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A MODEL OF SPIRITUAL FATHERHOOD
Sr Giuseppina Alberghina, sjbp |
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Testo e Audio:
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Trascrizione
Don Giacomo Alberione
UT PERFECTUS SIT HOMO DEI, I, n. 344 e seguenti
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ESP -
ENG
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Testo: |
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Direttore spirituale, in
Don Giacomo Alberione
DONEC FORMETUR CHRISTUS IN VOBIS, n. 80
ITA -
ESP -
ENG |

A MODEL OF SPIRITUAL FATHERHOOD
Sr Giuseppina Alberghina, sjbp
In times of crisis
of fatherhood blessed James Alberione presents himself to us as an
authentic father in the Spirit, a model of that very rare and much
sought for spiritual fatherhood. He has been a father who has
spiritually generated not only many sons and daughters, but even
many fathers and mothers in the Spirit. And he has been a guide for
many because he has recognized the need to be guided in his journey
to God by a spiritual father who he always obeyed, in the certainty
that only in that way he would be able to accomplish the will of God
in his regard..
He knew that only the one who knows the traps, the difficulties and
the immense spaces of the Spirit because he has experienced them,
becomes an expert in guiding others.
Barely a year
after his priestly ordination, Alberione was named spiritual father
of the seminarians of Alba, a duty that he carried out for about 10
years
with great dedication and responsibility, drawing from his
experience as a spiritual son, receiving and living out the gift of
discernment of spirits and wisdom in counselling.
In the wake of the
great spiritual tradition of the Church
also our Founder has affirmed many times the importance of being
guided in the ways of God. On the matter he dedicates a whole
meditation during the month-long Course of Spiritual Exercises in
1960: “Spiritual direction forms part of pastoral ministry: it is
the individual care of souls; it comes from the miision indicated
and exercised by the Divine Master (…). It is the pastoral art of
guiding souls gradually, from the beginnings of the spiritual life
until the highest perfection, according to the respective vocation
and gifts and graces of each one”.
Blessed Alberione
has always had clear in his mind the goal towards which to
accompany the persons that give themselves to his guidance:
Christformity or conformity to Christ, Master, Shepherd, Way,
Truth and Life. Using language borrowed from the spirituality of his
time but with a stamp all his own, Alberione reproposed to his
spiritual children what the great Fathers of the first millenium
called the divinization of man.
He helped and supported them so they would allow themselves to be
moulded by the Holy Spirit, the author of Christification.
In his
ministry as guide our Founder had three
great models:
1.
The apostle Paul,
who he
considered as the inspirer of all his life and work. What fascinated
most Alberione was the relation of Paul with Christ, a relation so
rich that it allowed the Apostle to create new terms for the faith
and for the spiritual life. Alberione borrows from the mystical
experience of Paul
the description of the spiritual life, expressed by 9 verbs “Christ
alone lives, thinks, operates, loves, wills, prays, suffers, dies,
and rises in us”.
In Donec Formetur, Alberione uses as title and subtitle the
testimony of the spiritual fatherhood of Paul: “My children, for
whom I’m undergoing again the pains of giving birth till Christ be
formed in you...” (Gal 4, 19).
2.
Ignatius of
Loyola, who was
the inspirer of Alberione in that discernment of the spirits needed
by every true spiritual father. The Donec Formetur, in fact,
a decisive text for the Pauline formation written by Alberione in
1932, is modeled on the method of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises
even if the latter are again presented with a very original touch
proper of Alberione.
3.
The Canon Francesco Chiesa,
who not only was his spiritual father for many years, but “carried
out a front role in the formation of James Alberione and later of
the Pauline Family. He was endowed with a special intuition in
understanding the needs of the times and the urgent need to use
all the means of progress and technology for the service of the
truth and the Gospel”
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The very rich
experience of Alberione, guide in the Spirit, in great part still
unexplored, tells us that it is not enough to be only master,
director or accompanist, but one has to be a father, spiritually
generating children,
helping them to be born from on high and to grow until Christ is
formed in them.
The means
proposed by Alberione are the classic ones: first of all prayer,
as foundational relationship with Christ, in Christ and in the
Spirit, with the Father. This has a strongly Christocentric-Trinitarian
stamp. Daily review of our life in light of the Word, in the
context of the Eucharistic Visit and during meditation. Special
importance is given to the examination of conscience at three
moments of the day to become aware of the work that the Spirit does
in our hearts and our resistance to it. Also interesting is the
suggestion to have a small diary on which to draft some
summary notes to be checked up monthly with the spiritual father.
There is also much wisdom in the insistence of the Founder for the
recitation of frequent invocations, called ejaculations, that
have the function of keeping awake the remembrance of God,
the continuous feeling of his Presence.
On the frontline
is assiduous partecipation in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and
Eucharist as indispensable condition for a Christian life that aims
to attain the full stature of Christ.
All of this
is for the staretz
Alberione, spiritual work, that full collaboration with the
activity of the Spirit in us that lies at foundation of the Pauline
vocation. In the prayer of the Pact he invites that we ask for the
multiplication of the fruits of our spiritual work, meaningfully
placed before everything else: study, apostolate, poverty.
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