Andres R. Arboleda, Jr., ssp
The Venerable Giacomo Alberione:
        humble and silent servant of the Church

Introduction

         Two testimonies further establish the fact that we already know: the Venerable Don Giacomo Alberione, our Founder, was, undoubtedly a humble and silent servant of the Church.

         The first testimony is that of Fr. Enrico Baragli, S.J. (San Paolo, Nov. 2001, p. XII): “At the end of the first part of the Council, the discussion on the Inter Mirifica began. I remembered his intervention at the General Congress of the States of Perfection (if I am not wrong, in the year 1960); I knew that, in the broad pre-conciliar consultation willed by John XXIII, he had sent a “vow” on the subject; I knew him as Founder and the spirit behind half a dozen religious families dedicated to the apostolate of the press, cinema, radio-television and discs, with at least fifty years of experience, by now global, on his shoulder; I told myself: this is the moment for him to draw the eyes of two thousand fathers towards that little corner at the second row of the right stage! Instead, no.  He did not speak a single word. And he did not speak either during the second period when Inter Mirifica was about to get shipwrecked.

“It was some months later that Don Alberione broke his silence on the matter when he wrote, ‘The Holy See, the Bishops, the religious and secular clergy, the laity and all the faithful must pay attention to the press, television and the like. In numerous documents of the Pope, these have been largely, occasionally and expressly, discussed. Now it has been discussed, clarified, and defined by the Ecumenical Council II, representing the whole Church, with the present Pope, ‘who approved, decreed, established…’” 

         The second testimony is that of Pope Paul VI in his speech during the audience with the Pauline Family in the month of June, 1969:

         “Then you understand Us: we owe to your founder, here present, the dear and venerable Don Giacomo Alberione, the formation of your monumental institute. In the name of Christ, We want to thank him and we bless him. Here he is: humble, silent, untiring, ever vigilant, always recollected in his thoughts that run from prayer to work (according to the traditional formula, ‘ora et labora’), always intent to scrutinize the ‘signs of the times,’ that is, the most ingenious form of reaching souls, our dear Don Alberione has given to the Church new instruments to express herself, new means to give vigor and broadness to her apostolate, new capacity and new awareness of the validity and of the possibility of her mission in today’s world and with modern means.”

         Even if only on these two testimonies, we can already affirm that our Founder was, undeniably, “a humble and silent servant of the Church.”

         What matters for us, however, is to better understand this attitude not only because it was our Founder’s but because it seems to me it belongs to that style of life that remains valid also today: to be humble and silent servants of the Church is still a quality every Pauline has to possess…

         First of all, however, I would like to share with you one thing I noticed. In calling people for missions, God, in the Bible, follows a manner of doing things, a style that makes us wonder. This we can see in detail in the narration of the Annunciation of Jesus’ Birth to Mary (Lk 1:26-38).

         The first step begins with God who reveals himself or makes his presence felt in an overwhelming manner. In the case of Our Lady, this moment was when the Angel appeared to her and tells her, “Hail, full of grace!” and fills her with a totally new and unexpected experience.

         The second step consists in God making a promise. In the case of Our Lady, the promise was her becoming a mother. God wanted that she became the Mother of the Messiah.

         This promise becomes an invitation, a call from God...

         God, however, stops at this point and it is as if he would expect a reply from the person called.

         In the case of Our Lady, she answers (Lk 1:38): “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done unto according to your word.”

         From this experience, Our Lady’s life assumes a definite direction and establishes a relationship, a dialogue, with God. This relationship/dialogue with God becomes the road that brings our Lady to the full accomplishment of God’s will which is manifested through time, according to the events that would take place—from how she should tell Joseph that she was pregnant before they lived together, to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, to the exile, until the cross, the resurrection, Pentecost and assumption.

         This manner of relating on the part of God—self-revelation, promise, call—and then reply of the person called is seen as well with the other personalities of the Bible, from Abraham, to Moses, to the prophets, and even up to St. Paul. Strangely, it is also repeated in the experience of saints in the Church.

         The path to holiness is the path of doing God’s will at the present moment of every person called. This will, however, is not recognized in a vacuum but in the concrete experience of every person called and begins with God who reveals himself, who expresses his promise who calls, to whom a person responds positively. Doing so, one establishes a concrete and real relationship between God and the person called. Living that relationship, the person called reaches that level of intimacy with God and we would also say also the holiness with which a person is known.

         As regards Don Alberione, it is in this context that we can better understand his being a humble and silent servant of the Church.

We know that having been born in a family of farmers in a rural area, it comes natural for Don Alberione to have those dispositions of humility and recollectedness. Aside from this, however, there are other more profound reasons.

         A key point, I believe, is his charismatic experience of 31 December 1900 of which he writes (AD 15):

         “He had a clear grasp of his own nothingness, while concurrently he experienced in the Eucharist “vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem saeculi,” and he could count on the Host, on Jesus, for light, nourishment, consolation and victory over evil.

         “Projecting himself mentally into the future he felt that in the new century generous people would experience what he was feeling; and that teamed up into an organization they could bring about, what Toniolo kept on repeating, ‘Unite; if the enemy finds you alone he will defeat us one by one.’” 

         Immediately here, we encounter a young Alberione who goes through a very personal experience of God. It is an experience that is so delicious and overwhelming that he stays in the church for four hours. We also see him before a great project—a call—that the Eucharist proposes to him. At the same time, he finds himself before his own personal nothingness.

         Here we can understand that Don Alberione’s humility was not focused on his own person but as a result of a confrontation between his too human self and the presence of God, of Jesus-Host and his project for him.

         Don Alberione saw in that call not only something he had to do but the presence of a God that did not only think of the lot of humanity at that time but also of a God who dared call a person so incapable of doing anything great. In short, he saw a God-Person drawing him into a dialogue, a relationship. We know too well that a real encounter with God always turns any person humble. And this becomes even humbler, more insignificant the more he sees the greatness of God and the greatness of the mission entrusted him.

         In the last analysis, Don Alberione had identified on that night of grace his mission in life. He did not know exactly what that mission was but he felt that it would involve many other persons who would feel the same as he did.

         He saw this mission in his life as a call that demanded a response from him, a full, unreserved positive response. He knew well that how he responds to the call his destiny in this life and in the other would depend.

“From then on these thoughts were the inspiration of his reading, his study, his prayer and the whole of his formation. This idea of his, which at first was quite confused, became clearer and with the passing of time became more specific” (AD 21).

         We see quite clearly that Don Alberione’s silence was not a silence that excluded reality that was outside his world of silence, as it often happens to us. When we want to be silent, we close ourselves in our room and we leave behind the noisy world.

         Don Alberione’s silence was the silence of a hunter who, seated still in a hidden place, waits for his prey. His prey was the revelation of God’s will he was ready to capture and then hold on to.

         His was therefore a silence that did not exclude the world but a silence that, amidst the noise of the world, sought God’s voice.

Here we are made to remember the Prophet Elijah (cf. Kgs 19:9-14). He scrutinized natural phenomena—strong wind, earthquake, fire—in order to identify the Lord’s presence. The Lord was not in these but in a gentle breeze.

Don Alberione’s silence was the silence of Elijah. It was not passive and closed in itself but open and ready for service. I could almost imagine Don Alberione as someone like that servant in the Psalms who is attentive to the gestures of his master in order to know what he could do to please him. Don Alberione’s silence was that of a person ready to respond to what his master would ask him: attentive and ready silence.

         His readiness to serve qualified his reply to that call that he identified. When he sees behind what has to get done—the person of God who loves and calls—to serve in whatever manner becomes a real pleasure and sacrifices make service more meaningful. At the same time the experience is so intimate and personal that one hesitates even to speak about it with other persons. Silence in fact is like a veil that covers and makes private those experiences that are too personal to expose to indiscrete eyes. It is not just a matter of shyness but a real respect to the more intimate experiences of the soul.

         Here we see a very original aspect in Don Alberione that now is a part of our spiritual heritage: in the last analysis, at the roots of his silence and capacity to serve, there exists a personal relationship between him and the Lord who revealed himself a number of times – the experience of that famous midnight and the revelation of that Ego vobiscum sum­­—as a person who wanted to establish a profound personal relationship with Don Alberione, a relationship that turned into a spirituality: that of Jesus Master, Way, Truth and Life.

         I see Don Alberione who related with God not as a person who approaches on tiptoes, but as a person who, fascinated by God who revealed himself on the personal level, finds so much pleasure in staying in his presence even if in a sacramental manner and finds joy in doing what he identifies as his will and hence as something that pleased this God.

         Although Don Alberione proved himself as an intelligent person, we see that in his relationship with God he manifested himself as a person with a great heart. In the contemplative silence of God, Don Alberione found joy. As he went ahead, he also found, within that great project that he had received as a young man, the steps to make. In fact, Don Alberione spoke of lights. The Lord brought light to him as he went ahead and when he needed it. His relations with God was dialogical, something that was not established once and for all but a relationship that had a beginning somewhere in his life but continued as he lived on. His relationship with God was a continuous becoming that required so much silent attention and readiness to serve.

         Don Alberione clarified for himself what could be God’s will for him from moment to moment but he never quite trusted his conclusions. He used to present whatever was his inspiration to his spiritual director and then he verified it with the teachings of the Church. This alone is enough to show us his humility as well as his willingness to render valid service to the Church.

         Then, when he saw the path and the ways with which he could please God, he entirely set himself to work. He felt certain and he did not bother to find out if the means were there or not. He felt so certain of the will of God that he heard in silence and he was certain that the Lord who sent him would provide for whatever he needed.    It seems to me that somehow we need to recover the same spirit that animated Don Alberione, the same spirit of silence and service that characterized his life. Perhaps this is reason enough for us to recover the original spirit that animated him and all his followers since the beginning…

 …….

Our reflection on Don Alberione’s silence and humility as a servant of the Church shall be valuable if it becomes for us an invitation, an example to follow, while we continue to live the same charism and the same spirit and apostolate of our Founder.

From the start, let us say that humility and silence are virtues that can be better understood in the context of relationship, in the context of a relationship between God who calls and a person who responds. They are not virtues that isolate a person from God and from the others. Instead, in the context of a relationship between God and the person, they become virtues that open into closer and more intimate relationships and to prospects that appeal to other persons and to the future.

Humility is a virtue that places in the right perspective the identity of the person before God. Don Alberione spoke of his nothingness before the grandeur of God who has honored him with such a grandiose vocation. Our Lady spoke of her being a servant. St. Paul spoke of himself as last of the apostles. HuHH

All this presupposes a reality that perhaps we tend to set aside or not to give its due importance: each one of us has had an experience of God somehow at some points of our lives similar to that of Don Alberione during the famous midnight at the turn of the century, if not similar to the experience of St. Paul on the road to Damascus or that of Our Lady at the annunciation of the birth of Jesus.

That experience of ours must have somehow given us a direction in our life and made us follow a path that perhaps we never even dreamed.

It was an experience of God that was manifested to us as a Person who loves us and a God who calls and places us in a path that leads to him. From here comes the awareness that we have been called for a mission, an apostolate that we share with other persons like us, who recognize the same father in Don Alberione.

It is the experience of God who loves and calls us and who unites us in one Pauline life. Surprised and marveled, we look at ourselves and say, “Look, I am a part of it all!”

It is then that we see our life in the context of relationship, of dialogue with
God alive in history and involves us in the work of salvation and holiness that Jesus has defined with his death and resurrection, a work that has become ours by vocation.

Obviously, this vision makes us realize that truly we are not worthy and that it is a great honor and source of great joy to be also called. It is then that our humility becomes that one suggested by the “Secret of Success.” It is not a humility that is closed into itself but a humility that tends towards the future. And then it is not a humility that is based on our comparing ourselves with others but one that comes from recognizing that even if we are not worthy or capable, the Lord has loved us and has given us a great and important mission to accomplish with our confreres.

The acceptance of all this brings us to want to serve, to want to thank God who is so generous and to correspond to his love with ours.

With this, we enter into dialogue with God, which, in turn, becomes a style of life for us. It is a dialogue between God who chose to love us and us who try to respond to that love not only on the emotional level but especially on the level of life, of deeds. Hence, we assume an attitude of continuing attentiveness and contemplation of this God whose succeeding calls we do not know how and when will come. We become like that attentive servant in the Psalms, ever watchful of the least gesture of his master so he could do his will and please him.

In effect, this is the reason why we have embraced the religious life and why we have wanted to give ourselves to God through the consecrated life and apostolate: we want to love God who has loved us first and we want to concretely express this love by living the religious life, the vows, and by engaging ourselves in our specific apostolate.

Let us see to it that our being religious and our activities are above all a response to the love and the call of God. Before all else, there is God who has loved us and called us to whom we respond with love and dedication to the consecrated life and apostolate. There is first our relationship with God and then all the rest follows.

It seems to me that during these years we have insisted so much on our mission, on the apostolate to the point of neglecting somehow the personal aspect of our vocation: God-person who calls us-persons to a life of perfection and holiness.

Many things have been formalized and defined so that we have become like those husbands who are so involved and worried about their being good husbands that they have placed on the sides their wives if not forgetting them completely. We have become so involved and worried about being good religious and apostles that we have become components of a preaching and production machinery of which, so it seems, even now we are losing control: printing presses are closed, vocations are diminishing, priests and disciples are no longer certain about their identities.

Now, our challenge, so it seems, is to recover this personal and relational dimension with God that should lead us to a more intimate life with Him, to see meanings in our being and doing wherever we are, at whatever age, at whatever state of health, and with whatever service being asked of us.

I think that we can call ourselves apostles of social communications not only   because we use the media but above all because we live a living, dialogical relationship, with God: God calls and we respond.

It is being like Moses in the desert. He used to enter the tent to meet God and listen to Him in order to know what direction he had to take in the journey towards the promised land, what to say and what to reply to the questions of the people in exodus.

When Moses left the tent, he knew what to say, what to proclaim to the people and he used the fastest means available to him to do it.

Then, strangely, the face of Moses changed and it showed the light of Yahweh to those who saw him.  

This living and dialogical relationship with God is not something abstract or purely personal. We believe that we follow Jesus Christ Way, Truth and Life present in history. It is he whom we ought to incarnate in our lives so we may give him to today’s world, to men of today, wherever we may find ourselves.

This is the ideal of every Pauline. It also is the ideal of every community. Being parts of the Church, Christ’s Mystical Body, as communities, let us ask ourselves what could be God’s will for us. This places us in an attitude of silent listening, of contemplation and attention to the movements of grace and to the signs of the times.

As community, let us welcome what could be the Lord’s will for us and let us set ourselves to do it the best we can, each in his own place as, precisely, is the case of the human body. And here, we find the essence of obedience.

Doing so, we precisely live that humility, the attitudes of silence and service of our Founder.

Being in continuing communication with God present in history, we become communicators to others of God’s truth, of his will and we become real prophets in today’s world. Like Moses, we speak with God in order to speak of him to men.

We exercise this prophetism above all through our specific apostolate, with the media, but not only with these. Our constitutions speak of the fastest means. We know that there is nothing more effective and efficient means than that of witnessing.

Then we remain open to the realities that surround us because God’s voice and his will do not exist in a vacuum. They are always bound with earthly realities. Every community then defines itself according to its own mission in the place where it is found. It leads its relationship with God according to the life conditions of the place wherein it is found and does the apostolate according to the specific mission entrusted to it.

A house where young people are being formed would certainly know what its main mission, the will of God, must be as a house taking care of bookstores would also know what its mission is. The will of God is closely identified with the mission of the house and community themselves.

All these would make sense if we remain true to the fact that Pauline life, on the personal and community level, is a life of communication with God who loves us and who calls us to accomplish a mission in the Church even if we recognize our unworthiness for such a mission. This is a point of endless wonder, a mystery and a point of encouragement for us also in these times when we are raising a lot of questions.

The image of the Ven. Don Giacomo Alberione, humble and silent servant of the Church, is like a beacon light for us who sail in the sea of religious life that has become troubled. Let us follow whatever light Don Alberione shows us.

 Andres R. Arboleda, Jr.ssp
arboleda@stpauls.it