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.[1]. 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[2] 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[3] 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”[4].

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[5]. 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[6] the description of the spiritual life, expressed by 9 verbs “Christ alone lives, thinks, operates, loves, wills, prays, suffers,  dies, and rises in us”[7]. 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)[8].  

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[9]. 

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”[10] . 

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[11], 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[12] 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.