N.B.: IMC stands for Consolata Missionaries (Brothers and Priests). MC, for Consolata Missionary Sisters. Conf. = Conferences; Lett. = Letters)

Introduction. The theme, The Founder, Formator, has already been studied in the past from several angles. I would now like to write about it from the point of view of our formators. Our Founder can be a model for those engaged in forming our young people. I will now try to show the spirit of his system of formation, and the pedagogical method he used, and taught – a spirit and a method that are faithful to our charism and, at the same time, adequate to form religious, priests and missionaries today.

I will use the following sources for this study: the writings mentioned in footnote No. 1; his thoughts as given in his conferences and the letters he wrote; the experience described by his missionaries (testimonies, commemorations); the present experience (the perception) of our Institute. These pages do not contain a general study on formation as understood by the Church and our Institute, but a number of very specific reflections that are connected with the person of our Founder: His way of thinking on this matter, and his own personal experience as received by our sound tradition (Consolata Missionaries and Consolata Missionary Sisters). Consequently, in this study we are on the level of the “charism” of both Founder and Institute in those matters that are relative to formation.

Following a certain logic, I will develop these aspects: The pedagogical personality of our Founder; personalized formation – that formation which is done in direct contact with individuals and in talks to the community; and the capacity of creating a formative communitary environment that encompasses each and every individual.


1. THE PERSONALITY OF ALLAMANO AS A FORMATOR

a) Awareness of his own responsibility as an formator. At the moment of his beatification, the Church officially ackowledged that our Founder was a remarkable formator of priests and missionaries. Right from the beginning of his priestly life, Allamano was aware of having this charism: “You must listen to me and to those that I choose to guide you […]. The form or configuration of our Institute is the one that the Lord inspired, and keeps on inspiring, to me”. These are strong words by our Founder. Reading them, we understand that the Founder considered this engagement as a very special ‘personal responsibility’.

This awareness of this responsibility led him to reserve to himself the formation of his missionaries. Fr. L. Sales says that our Founder “Preferred to deprive himself of the help of a man of very high moral and spiritual standards that was Canon Boccardo in order not to relinquish the duty he had received from God: to give to the students of our Institute his own ‘spirit’. (Canon Boccardo had accepted to form the future Consolata missionaries on the condition that he would be given free rein in doing so). This strong tenacity on the part of our Founder shows that he wanted to be faithful to the original inspiration, that he wanted to pass on to his missionaries that same inspiration in an intact way, without alteration from the way he had received it, so that it would become the charism of our Institute. Thus, as ‘formator’, he became the transmitter of the charism.

b) Method and means of forming. The formative method of our Founder sprang from a fundamental attitude which we call his ‘sense of paternity’. In the quoted study, Fr. Tubaldo wrote this meaningful title: “Allamano in the life of his first missionaries”, and he qualified formation as “a life essence”. This was true indeed for our Founder. Many of our missionaries witness to this.

Allamano concretized this “life essence” of his missionary sons and daughters first of all by loving them with true fatherly love. This love he showed in many ways, and always in a dignified way. Some of his intense sayings in this matter became famous. I shall give just a few examples, two of which are words that he wrote to missionaries in Kenya: “Many, many wishes to my beloved missionaries; for them only do I now live on this earth.” “Give them all my best regards, and assure them that I pray for them and live only for them” . The other expression is written to a Sister to encourage her in overcoming doubts about her vocation: “Listen to me, you know that I always wanted the best for you, I who love you with true fatherly love!…”

Besides this deep fatherly love, Allamno had assumed another form of bahavior that we can also call a ‘fundamental attitude’: attention to reality and the capacity of adapting himself to it, also in the area of the preparation of his missionaries. In the letters, relations and diaries sent to him by his missionaries, our Founder could understand whether his missionaries were doing correctly what they were doing, or whether he had to intervene in the area of formation. There was a certain giving and receiving between Africa and Turin which fashioned in Allamano a capacity of adapting the preparation of the missionaries on the basis of what the missionaries needed to do in the mission. This sense of attention of Allamano, this capacity of ‘listening’, solidified in him the conviction that a concrete and adequate preparation was necessary for his missionaries. In this context we can understand his insistence on not leaving for the missions in a hurry, before getting an adequate preparation.
Finally, Allamano was able to enter into the life of his sons and daughters by using a method based on utmost confidence and trusting dialogue. He also used a variety of other means that helped him keep in constant and active contact with the community and with each individual.
2. PERSONALIZED FORMATION THROUGH CONTACTS WITH INDIVIDUALS

The pedagogical art of Allamano facilitated his contact with single individuals. Everyone felt welcomed and listened to, understood and accompanied as if he were the only one. This way, he avoided massification. It is enough to quote here Fr. Panelatti who recalls Allamano’s visits to the Consolatina with these words: “I had the impression that he never had anything to do. He always used well the time he spent here […]; he never showed that he had other appointments or any other urgent thing to do. It was only later that we learned that he sort of directed half the Diocese and was always very busy”.

What were the ingredients that composed this pedagogical know-how that aimed at the personalized formation in his contacts with the individuals? I’ll try to sum them up by showing some of the traits of the behavior of our Founder and of his students.

a) The art of making one feel welcome. The first contact in the art of formation takes place in the first moment when one arrives at the organization. For Allamano, the reception of someone had great value: he would create an ambiance that favored the formational contact right then and there. This he would do, not only in the moment of the first reception, but also in many other instances. This kind of welcome is done in a very wide horizon of attitudes. In it, he showed the intensity of his fatherly heart, and also his own innate formative ability. The following traits will help us understand this: The way he welcomed the single students in the motherhouse any time they wanted to go see him, so much so that sometimes there was a line of students waiting in the corridor in front of the door of his room; how he willingly received, with joy and directly, people who wanted to see him at the Shrine of Our Lady Consolata; the way he welcomed the students during special occasions (ceremonies of religious professions, ordinations, send-offs, when missionaries came from the missions); how he welcomed, with great attention and kindness the returning students who had been soldiers in the war. It is a fact that everyone felt wanted and loved by him, welcomed as a son, always sure that visiting him was not an imposition. The art of welcoming has no substitute for an educator who wants to enter into the life of a youngster in order to accompany him through the times of his formation.

Here are two witnesses on this subject: Fr. L. Sales: “In thirty years, it never happened that he refused to let anyone of us visit him […] And, with just a few words, he would settle matters for us. He spoke with such kindness, his gestures were moderate but sank down deep into the innermost of our hearts.” The other statement is from Sr. Maria degli Angeli: “He wanted all the Sisters to have the chance to talk to him freely, at the Institute or at the Shrine of Consolata. He welcomed everyone of us with great charity, and treated us with a truly fatherly heart. When the Sisters came out from visiting him, they all had a wonderful smile on their faces. As a matter of fact, when we saw a Sister with a particularly smiling face, we would say: “I bet you she just visited Father Founder!”

b) Attentive to special circumstances. Allamano did not deal with everybody the same way all the time. Because he knew all those who were his own, he had the kindliness to deal with each one in a manner that was appropriate to the moments of life each one was going through. Every student was treated according to his own specificity and in a way relative to the present circumstances of his life. Allamano did not generalize, did not standardize his contacts with people. He was very attentive to this point, very delicate.

There are many witnesses who testify to this. I will just mention two of them. One is Brother B. Falda, who had a very sensitive temperament. The letters of the Founder to
him in Africa show this characteristic of Allamano. The letter he wrote to Falda on January 26, 1905, is a masterpiece of affection and exquisiteness. “I often think about you, my dear Benedetto. How I would like to see you in my office, to hear your happy and spirited conversation. Your activities and the liveliness with which you do things is well remembered by the seminarians and the Sisters too. You have such a sensitive heart that it is easy for you to drift into homesickness and melancholy. You do often need a warm and sincere word of encouragement. When you feel like that, think about me, and hear me telling you, “Be stouthearted in the Lord”, and the many other things that I would tell you! And then, your Superior loves you very much, he even wrote to me many beautiful things about you! And also, there is Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, he can make lions out of kittens! You are the sacristan… I want you not to get too tired. When you are sweating, protect yourself from the air and the humidity. Well, be careful with your health!… I do not reprove your long letters to your parents and your friends, they are so happy when they receive them; yes, you can write to them at length. But if you do not want me to become jealous, write a lot to me too, and to our Vice-Rector..”

Here is another statement, this one from Fr. A. Bellani. Because he was the first non-Piedmontese in the Institute, he found it dreadful that the others normally spoke the Piedmontese dialect: “So I decided to talk to our venerable Founder who had always been so open to me. Monsignor, I told him, you asked me how I feel, living in this community [...] I feel very good, except for that dialect that they all speak, which I do not understand and which really annoys me. The Founder said: ‘I will take care of it immediately!’ That same evening, his talk to the community was on the need that, at home and during the recesses, all speak the national language, Italian, as a show of consideration and respect towards those who joined the Institute and were not Piedmontese.”

b) The Pedagogy of Encouragement. Allamano was a positive person. He would never leave a heart in dejection, much less in agitation. He clearly mentioned the faulty aspects of an individual, but afterwards he encouraged and gave a sense of hope to the person. Fr. L. Sales, who knew the Founder well, attests to that: “Powerful was that hand on our shoulder while saying: “Go ahead!”, or “Be courageous!”. And then he would give his blessing”.

In this same area of encouragement, I would like to emphasize how our Founder used in certain circumstances Psalm 76:11 (77:11): “Nunc coepi”, which he translated litterally: “Now I begin.” This is a formational criterium taken from the spirituality of the Carmelites. To our Sisters he would say: “Never get discouraged, ‘Nunc coepi, Now I begin’; I say that this is the motto of our Institute: ‘To begin always.’” In another occasion he said: “Did you fall? Get up, once again; St. Theresa always said ‘Nunc coepi’ (Now I begin) forty or fifty times a day. She would ask forgiveness from the Lord saying: ‘Lord, you see how I make mistakes when left to myself? Send your good rain into me, so that it will not go back to you without producing good fruits.”

d) Freedom and maturity of individuals. Although he was very often present, Allamano would not overwhelm anyone. He did not impose openness, he worked for it. He conceded, better yet, he wanted the students to grow up and learn how ‘to walk by themselves’. As ordinary educational method, he wanted regular meetings to take place between student and educator; but he also wanted the intervals between these meetings to become longer and longer all the time, because he desired them to get ready for the times of isolation that they would go through later in the missions. To walk on one’s legs is indeed a sign of maturity and helps a person not to waste time in petty and trivial things.

Here too we have the witnessing of several people. As an example, I quote from a talk he gave to our Sisters on February 13, 1916. In this sentence, he treated the matter in general terms, proposing a sort of behavior in life: “In the community, there also are members who do not need anything special; they do not need to always go to the Mother Superior, nor to myself. They practice what they feel inside, make an effort to observe the rules and live in peace… For these ones… Praise the Lord! They can just go on like that all through the year: They only need their confessor and the Lord! Deo gratias! If only everyone would be like this in Africa, all would be well.” Later on in his talk he concluded: “You know what you have to do, you know how to do it even better, if possible. No need to waste time and your breath in trifles.”

e) Pedagogy by letter. The ‘little note letters’ was one of the ways most used by the Founder to maintain a constructive contact with the students. Says Fr. L. Sales: “Since it was impossible for us to visit the Founder as often as we would have liked, private conversations with him were often replaced by writings. Everyone of us had the right to write to him whenever we so desired. Sometimes he would answer us by spoken word, but more often he would write the answer on the same sheet we had sent him our message, but in all prudence, he would send it to us in a sealed envelope. Here too, not many words, but always to the point.”

There were two types of letters we wrote to our Founder: the ones I will call spontaneous, which we wrote when we felt the need of contacting him, and the ones we considered obligatory, such as for the Feast of St. Joseph, the Saint whose name he bore, and another letter in which we wrote the resolutions we had made during the spiritual exercises. The Founder wished us to write these letters, but we were free to write them or not, and he knew that they would always remain a secret between him and us. We see in all this how the Founder wanted to participate in the ordinary events of the life of his sons and daughters, albeit in a discreet way, in order to know them better, to guide and encourage them and, if and when needed, to admonish them.

The letters for his Saint’s Name Day (St. Joseph) had a special meaning to him. Here is an example of his pedagogical attitude on this matter: “Since you want this coming Sunday to celebrate my Saint’s Name Day, well… I guess one cannot refuse… And so, as it was in the past, you will write me a little letter, not too long, I don’t have too much time to read… But, no compliments, please, you’ve already done that more than once before. In that letter, you will tell me your thoughts, what is in your heart. No one will touch these letters except me, it’s a secret between you and me. It will be strictly confidential, as if you were writing to your spiritual director. But please, in that letter, do not talk about my own feast, don’t even write best wishes… You see, I know that sometimes you would like to come and talk to me. But you know that I can’t always be there for you. And so this letter will sort of compensate for it. In the letter you can write anything you want. It’s a practice that has been done since the first times (of the Institute). Oh, how consoling it is for me! Now, don’t tell me your sins, those you will tell to your confessor. Tell me what’s in your heart […]. One page is enough. Some of you might have nothing to say, let those just write their name, that’s all. Others might feel like saying more. I’ll read them, and then give them back to you, and you will tear them to pieces.”

As I already mentioned, among the little letters we wrote to the founder there was the one containing our resolutions at the occasion of the Spiritual Exercises. These too were an important means in the pedagogy of Allamano. After reading them, he gave us his comments, and, during the year, he would remind us of those resolutions, and invite us to think about them, to examine ourselves on how we were putting them into practice, and encourage us to do it with generosity. Fr. L. Sales testimony on this point is very meaningful: “After the closing ceremony of the Spiritual Exercises, the pieces of paper where the resolutions were written were placed in a big envelope which he himself would take to the Consolata. He would soon give them back to us, with his own comments sometimes.”

3. PERSONALIZED FORMATION DURING REGULAR MEETINGS

I am referring here to the Sunday conferences given by the Founder. I want to underline the fact that, although talking to all present, he was able to reach each individual, as if he were talking to each one in particular. In order to understand this, we must keep in mind the bond that existed between him and each student. Besides, he possessed the art of involving those lives that he knew very well, lives of people who knew that he knew them and their ways of living. It is also interesting to consider the colloquial expressions with which he addressed himself to everybody, and how he would talk of an individual at times as an example to the others.

I can affirm that during his conferences, Allamano talked to everybody in general, and in particular to each one. Here are some of the reasons for this behavior:

a) He communicated himself, as we meditated yesterday during the retreat. Since all the students loved him, when he spoke of himself he engaged them in his sayings. Everyone felt that Father Founder told him something in confidence. Here is a statement by Fr. G. Bartorelli about the conferences: “As Founder, we would never have exchanged him for anyone else.”

b) He engaged each and all.
Allamano was not the kind of speaker that would overwhelm the audience with the brilliance of his words. But he knew how to create a rapport with his listeners, how to involve them in what he was saying. This wasn’t only some sort of pedagogical craftsmanship; rather, it came from the vital knowledge he had of each one, from the fact that there was openness and confidence between him and each one. He was able to talk to the individuals in public without the danger of hurting their sensitivity. Some examples: On May 9, speaking about humility, he addresses the youngest present and tells him: “For example, Luigi, you must consider yourself inferior to everybody else, and I think it won’t be difficult for you to do so.” Talking to the Sisters on October 22, 1916, he said: “We must be meticulous so that the Angel may wrap the word in gold. Did this ever happen to you? (He addresses a Sister who answers, ‘No!’). Well, that’s because you are not yet meticulous enough.”

c) Those he met, he considered his sons and daughters. This too is an interesting
attitude: In his conferences, Allamano met his children who knew him and loved him as their true spiritual father. He was not a school principal meeting his students. The meetings were organized in the true family spirit that reigned in the Institute. That’s how they considered him: they looked forward to hearing his words. His conferences seemed too short, and no one felt bored. This is not some sort of romantic, exagerated theme. Rather, it is the synthesis of many a witness that points to the climate that developed in the community for those conferences on Sunday afternoons in the community. Here are some of these witnessings.

Bro. Benedetto Falda: “On Sundays, he meant all to all his children. […] His conferences had nothing of those professorial, rigid attitudes. During the conferences he was the loving daddy who spoke to us informally. There he was, sitting in our midst -- and he wanted us to be right next to him, especially the Lay Brothers. What he said were like small pieces of guidance, we could say, that he told to us individually in confidence, counsels that stayed deeply impressed in our souls, because they were, so to speak, parts of his own spirit.

Fr. V. Dolza: “His deep interest in our formation and sanctification showed itself especially in his Sunday talks. As he arrived, you could see a big smile on his face. He sat down, took out his notes, and we stayed there as if enchanted at the sound of his words. Oh, how much we looked for those moments, that were always too short for us.”

Fr. G. Chiomio: “His way of talking is very easy-going: he talks really to his sons that he loves deeply. All that he says has the stamp of his paternal love.”

d) He rendered present the missionaries working far away. Before or during his talks, Allamano used to read excerpts from the letters that he received from Africa. The writers of those letters were known to the listeners, or were even their personal friends, which rendered this method of Allamano very lively, as it touched the whole community and each single individual – a method that helped the Founder build up the family spirit in the community.
Here is Fr. G. Panelatti’s contribution on this matter, which expresses the climate that existed during the conferences: “His presence was always a joy to all of us. He entertained us in a sort of family spirit, which solidified us in our vocation, even without effort. Sometimes he would read to us portions of the letters that he received from Africa, from people that we sometimes knew: This he used as point of departure to inspire us.”

To tell the truth, this system of acting caused some difficulty at times. The co-Founder, Can. G. Camisassa, became aware of this when he visited Kenya. It happened that some of those recently arrived in Africa did not find things as rosy as the Founder had described: there was gossip, some complained or laughed at the others. This caused some not to send letters to the Founder, they were afraid that he would read them in public. The Co-Founder asked Allamano not to read in public the letters from the missionaries. I examined the conferences of Allamano given after the comments of Camisassa, which the latter wrote to the Founder on November 23, 1911. During 1913, I think that he read very few in public, but afterwards he began again reading them in public, I would say in an even more enthusiastic way. He believed very much indeed in his own sense of paternity towards his missionaries, which for him was a means of knowledge and unity between each one of his sons and all the others.

e) The reactions of the individuals. In the Institute, the reactions of the missionaries to the talks and the letters of the Founder were passed on to subsequent missionaries. These reactions are all positive.

In what refers to the conferences, the enthusiasm that can be detected in the statement of Fr. L. Sales is indicative: “All those who had the fortune of listening to him are unanimous in declaring that, after each conference, it was normal to repeat with the disciples of Emmaus: “Were not our hearts burning while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” Fr. V. Sandrone, too, says just about the same: “At the end of the conferences, we felt the need to stay with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and ask Him the grace to make us succeed and become holy priests.”

The reactions to his letters too were very positive, especially those he sent to the missionaries in Africa. Mons. F. Perlo puts it this way: “The rare letters from the Founder are always read first ((N.B.: Rare, not because they were few; this adjective shows how much they looked forward to receiving them). When these letters were addressed to the individuals, each one read them almost in a mysterious way, afraid that the wind might snatch away some word or words. And after reading them once, every sentence was studied and analyzed..” Fr. Tubaldo’s conclusion on this subject seems very accurate to me: “In these letters, Allamano reveals himself as an expert director of souls; he writes to enlighten, encourage and show the higher purposes of the apostolic works.”

A further point about the contacts by letter of Fr. Allamano with his sons and daughters that I would like to emphasize is the sense of freedom he used in expressing his ideas without offending their susceptibility. This means that, on his side and on the side of his sons, there was trust in one another, respect and freedom. In other words, Father Founder could speak clearly: his sons knew that their father spoke from the heart in order to correct them. As an example, I quote from a letter he wrote in 1918 to Msgr. Barlassina who was then Apostolic Prefect of Kaffa, in Ethiopia: “You wrote to me saying that you feel inspired in all that you do, as if you were relating to God himself alone. My dear, the only sure way to do God’s will is obedience […]. Anyhow, you will never regret it if you delay some kind of progress that is not wanted by the superiors. We too like progress, but prudence is necessary, and so is following the directives of Propaganda Fide.”

4. Community, site of formation

Allamano’s pedagogy contains a mutual influx and a balanced formative rapport between individual and community. This rapport helps to form the individual within the community and with the help of the community, and it tends to prepare a life and a communitary apostolate (family spirit and esprit de corps). Besides, it forms the members of the community in all their concreteness as individuals, not in some sort of anonymous or theoretical system. For the Founder, every individual was important in himself and as part of the community. I’ll try to explain Allamano’s main pedagogical principles in this area.

a) Individual and community are inseparable. Our Founder expressed several times his own conviction that between the individual and the group (community, institute) there is a nonbreakable relationship: they must be considered as one unit. He did not formulate this principle in these very words, but on several occasions his actions proved that he followed such an ideology. For example: insisting that obedience, not criticism must be practiced, he says: “I don’t say that you should not be interested in the life of the community, no. The good and the bad things of the Institute are the business of everyone.” One day he sent away from the Institute a certain Sr. Prassede, who had concealed the fact that she was deaf. He told the Sisters: “We look and act for the good of the Institute, and also for the good of each Sister.[…] I had to send her away, for I had to act for the good of the Institute and of that Sister.”

b) As is the individual, so is the community. No doubt, the Founder wanted an Institute of high caliber, with specific characteristics. In order to achieve this, he aimed at the quality of the individuals: he wanted them to be ‘first class’ people. In his mind, the Institute would be what its individuals are. Here is what he told the Sisters on September 15, 1918: “If you didn’t have to be different from other Sisters in other Religious Orders and Congregations, you could have gone somewhere else, there would be no need to found a new Institute. This community must be distinguishable from other communities. And this is what is important: You must let yourselves be formed to the spirit of this Institute.”

c) If each of you is a saint, the Institute will be holy. This is the highest point of the preceding argument, and we must underline this pressing statement of the Founder. Only when each individual works to be a saint can the Institute be considered holy. You must help one another in your search for perfection. This is a meaningful statement, which he made while explaining the primary purpose of the Institute, the ‘Sanctification of its members’: not of some members only, but of each and every one. Some might think or say: “Why, many have already arrived there (at their sanctification); I can stay somewhat back”. No! Each and everyone and must be willing to help each and everyone else to become holy…. Otherwise, there would be discrimination. But no, all are members, all must become saints, everyone must help everyone else in this endeavor.” Says Fr. V. Dolza: “He (the Founder) used to tell us that we can, each one, be different from the others, but that in the realm of holiness, we must all be equal.”

d) Community makes the individual authentic and helps him grow. This principle might be considered the strongest in Allamano’s heart. For him, preference is given to the community, in the sense that each individual must give precedence to community life – in his own personal life as well as in his apostolic activities. The reason, we could say, is that the activities of the community are the ones that best can help the individual to live well, to grow and to be efficient. Here are two examples taken from several instances in which the Founder spoke on the subject: On May 6, 1904, he wrote to Fr. F. Perlo, approving the Conference of Muranj’a, saying: “The agreement of all the community must take precedence, although there might be some better opinion in some circumstances.” Speaking to the Sisters about prayer, he once pronounced words that might be considered mysterious if we didn’t know his ideas: “Community prayers must always be preferred to our own personal prayers. […] Don’t regret it if you have to cut short the Our Father you are saying to answer ‘Amen’ to a community prayer.”

Summarizing: We could say that Allamano greatly emphasized the value of the “common vocation”: “We are called by the Spirit to live the charism given to Allamano and which he transmitted to us -- a charism that each one of us is called to live, not alone but together with the whole community and with each one of its members. He makes us understand this when he says: “When the Apostle implores the Christians in Ephesus [to be one body and one spirit] … well that’s even more important for us who form a superior body on account of the spiritual union produced by the religious, priestly and missionary vocation.”

Conclusion

The best conclusion, I believe, are the words of Founder himself, on the occasion of a missionary Send-Off on December 16, 1920: “[…] the physical place is something only material. It is not better to be in one place than in another… We are all missionaries, we are all one with the others, one single entity, as if all of us were here, all in Kenya, all in Kaffa, all in Iringa.”

In a talk at the Consolata Shrine on the occasion of his birthday, on January 21, 1925, he said: “When I examine myself, I don’t think only about my person, I think about all the others, I ponder my own responsibilities, because we all form ‘one body’. I want to see in you a constant willingness to live a perfect life as much as possible, with no fear of exagerating… That has always been my vow.”