A Spirituality of Service

The impact of Bishop Scalabrini’s initiatives raised questions on the motives that inspired him. “Scalabrini presents himself, rather than as a political agitator, in the guise of an apostle of the Gospel... he does not want people to say that the Italian priest closes himself into ascetical egoism, is disinterested in social questions that so heavily worry humanity.”³⁶ It is love that prompts Bishop Scalabrini to act in the hard world of neglect and exploitation of the migrants. The foundation is faith: “It is certain that for these undertakings faith is needed; and we have it and were never disillusioned,” he noted in an interview to the newspaper Corriere della Sera in 1901.³⁷ A sense of compassion and the will to find practical and effective solutions were pushing him to act with urgency and intensity, but without falling into activism. For Bishop Scalabrini the priority and deep resource of the apostolate of the missionary for migrants is the awareness of being called to share in the redeeming work of Christ and of remaining united with Him. “As long as you will remain in Him,” he writes to his missionaries, “you will feel full of superhuman energy and the fruit that you will gather cannot be but plentiful and lasting.... And you will obtain this union by nourishing your faith by continued exercises of piety and by keeping grace alive in your hearts.”³⁸ In the letters to the missionaries there is often the insistent reminder of the necessity of meditation and prayer, of trust in God and holiness. “If you and I,” Bishop Scalabrini writes to Fr. Zaboglio, “do not become saints, our work will crumble or will turn out useless or almost irrelevant.” “It is certain that our work will be blessed by Heaven, if we will deserve it with the holiness of our lives and complete trust in God.”³⁹ The contemplative

dimension of missionary life is structured by Bishop Scalabrini around some essential points: faith, union with God, the mystery of the cross, the imitation of Christ, and the glory of God. On the other hand, his is a spirituality incarnated in the every day life of pastoral service so that the points of reference become poverty, union with the fellow missionaries, the bishops and the Pope, obedience to religious superiors and generosity in the ministry to migrants. Thus “the missionaries must be completely detached from worldly things,” Bishop Scalabrini says, “and in their work should seek everything for others and nothing for themselves.” He sets the ideal of the missionary in the priests who offered their work for the Italian missions and fell in the field. “The first two,” Bishop Scalabrini recalls, “were Father Giuseppe Molinari of Piacenza and Father Domenico Mantese of Vicenza, who both died because of labors and hardships, martyrs of the ideal.”⁴⁰ Another example is Father Giuseppe Marchetti dead at 28 years in São Paulo, Brazil, founder of the Italian orphanage Christopher Columbus and co-founder of the Scalabrinian Sisters, called by Bishop Scalabrini a “heroic . . . true martyr” of charity.⁴¹ The challenge was forming missionaries who, in a context of emargination and poverty, could continue to promote the spiritual and social welfare of the migrants knowing that “through the road of Calvary one goes to Heaven,” by accepting “the adorable plans of God,” by persevering “with noble and holy zeal,” and by observing the Rules with precision so that “all could spread the good fragrance of Christ.”

In the 1895 Rules Bishop Scalabrini outlines a synthesis between action and contemplation in the life of his missionaries among migrants: “The Missionary, as a Gospel worker, must recall he is obliged to spread with his life the good fragrance of Christ, to preach the Gospel more with his example than with words.... They will place as a foundation of their actions the great principle: not to exert themselves in their Apostolic Ministry so much as to neglect interior life, and not to indulge in the sweetness of interior life so much as to neglect the exercise of the Apostolic Ministry.”⁴²