Jesus Christ. I remembered that my mother used to tell me that if there were no horses, donkeys would take their place. Well, we are the donkeys of Providence, or at least that is our desire.”[8]

            In another letter about Sáenz Peña, he pursued the same idea, but added: “Oh, yes! Our desire is to be the little donkeys of Divine Providence. Jesus preferred donkeys, didn’t he? – After all, he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, didn’t he? Yes, yes, how blessed we will be if we can be the donkeys of Jesus, the Pope, bishops and souls! [9] His idea is rooted in the biblical tradition of the meek and humble Messiah, who enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey: “Say to daughter Zion, 'Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.” (Mt 21:5).

Being a “donkey of Divine Providence” was not a mere figure of speech for Don Orione, it was the deep conviction by which he lived. His children and he himself were to be small, humble and poor for the poor, because this was the desire of Jesus.

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[1] Circular letter to Italian parish priests. Tortona, 15^th August 1927.

[2] Letter to a Sister Superior. Tortona, 10^th March 1931. Scritti 39,88 and 39,109

[3] A conversation to his religious. Campocroce, 29^th July 1924. Scritti 99,113

[4] YEFFET-REFAEL, R. “Proverbios, fábulas y metáforas de la hormiga en la literatura hebrea de la Edad Media”. [Online] Culturas Populares. Revista Electrónica 5 (julio-diciembre 2007), 17 pp. http://www.culturaspopulares.org/textos5/articulos/yeffet.pdf [consult: 13th October 2011].

[5] The New American Bible, Thomas Nelson (Publisher), Nashiville, 1971.

[6] Ignazio Silone, (Pescina, 1^st May 1900 – Geneva, Switzerland, 22^nd August 1978), was the pseudonym of Secondino Tranquilli, an Italian writer.

[7] Italian text from the Emergency Exit by Ignazio Silone, the chapter entitled Encounter with a strange priest. Cf. CLISSOLD, S., Some Call it Providence. Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd., London, 1980, p. 107.

[8] Letter to Abbot Emanuel Caronti. Buenos Aires, 17^th March 1937. Cf. PAPASOGLI, G., A Life of Don Orione, Sons of Divine Providence, London, 2000, pp. 416 – 417.

[9] Letter to Contess Dolores Cobo de Marchi di Cellere. Rio de Janeiro, 10^th April 1937. Scritti 51, 147 and 51, 248