By Corazon Damo-Santiago
On September 25, 1897, Fr. Luigi Orione wrote: “Dear Fr. de Filippi, not 10 minutes ago, at this very room in which I am writing to you, I conversed for about half an hour with your nephew, Felice de Filippi. Felice is praying much for us. Let us be consoled.”
Grace of recognition
Father Orione was aware that he was conversing with a dead student. Felice warned him about an arrangement to be made in the school. He counseled Orione about the confession of young people, too.
It was eight months ago when Father Orione dreamt of Felice, one of his students. He was sleeping at the kitchen of Colegio de Santa Chaira with his head rested on a table when he shook violently and he cried in fright.
The next day, Father Orione related the incident to his class in Saint Bernardine Estate, a boarding school for poor boys, without naming the boy.
Felice, a member of the class, heard the lecture. The following Monday, he got sick, suffered convulsions and became agitated. His sickness became worse and he died.
Realpresence.org. concluded the story of Orione’s precognition with the burial of Felice in Mornico, Losana, during a snowstorm.
Works of charity
Saint Luigi Aloysius Orione was born on June 23, 1872, in Peidmont, Pontecurone, Northern Italy. As a young boy, he desired to be a religious, and at 13, entered the Franciscan Friary of Voghera, now Pavia.
He stopped schooling due to ill health and in 1886 was accepted in Valdocco Oratory in Turin under Don Bosco.
He left the Salesians and entered the seminary in the Diocese of Tortona on October 16, 1889. As a seminarian he was involved with San Mariano Society for Mutual Help and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.
He opened the first oratory in Tirona for the Christian training of boys on July 13, 1892.
While still a seminarian, he started a boarding school for poor boys in Saint Bernardine Estate.
At 23, he was ordained a priest by the bishop, while six pupils of Saint Bernardine Boarding School were given clerical habit.
A charismatic personality, people flocked to him. The priests, seminarians, lay brothers and hermits became the core group of Workers of Divine Providence.
In 1903 Pope Pius X, now a saint, issued his first encyclical Supremi Apostolatus on the sad state of the human race “that mankind now, more than ever, is stricken with an acute illness—apostasy from God.”
The pope’s motto of “renewing all things into Christ, under divine guidance” prompted him to write an encyclical on modernism, De Modernist Arum Doctrines, to confute the theories against modernism—of the modernist philosopher, believer, theologian, critical historian, apologist and reformer.
These concerns interest Father Orione. The problems of the times—“freedom and unity of the church, modernism, socialism and Christian Evangelization of industrial workers”—among others.
“Only charity will save the world,” a phrase beneath his statue in Rome, describes his lifelong concern.
Divine Providence congregations
Father Orione was appointed Vicar General of Messina by Saint Pius X. In 1903 the congregation Little Works of Divine Providence was canonically approved.
This congregation was made up of Sons of Divine Providence composed of priests and brothers. The Little Missionary Sisters of Charity was founded on June 29, 1915. It is supported by two contemplative orders: Hermits of Divine Providence and Blind Sacramentine Sisters.
Lay men and women formed the Don Orione Lay Movement.
Father Orione fostered devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and, for love of her, he built through manual labor of seminarians, the Shrine of Our Lady of Safekeeping in Tortona and Our Lady of Carravagio at Fumo.
On March 9, 1940, he went to Sanremo House to ease the pains of his lungs and heart. On March 12 he died after sending a message to Pope Pius XII.
When his body was exhumed in 1965, it was found incorrupt. The body is in the Shrine of Our Lady of Safekeeping in Tortona.
He was beatified on October 26, 1980, and canonized on May 16, 2004, by Pope John Paul II.
“Do good to all, evil to none,” is the dictum that members of Saint Luigi Aloysius Orione follow, serving today in 300 foundations in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South Africa.
Saint Orione’s devotees are involved in schools, hostels for workers, hospitals, day and learning disabilities centers, homes for the elderly, sick, blind and disabled.
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Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and of Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons