Difficulties
The Hand of the Lord
Our chapel beside St Philomena’s Hospital was coming along nicely. On feast days, youngsters came in big numbers to make their Confessions and go to Holy Communion. After Mass there was a short explanation of the gospel. In the afternoon we had catechism lessons, hymn singing, a short instruction, the Litany of Our Lady, and Benediction. Various intervals were filled with games and amusements, which took place in the alley which still runs between the convent of the Little Magdalenes and the public road. We spent seven months there. We thought that we had found heaven on earth; then we had to leave our beloved asylum and go look for another.
Marchioness Barolo, though she cast a kindly eye on every charitable work, still, as the opening of her little hospital approached, the 10th August 1845, wanted our Oratory far away before then. It is true that the area we had been using had no internal communication with what was to be the chapel, the school, or the recreation centre. Even the shutters were fixed in place and turned upwards. None the less we had to obey.
We positively pestered the municipal government of Turin. Through the kind offices of Archbishop Fransoni, we were allowed to move our oratory to the church of St Martin of the Mills, or rather, to the public mills.
Imagine us then, on a July Sunday in 1845, making our way laden with benches, kneelers, candlesticks, some chairs, crucifixes, and pictures large and small. Everyone carried some object suited to his strength. We must have looked like emigrants on the move; with laughter and din and misgivings we marched out to establish our headquarters in the place just indicated.
Dr Borelli gave an appropriate talk before we set out and another when we arrived at our new church. That worthy minister of the sanctuary, who enjoyed a popularity more unique than rare, spoke these thoughts:
My dear boys, cabbages never form a big, beautiful head unless they are transplanted. The same is true of our Oratory. So far it has been moved from one place to another many times, but in the different places where it has stopped it has always grown bigger, with no little advantage to the boys involved. We started at St Francis of Assisi with catechism and a little singing. That was as much as we could do there. At the Refuge we made just a whistle stop, as train travellers say, so that our boys might receive spiritual help by way of Confession, catechism classes, sermons, and games during the months we were there.
There, beside the little hospital a real Oratory began, and we thought we had found true peace, a place suitable for us. But Divine Providence ordained that we had to move again and come here to St Martin’s. How long will we stay here? We don’t know. We hope we’ll be here a long time; but however long our stay, we believe that like transplanted cabbages, our Oratory will grow in the number of boys who love virtue, will increase their desire for music, singing, evening classes, and even day courses.
Will we be here long, then? We mustn’t let this thought worry us. Let’s throw all our worries into the Lord’s hands; he’ll take care of us. It’s certain that he blesses us, helps us, and provides for us. He’ll show us a good place for contributing to his glory and the good of our souls.
Now the Lord’s graces form a kind of chain with each link locked into the next; so if we turn to good account the graces he gives us, we are sure that God will grant us bigger graces. And if we fall in with the aims of the Oratory, we will progress from virtue to virtue, till we reach that blessed homeland where the infinite mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ will reward each of us as his good works deserve.
An immense crowd of youngsters attended that solemn ceremony, and a Te Deum of thanksgiving was sung with the greatest emotion.
We carried out our religious devotions as we had at the Refuge, though we could not celebrate Mass or give Benediction in the evening. This meant that the boys could not receive Holy Communion, which is the fundamental element to our institution. Even our recreations were often disturbed, broken up because the lads were forced to play in the street and in the little square in front of the church where a constant stream of people on foot, carts, horses, and carriages passed by. Since we had nothing better, we thanked heaven for what we had been given and hoped for some better spot.
But fresh problems fell upon us. The millers, their apprentices, and other employees could not put up with the jumping, the singing, and the occasional shouting of our pupils. They grew alarmed and agreed to lodge a complaint with the municipal government. It was then that people began to say that such meetings of youngsters were dangerous, that at any moment they could erupt in riots and revolution. This fear was founded on the prompt obedience with which the boys responded to every little order of the superior. Without any foundation, it was added that the boys were doing untold damage in the church, outside the church, on the pavement. It seemed that if we continued meeting there Turin must be ruined.
Our troubles came to a head when a secretary at the mills wrote a letter to the mayor of Turin. In it he included all the vague rumours and amplified the imagined damages. He said that the families connected with those businesses could not go about their duties in peace. He added, finally, that the Oratory was a hotbed of immorality.
Though the mayor was convinced that these charges were unfounded, he wrote a stiff letter ordering us to take our Oratory elsewhere at once. General disappointment, useless sighing! We had to go.
It is worth noting, however, that the secretary, whose name is Cussetti, author of that famous letter, never wrote anything else. He was suddenly stricken by an uncontrollable shake in his right hand. Within three years he was dead. God permitted his son to be abandoned, thrown out into the street and obliged to seek food and lodging at the hospice which was open at that time in Valdocco.