Jose Antonio Varela offers Exaudi’s readers this article entitled “Blessed James Alberione: A Visionary of Communication in the Church,” on the Pauline Family’s commemoration of the 50 years since his death.
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When one visits San Lorenzo di Fossano, a lovely village in the Italian region of Piedmont, one comes across something that is a characteristic of the man of God, Father James Alberione. We are referring to its smallness.
And this feature is visible. A clear example is the small house where the Founder of the Pauline Family was born in 1884, and where he grew up and shared the warmth of the home with his parents and siblings, although it was only 30 square meters, a space that accommodated the whole family.
This is why it’s no surprise that, after visiting him on his deathbed on November 26, 1971, Saint Pope Paul VI commented that he was moved by the austerity in which Father Alberione lived, to whom years earlier he had conferred the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice” medal for his valuable service to the Church.
Start from Little
Today, 50 years after his death, hundreds of his Religious, inspired by his charism and spread in some 70 countries over five Continents, confirm his vision, expressed in his many writings. One of his principal ideas was that everything should be as it was in Bethlehem, given that from very little, a tree can grow with fruits, as the Pauline Family is today, with its ten apostolic branches.
Those branches have reached the entire world, in an apostolate that itself was a novelty, although not understood for a long time, as was the use of the means of social communication in the Church’s pastoral ministry.
Father Alberione saw clearly that they had to use newspapers and magazines, films, radio, and television, as well as books and the widespread of the Bible for all ages. It was an inspired projection, which his Religious would subsequently extend to videos, CD’s and multimedia, to which must be added today their presence on the Internet in various ways. The universal Church is very grateful to the Pauline Religious and Sisters. This is due to the fact that, through their bookstores, the Religious offer contents brought from their own Publishers and other Publishing Houses, for the benefit of students, professors and faithful in general.
A Prophet Going Forth
Half a century since his decease, Blessed Alberione’s body, which was kept in an artfully decorated urn by a Sister of the Pious Disciples of the Divine Master — a religious branch founded by him –, was taken from the crypt to the central floor of Rome’s Queen of Apostles Basilica.
Carried by his spiritual sons, and under the emotional gaze of all of them, as well as of the Pope’s Vicar for Rome, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis –, the urn made its solemn entrance in the church, which should be his last dwelling.
It’s important to highlight — for those that don’t know his real greatness — that Blessed James Alberione was an enterprising man, which led him to offer the world and the Church indispensable Foundations, colossal works, and successful industries, which were and are the admiration of the entire world.
He gave journalists a “spirituality that can give meaning to the life of every publisher of God,” according to the words of the present Superior General, Father Valdir Jose De Castro, published in a recent interview with Exaudi Catholic News Agency.
And for his Religious, he was “a model of consecration, who sought to live sanctity united to Jesus,” added Father De Castro.
His urn having now been placed at the base of the altar of Jesus Teacher, Way, Truth and Life, of the mentioned Italian Basilica, will be able to be venerated as a model and inspiration for today’s “artisans of communication,” who today more than ever, and with Alberione’s inspiration, seek to “go forth” taking Christ’s message through the fastest and most effective means of communication.
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
