From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   April 29th - St. Joseph Benedict Cottolengo (RM)   
      
   Born in Bra (near Turin), Piedmont, Italy, on May 3, 1786; died at Chieri,   
   Italy, on April 30, 1842; beatified in 1917; canonized in 1934; feast day   
   formerly April 30.  Joseph Benedict Cottolengo's middle-class mother once   
   surprised him as he was measuring his room with a stick. He explained that   
   he wished to see how many beds he could get into the room because he wanted   
   to turn the house into a hospital when he grew up.   
      
   He attended the seminary in Turin, and, in 1811, he was ordained a priest   
   and engaged in pastoral work for a short time in his native city and in   
   Corneliano, before continuing his studies in Turin and taking his degree   
   there. In 1819, he entered the congregation of secular priests of the Order   
   of Corpus Domini and was named canon of the Church of the Trinity in Turin.   
      
   In 1828, he was called to a very sick woman, who had not been able to obtain   
   admission to any hospital. The saint rented an unfurnished room, and placed   
   a few beds in it for the poorest and most neglected. Following the example   
   of Saint Vincent de Paul, here no one was to be refused admittance. A   
   doctor, who was his friend, and a benevolent pharmacist helped him. He   
   sought out pious women to nurse the sick and men to serve the male sick.   
   When it became necessary to expand, he organized the volunteers who had been   
   manning it into the Brothers of Saint Vincent and the Daughters of Saint   
   Vincent (Vincentian Sisters). The congregation of young girls he founded   
   renounced the world and were to devote themselves wholly to God and the care   
   of the sick.   
      
   Cottolengo had overcome the initial difficulties and his work was growing   
   when, in 1831, cholera broke out. The police closed the hospice, so the   
   Vincentians nursed the poor in their own homes until Joseph was allowed to   
   open a new one outside the city at Valdocco. There they continued   
   ministering to the stricken.   
      
   It was opened in the following year and was known as the Little House of   
   Divine Providence. God's providence had moved the little house out to that   
   spot so that it might grow up to be a whole city. Soon there rose about it a   
   House of Faith, a House of Hope, and a House of Love to minister to the   
   crippled, insane, and wayward girls.   
      
   His Piccola Casa became a gigantic set of institutions, a city really of   
   more than 7,000 paupers, patients, orphans, cripples, idiots, and penitent   
   women. Today it serves an average of 8,000 to 9,000 inmates daily, and the   
   Cottolengo Institute has several foundations in other areas of the world.   
   Today the Little House at Turin, with its thousands of beneficiaries, is one   
   of the most impressive places in Europe. Here can be seen on a large scale   
   human suffering in its most horrifying forms side by side with human   
   selflessness and love raised to a supernatural degree by a Power beyond   
   itself.   
      
   For his growing organization, the saint founded 14 communities, some of   
   which were purely contemplative and were to assist the others by their life   
   of prayer, and to supplement, by spiritual charity, the temporal works of   
   mercy through prayer for those who needed special assistance, above all the   
   dying and the dead. These congregations included the Daughters of   
   Compassion, the Daughters of the Good Shepherd, the Hermits of the Holy   
   Rosary, and the Priests of the Holy Trinity.   
      
   The saint relied completely on the boundless mercy of God, and, as one of   
   his friends used to say, had more trust in God than all the citizens of   
   Turin together. As soon as money was given to him, it was spent. Queried   
   about the secret sources of the money with which one tried to explain his   
   gigantic achievements, he answered: "Providence sends me everything." He   
   learned, however, that Providence may provide bread for today, but not at   
   the same time for tomorrow or the day after. (Remember the story of the   
   Manna in the desert.)   
      
   He paid everything, yet amid constant difficulties. "In the Little House,"   
   he used to say, "we progress as long as we possess nothing. We decline when   
   we live on endowments." Saint Joseph would have had problems today. He   
   depended upon alms to maintain these many and varied institutions, yet he   
   kept no books of accounts and made no investments.   
      
   King Charles Albert frequently proposed to let the government take over the   
   protectorate of the foundations. "Why?" answered Cottolengo. "They are under   
   the protection of Divine Providence; protection by the state is   
   superfluous."   
      
   This trust in Providence, however, did not keep him from strenuous work and   
   effort. He slept but a few hours, often only on a chair or a bench, and   
   persevered in his task of prayer and work. But therewith he wore himself   
   out.   
      
   In 1842, he handed the administration of the institutes to his successor.   
   The doctors persuaded him to go to his brothers at Chieri, where he died a   
   few days later of typhoid. He had promised the sisters as he left: "When I   
   am in Heaven, where everything is possible, I will cling to the mantle of   
   the Mother of God and I will not turn my eyes from you. But do not forget   
   what this poor old man has said to you."   
      
   Saint Joseph Cottolengo's example was one of the inspirations for Saint John   
   Bosco, who in the earlier years of his priesthood helped occasionally at the   
   Piccola Casa (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer, Schamoni, White).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "The judgment of the Church should be conformed to the judgment of God."   
   --St. Thomas Aquinas (Doctor, 1225-74) - ("Summa Theologica",   
      
   Bible Quotes:   
   "But we have the mind of Christ."  (1 Cor 2:16)   
      
   "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"  (Matt 6:10)   
      
      
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   Almighty God and heavenly Father!   
   Who hath given to us in Thy Son Jesus   
   Christ a fountain of life, which, springing up within our souls,   
   can make all things new;   
   we thank Thee for the depth of intimacy that He gives by   
   His Body and Blood -- the quickening sense of duty,   
   the faith under sorrow,   
   and that immortal hope which we owe to Him throughout Thy Holy Church.   
   We pray that His divine prompting may be so received by us with grateful   
   hearts that no resistance of ours may hinder our Lord freely working within   
   us a miracle as when, by the prompted of His blessed Mother,   
   He changed the water into wine at Cana. By the power of Thy Holy Ghost,   
   may our sorrows be transformed into consolations,   
   our infirmities into strength to do Thy Holy Will,   
   our sins into contrition and repentance and our fainting and   
   halting spirits into a heavenly mind. Lastly, may He turn the doubts,   
   the discouragements, and the trials of this earthly life into the full   
   assurance and unclouded bliss of an eternal life with Thee.   
    We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)