384 - I WILL DIE WITH MY YOUNG BOYS

First Encounter with Father Piamarta - By Pier Giordano Cabra

Chapter Five

1. Monsignor Pietro Capretti came from a rich family, but had decided to live poorly, with his “poor clerics”. He gave his worldly goods to aspiring priests who could not afford to pay for their studies. He was a cultured man, generous, prudent and respected by the main people of the city among whom were Blessed Giuseppe Tovini and Giorgio Montini, father of the future Paul the VI. Father Piamarta went to San Cristo, the seminary where Monsignor Capretti lived, to speak with him about his intended project. They got along well and quickly became friends. Soon they had agreed to found a place which could receive orphans and poor children and teach them a job. They would follow the example of Ludovico Pavoni who, some years before, had founded the first printing press school in Italy. However, they disagreed on the method: enthusiastic Piamarta, wanted to build it big right away; prudent Capretti wanted to start smaller. Capretti spoke to the Bishop about their plan.

2. Just as the project was becoming a reality, an appointment suddenly came to Father Piamarta to become Pastor of Pavone Mella in the fertile Po valley thirty kilometers from Brescia. The Bishop needed a strong man for that Parish. Protests and discontent came to the Curia from the pastor and the parishioners of Saint Alessandro; they did not want to lose their Parish Priest. He too was sad, maybe more so than everybody else. Along with the appointment as Pastor of Pavone Mella, Father Piamarta received the assignment to go at times into the city to start his intended work with the orphans. He understood that his project was not realized, because it took the full-time abnegation of more than one person to build it. Saints however, know that in their trials Our Lord is asking them to step back and let Him do the work. Although often obscure, God's ways are always sure. The Saints trust more in the might of God than in their feeble strength. So Father Piamarta decided: “I will obey and leave the rest to Our Lord who will accomplish His plans better than I. If the work is from Him, nothing and no one will stop Him.

3. In Pavone Mella the new Pastor lost no time, provoking controversy as well as arousing support. Just as applause did not puff him up, so also opposition did not deter him.

4. He took care of the poor, was severe with abuses, took a strong stance against the arrogant, and was affable and friendly toward the humble. His most famous trip to Brescia took place on the third of December 1886, when he celebrated his first Mass for orphans. Four were in attendance. This was the official date of the beginning of the Artigianelli Institution. After that a successions of griefs began. First, a request came from the Bishop to quit as a Pastor and devote himself to this new work, yet after a short while a decision came from the same Bishop to abandon the institution, because Monsignor Capretti was experiencing financial difficulties and there was no money for the project.

5. Father Piamarta answered the bishop: “With your permission, your Excellency, I desire to die with my boys”. The Bishop looked at him and perceived in those words more than personal desire. He saw the voice of the Spirit who creates new things and blesses them. “May Our Lord assists you” he told Father Piamarta. From that moment the Pastor was alone; he had to think about everything. He knew he had no money, but he was sure he was starting a work which Our Lord wanted him to do for His needy children. He began anew, working with faith.

6. The third of December was not only the birthday of the Artigianelli Institution, but also the day when Father Piamarta became “Father” Piamarta in a deeper way. It was only natural for these first four boys with their four empty bowls to call him, “Father”. Realizing they had no one else, the word “Father” came spontaneously from the heart of these boys—“Father”, because he provided them food for both body and the spirit. His successors, who, like him, answered “yes” to the invitation to dedicate their lives to the young would also be called “Fathers”.

Traduzione a cura di Mary Levine e Matteo Toschi