SAINT  PAUL  AND FR. ALBERIONE
Sr. Filippa Castronovo, fsp

Premise  

Fr. Rolfo, a Pauline of the first hour, two years after the death of blessed Alberione, writes: “To saint Paul Fr. Alberione entrusted the projects that he had in mind, so that on 8 December 1917 the cleric Giaccardo could catch from his lips this very significant phrase: ‘It’s not my merit that I have opened the house, but the merit of Saint Paul’”.[1]

The texts of Alberione that talk of Paul are so many. We pause, in particular, on the charismatic text Abundantes divitiae (AD) that is full of references to saint Paul. The critical edition of 1998 indicates 37 themes around the figure of the apostle. In AD 2, that is like an ouverture of our charismatic history, Alberione seems to affirm that Paul has chosen us, while in AD 64 it seems that it is Alberione who chooses Paul. N. 43 affirms that there was a double element about nature and grace so well harmonized between them that it is not possible anymore to distinguish them.  “On one hand the choice of Paul corresponded ‘to the intimate psychological and spiritual process’ of the life of Alberione; on the other there was the mystical touch of saint Paul, understood and valued with faith” (Giovanni Roatta).  

Paul has chosen us, even generated us 

“… all should consider as father, master, model and founder only Saint Paul the Apostle. In fact, that is what he is. Because of him [the family] was born, was nourished and made to grow by him, took the spirit from him “ (AD 2). A conviction repeated with force and clarity in other texts.  “He (saint Paul) made himself the Society of St. Paul of which he is the Founder. It’s not the Society of St. Paul that elected him, but he that elected us; even generated us: ‘in Christ Jesus, by means of his Gospel, I have generated you’” (SP, October 1954). Alberione considers his rapport with Paul the ‘devotion’ at the roots, indispensable, of the fatherhood/sonship type. He affirms that Paul is the father of the whole Pauline Family. He wanted it, even generated it, as a father generates  his son. And she must make him alive by her manner of interpreting the Master and accomplishing her mission. 

“Saint Paul the Apostle is our Father, Master, Protector. He has done everything. This is called the Work of Saint Paul….”. The life of the Pauline Family comes from the Eucharist, but it is communicated by Saint Paul... He made himself this family by an intervention so physical and spiritual that not even now, reflecting upon it, can we understand it well and much less explain it...The Pauline Family must be Saint Paul living today, according to the mind of the Divine Master”.[2]

There is no doubt that the Pauline Family was born of the Eucharist on the night that divided the centuries. It remains for us as the womb from which we have been drawn and the fountain that nourishes us. Alberione explains, however, that Paul is the guide in this vital rapport with Jesus   who loves and in the Eucharist continues to give his life. Paul communicates as to how to live   Eucharistically (with complete dedication ).  

Alberione has chosen Paul: he seemed to him to be truly the apostle 

In AD 64, Alberione affirms that it was he himself who chose Paul and he mentions the reasons:

“Saint Paul: the saint of universality. His admiration and devotion began especially from his study and meditation of the Letter to the Romans… He seemed to him to be truly the Apostle: therefore every apostle and apostolate could take from him. To Saint Paul was the Family consecrated. To Saint Paul is also attributed the recovery of the P.M.” (AD 64).

The Letter to the Romans allowed him, as it happened to great saints like Saint Augustine, to enter into the heart of the apostle of the Gentiles. What fascinates him is the fact that Paul unifies mystical experience: sanctity, the heart, intimacy with Jesus with reflection: his work in dogmatics and morals and with deep and universal missionary action: organization and zeal for all peoples. In one of his meditations on the Letter to the Romans he specifies that it is the model of our apostolate  because it teaches us to put on Jesus Christ. It shows us Paul who adapts the principles of the Gospel to the men of his time, particularly the pagans, focusing attention on the recipients. The apostle emerges with a heart full of zeal and love for those who are ignorant of Christ. Finally,  blessed Alberione invites to love saint Paul as did blessed Timothy Giaccardo who made of the Pauline letters his daily spiritual nourishment and then shared it with those to whom he preached.[3]

In the lines that we see in AD 64 we can, without forcing, glimpse a reminder of the three wheels of the Pauline cart: sanctity, study, and apostolate (cfr AD 100). Is poverty excluded? Considering that in Paul poverty is not material indigence but the availability of Christ to God and to the brethren by which  “from being rich he made himself poor in order to make us rich with his poverty” (2Cor 8,9), it is the ‘wheel’ that allows sanctity, study, and apostolate to function well. The wheels of the Pauline cart represent the totality of the person in the fullness of his dynamism. Pauline poverty – for us it’s the fourth – means openness and availability to God and to the novelty that He introduces in history; it is the free gift of oneself to others in order to enrich them with life.  Poverty injects with dynamism the primacy of God in life (sanctity) that the person considers as the absolute wealth and remains in His presence with a humble and penitent heart. With regard to study,  poverty is the active hope of the poor person who keeps his eyes and ears attentive so as to better his situation. With regard to the apostolate, it pours again the fruits of the primacy given to God and of study that facilitates progress in the various areas of spiritual/apostolic commitment done in the presence of God and with great availability and openness of spirit. 

An apostolic sanctity and a holy apostolate

In the course of years, fearing almost that his children would forget the ‘quality that must distinguish them’, Fr. Alberione remembers: 

“Before putting the Institute under the protection of saint Paul the Apostle, we prayed much. We wanted a saint that excelled in sanctity and at the same time was an example of apostleship.  Paul united in himself sanctity and apostolate” (SdC 463).

It is amazing to note that already since 1916, to the young boys who had followed him, he had said: 

“Here is the quality that must distinguish you: to help your neighbor in his salvation: to help them in a way that is fitting to the needs of the times and according to the aptitudes of each one. In this you only have to imitate the great apostle S. Paul who spared nothing for the salvation of souls” (Appunti regolamento 1916, 5/2). 

An unpublished mission: the apostolate of the editions 

            Moved by love and contrary to the Jewish mentality that did not make disciples, Paul goes out of Tarsus in order to reach everybody, without exclusion of race, language and culture. Alberione lives in 1900 the passion for souls that Paul lived during his time. Like Paul living today,  he had the courage to affirm that the Gospel goes announced to all and with all modern means, to say that preaching is not only the one proclaimed in church from the pulpit for the usual practicing Christians, but also the one that is written. From this, the novelty with regard to the priest writer and the apostolate of the press. More than a novelty, it is a faithful interpretation of Paul living today. Writes Alberione:

“Remember how our Congregation was born through the action of God...The essence of the apostolate in general is editorial work. But in our Congregation as it is established, editorial work,  the technical aspect and propaganda are three elements that make up the single apostolate. The apostolate makes us loudspeakers of God....Saint Paul thought out his letters and dictated them,  reserving to himself to sign them, good Christians multiplied them, copying them, and good Christians spread them. He exercised a true apostolate of the Editions”.[4] 

Paul, the disciple who knows and lives the Master

In AD 159, Alberione shows all his fascination as to how Paul knows Jesus and lives in him.  Alberione, looking at Paul, introduces a new concept of disciple and discipleship. Disciple is he who makes his own the paschal mystery of Jesus and follows his way with the same sentiments (Phil 2,5). Knowing how to give one’s life is the criterion that checks the quality of discipleship. The Jesus of blessed Alberione and Paul has nothing of the romantic or sugary, but is the Christ who gives his life. He is not therefore a master to be admired or feared, but the Son of God who  thanks to his death and resurrection, grafts himself to us to transform us into Himself, send us to the world in his place and with his style of loving that has its high point and verification in the Eucharist. Alberione has before him the crucified Christ who transmits his thirst for souls and  mobilizes missionary energies:

“Feel the divine thirst for souls as Jesus Christ felt it; make known the dogmatic, moral and liturgical doctrine of Jesus Christ, making use of the fastest and most fruitful means; to be progressive and to feel progressiveness in Christ and in the Church. There are souls that are waiting! As much as it depends on us, let no one miss the divine light. It is the life of saint Paul; it is to feel that ‘Christ the Apostle lives in me!. It is to accompany in her difficult walk today the Church. Always straining forward: like Christ the propagandist, like Paul the roamer of God” (SP, April 1949). 

Conclusion 

Saint Paul for Alberione is our father, model, exemplar, master (cfr AD 2, 354, 344). He is such because he lives a deep experience of Jesus Christ (AD 64), and is the believing disciple who makes his own the logic of gift (AD 159). He is the apostle (AD 64), the traveler of the Gospel (AD 117), open to the peoples (AD 64), organizer of the church (AD 64), writer (AD 64,94). His presence has been so visible that the recovery of the Founder is attributed to him (AD 64). For the PF it was salvation (AD 164).  

The charge for us today

Alberione, after having met the true Master and heard his voice,

1.      Like Paul, feels the interior duty to do something for the men of his time, lost amidst false and confusing doctrines.

2.      Like Paul, he feels that he is debtor to all, that he is sent in particular to him who searches for the truth in darkness and  as it were gropingly, to give “to all the charity of Truth”, that Truth that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ Master and Pastor, the Way, the Truth and the Life. The mission is not to ‘bring about great enterprises’ but to make visible the deep love of Jesus. A creative love that ‘invents’ in varying situations the suitable way so that the Gospel may ‘touch the heart’ of persons. (cfr Acts 16,14). In his book  Apostolato delle Edizioni, Alberione affirms that we must feel the apostolate like Paul who lived the art of making himself all to all, and he explains that the secret of his adapting is charity, because he had a big heart, guided souls to God and gave God to souls.

3.      Like Paul, Fr. Alberione wants to communicate the greatest good that first with him has filled with meaning and light his life: the good tidings that God has so loved the world as to give his Son Jesus as Way, Truth and Life! 

4.      Like Paul, Fr. Alberione, the poor apostle, uses all the possibilities that are available to him: instruments, strategies and persons that search for the Lord, to enlarge the horizons of the mission. 

            From such a renewed awareness, his consignment to us receives greater responsibility:

            “His doctrine is very profound, vast, is never exhausted and adapts itself to all times and places. For us his children it would be a shame if we did not know our Father! Among Catholics who study saint Paul, there are many who are learned. There are many institutions named after saint Paul. We must be the most affectionate towards him. When in a family the children love their father, the whole family journeys well”.[5]