A great truth about Fr Bossi remains hidden; he is a missionary who witnesses Christ
Rome (AsiaNews) – From the very beginning in his seminary days, Fr Giancarlo Bossi told those whom he encountered that he desired to be a missionary in order to share the life of the poor and give radical witness to the Gospel.
In fact, PIME superior in the Philippines, Father Giovanni Battista Sandalo, thus describes him: "In Payao his people call him ‘the gentle giant’, because he is open to everybody, he speaks with everybody, he loves to work among the people and his love is returned in kind. He is a quiet man of few words, but an exceptional worker, who has always reconciled manual labour to his spiritual life. In Payao they have even dedicated a street to him, its called ‘Father Giancarlo Bossi Street’, it leads up to the Church, the greatest gift they could have given him”.
"One of his dreams – continues Fr. Sandalo – is to go and live in a village, among the poor as a witness of the Gospel: he comes from a farming family and wanted to be a farmer. The project consisted in buying a piece of land, to cultivate it together with local farmers, using modern methods and instruments. Fr. Giancarlo says he feels rich when he lives among the poor; this is why he wished to share his life with them. Maybe a utopia, but he feels that life is earned by the sweat of the brow, as he has always done in all of the parishes he has led. In short a simple and poor life, because he maintains that only in this way can we rediscover life's intrinsic, such as daily prayer and above all contemplation”.
"He succeeded for a short while in realizing this dream, in his experience in the mountains of Dominitag, about ten years ago, when he lived among a poor farming community. There he was helped to build a small wooden hut; he grew his own food, said mass in the chapel nearby and had begun to cultivate rice. Then he was called by his superiors to other duties”.
PIME confreres in the Philippines wrote of him : “Fr. Giancarlo has become a reference point for many of us, for his ability to be a witness to the kingdom of God, not through great projects but through his willingness to listen to all those who approach him. Together we thank God for the gift of Giancarlo. His person, his ability to listen, to gain the trust and affection of all those who surround him, his desire to witness the life of the Father, are signs that the show that life is a gift to be shared with others”.
Missionaries come to the publics attention only when they are martyred, sequestered or are victims of grave or negative events.
Each year an average of 30 to 35 missionaries are murdered. With the exception of a few, such as Fr. Santoro in Turkey, little is reported of them beyond the facts of their abduction or martyrdom.
Why is nothing ever said of the thousands of Fr Bossis who are ready to lay down their lives for the lives of others in situations of great difficulty and danger particularly in the non Christian world? Why are the 13.000 Italian missionaries in the world hardly even remembered, and then only for extraordinary or negative events?”
I believe that we need to pay more attention to these Italians who show their love for their people, even to the point of risking their lives. The same Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, without wanting to idealize the man, is an example for all. Let me explain why…..
1) Giancarlo was a young man like many others, he had his life ahead of him and the same passions and aspirations as he contemporaries, and he could have become engaged, got married. The Christian education received in his family, in his parish, left him open to answering positively to God’s call. He became a PIME missionary; he consecrated his life to Christ and to the Churches mission in the world. The Lord calls many young men and women to follow Him: too few answer yes. In Italy as in the rest of the world the Church is dramatically lacking priests and women religious. Giancarlo is an example of how a young man can consecrate himself to God and to his neighbour.
2) They talk of the abyss between the North and South of the world. And the solution which is continually proposed is to send money and machines. Rarely is the work of the missionaries and lay volunteers recalled, those people who go to educate and encourage development transforming men, families and customs.
Development is above all a consequence of education and education is a long term project. This is why those who gift a few years or all of their lives to the poor is a model to be proposed for the youth who want to help the victims of hunger, dictatorships or war. Sending vast sums of money to an illiterate population, unless it is a real emergency such as famine or war refugees, does not create development, only corruption! The catalyst for development lies in education, in human formation.
Father Giancarlo Bossi, in the parishes entrusted to him, created schools and working cooperatives, obtaining a twofold result: he opened minds to the modern world and taught his people to overcome divisions to collaborate, share and promote the common good. A great missionary in Burma Fr. Gaziano Calogero, used to say: "let us build schools first Churches later. Because a church without a school will not work”: he went on to build many churches: but he understood that if he didn’t give an adequate education to the underprivileged people, then they would neither develop no become true Christians.
In short, missionaries such as Fr. Bossi should be held up to the schools, parishes, associations and youth groups, to the mass media as a positive example of how the first world can collaborate with the world’s poor.
We are drowning in our abundance. Others die because they have nothing or very little. The Chinese have this proverb which is often quoted: "If you see a hungry man, do not give him fish; teach him to catch his own fish”. But who from the rich world, goes to the poor world to teach them to teach? This is the missionaries’ example! Italy sends money, machines, business, but increasingly less men and women who know how to face the sacrifices and dangers for love of mankind!....
A great truth about Fr Bossi remains hidden; he is a missionary who witnesses and announces Christ.
Paul VI said: "Without Christ, true humanism does not exist".
In today’s Italy we all complain that there is no longer any faith, any religion or cordiality, that there is too much selfishness, immorality, that the family is being destroyed, the young, they say are, are weak and without ideals.
But what is the use in complaining? This is the society that we adults and elderly have created. How possible is it for a young person to grow with optimism and hope, to have great ideals, is each and every day he receives only negative information or erroneous models from films, comics, television, schools and common discourse?
This is why the example of the missionaries is important for us too: Italian society needs witnesses of Christ to improve our human condition. In great part Italian society has abandoned God and we now find ourselves with families increasingly less capable of educating the young.
Missionaries such as Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, risk their lives for Christ. Fr.Igino Mattarucco, a missionary in Burma for over forty years wrote: "Missionaries have long carried out works of social utility to aid the starving and the poor, they have shared their lives with the poor, defended the oppressed, the minorities and the persecuted. But I seen with my own eyes that the essential fundamental contribution that the Church and the missionaries have given to the growth of a people and their release from all oppression is not technical or economic aid, but faith in Christ. Because
it is Jesus Christ who saves, who transforms the depths of the person, the family, the village; it is Jesus Christ who “changes the heart” towards humanity, and away from selfish egoism”.
Mao Tze Tung’s "Red Book" states: "The true revolution is to change the hearts of men”; Mao believed that he had changed the heart of the Chinese through the police and the forced labour camps, rendering egoists, altruists. But his ambitions failed, after having caused tens of millions of victims. On Mao’s death September 9th 1976, the Chinese once again became human beings with “original sin”, that is selfishness, so much so that today Chinese capitalism is the most voracious in the world! Pime missionaries who live and work in China declare.
Missionary vocations diminish. Twenty years ago there were 15,000 Italian missionaries. Now it seems that, according to the "Missio" foundation, that is the Pontifical Missionary Works, there are only 13,000. They have certainly diminished and the male and female missionary institutes survive only thanks to the vocations from the young churches they themselves founded: if it were only for the Italian missionary priests and nuns the institutes would have to close down.
And yet the requests from the young churches are on the rise. Each missionary Institute receives hundreds from every corner of the world. PIME has opened a new mission in the Algerian desert among the Muslim peoples: not to convert then to Christ, but simply to be witnesses of love for man, of dialogue and of help to the poor and abandoned, to live spent for others according to the Gospel.
I would like to say to the young: you have all your life ahead of you and you are thinking about what you will do when you become your adults. Pray that the Lord may enlighten you and call you to follow him, even through the witness of Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, do not say no to Him: you will realize a full and happy life.
Do not think that if Christ calls you He is asking for a sacrifice. No, He is giving you a great gift, one which you will only be able to understand step by step, if with the help of God you remain faithful to his call. And you will understand that giving oneself totally to God and to the mission of the Church and the best way to spend ones life for the world’s needy.
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31/07/2007
22/06/2007
