My dear friends, if you have never met a patient man, then I will present one to you today. He is none other than Bd. Joseph Allamano. Usually, the saints are known to have various key qualities, which identify their being. It was not until recently however, that I discovered this particular aspect of the founder of the Consolata Missionaries and the Consolata Missionary Sisters: patience.
By Jonah Makau *
If you wish, you may even call him the saint of patience. Well, according to Oxford dictionary, patience is the capacity to accept or to tolerate delay, problems or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious. This is a special gift from God, which consists of both understanding and hope. In other words, understanding that trials are a part of life and the hope of a better tomorrow. In truth, patience is very crucial in life, because sometimes salvation is a matter of timing. Or better, there are certain situations, in which solutions appear to those who are patient enough to wait for the right moment. That’s why people say “to lose patience, is to lose the battle”.
Fr. Allamano’s tests of patients began at a young age. As a young man, he was always sickly. Many times, he was forced to go out of school for some time to recover, before returning to continue his dream of becoming a priest. Those tough moments, which could have easily ended his aspiration, became moments of waiting direction from the Lord. Even after finishing formation and becoming a priest, Fr. Allamano in whatever he did, demonstrated his capacity to put things in the hands of God and to wait. Although he would have preferred to be an assistant parish priest somewhere in a remote parish, when he was asked to go to the seminary, he accepted immediately. His waiting was rewarded with appointment to the Consolata shrine as a rector, a position that was far much better and significant in his life than what he had dreamt of. In any case, not being able to become what he had wished for at the beginning was also a lesson: Patience does not mean that at the end God has to do what we wish. We are the ones who are supposed to be open to the will of God.
The test of Fr. Allamano’s patience did not end there. When he began thinking of starting the Missionary Institute, his idea was to found it in 1891. His effort to start the Missionary Institute however, encountered a series of obstacles, which demanded the exercise of patience for 10 years. First, there was the death of Cardinal Alimonda, who was the archbishop of Turin at that time. That was followed by the death of Cardinal Simeoni, the prefect of Propaganda Fide at the time. As if that was not enough, Cardinal Miecislaus Ledochowski, who took over from Cardinal Simeon at the Propaganda Fide, dismissed Fr. Allamano’s idea, saying that there were already too many missionary institutes in Italy at that time. In addition, the death of Archbishop of Davide Riccardi, who had taken over the diocese after the death of Cardinal Alimonda in Turin, blocked the dream of Fr. Allamano to be a founder.
As his hope of finally being a founder was beginning to sprout again, after the appointment of Bishop Richelmy his friend as the Bishop of Turin, in 1900, Fr. Allamano fell so ill that everyone believed that he was dying. It was only after that last test he managed to found the Consolata Missionary Institute, which we are so proud of today. Without noticing it however, ten years had already gone by. It would take another ten years to make the existence of the Consolata Missionary Sisters a reality.
With the Missionary Institute founded, Fr. Allamano had to patiently mould it from Turin, since his health could not allow him to travel to Africa. It was a lesson of being patient with himself. Organising things from the Consolata shrine, animating benefactors who shared his dream from his little office, and encouraging the missionaries in Africa, became his daily duty to the Institute. The difficulty of seeing the young Institute struggle to grow needed a great deal of patience and faith. By the time he left the world to go to heaven in 1926, the Lord had shown him the fruits of his patience: the institute that began with 4 people going to Africa, was now a recognised missionary and religious family in the church, and the Consolata Sisters had long replaced the Cottolengo Sisters who had initially accompanied the Consolata Missionaries.
Certain of his holiness, in 1944, the two Institutes (Consolata Missionary Institute and the Consolata Missionary Sisters), began his cause of beatification. The informative process however took seven years, ending in 1951. For some reason, the apostolic process did not start immediately. It had to wait until 1955. As if the test on patients had not been completed in his lifetime, Fr. Allamano’s process of beatification dragged on. The apostolic process took 35 years, ending at his beatification in 1990. As the saying goes, “everything comes to us at the right time”. Unfortunately, we are not the ones who decide that right time.
So, even after his beatification in 1990, Fr. Allamano had to wait another 29 years before the process of canonization could be initiated. It is now five years into the process of canonization, and it seems that the 20th of October this year (2024), will be the crowning day of what has been one great lesson of patience. May through the prayer and intercession of our founder, we too become patient people, tolerant people and lenient people. Amen.
* Fr. Jonah M. Makau, IMC, is taking a course of postulation in Rome.
