By Fr. I. Radrizzani

FATHER ALESSANDRO PEDRONI

‘How much I love our Order! I wish to see it propagated in all the regions of the world, in order to spread the treasures of its evangelical charity’.

To Father Alessandro Pedroni fell the honour of conceiving of, and implementing, the great programme of charity of Camillian missions. Ever since the first years of his priestly life, he had foreseen the efficacy of the Camillian apostolate in lands of mission. Taking advantage of his office as Superior and a provider of formation, he knew how to persuade young men in such a way that he generated in them a real concern to see the red cross of St. Camillus shine forth in lands of mission, in particular in the Far East.

In addition, he managed to win over to this ideal of his the public opinion of his own Province. Everyone was persuaded of the exceptional value of the charism of the Order in the conversion of pagans and unbelievers. This was one of his finest victories.

He also perceived that the hour of Providence had come to begin the Camillian missionary apostolate and mobilise all efforts, without sparing any sacrifice, to the point of making his dream come true. In him, the seed of a missionary vocation had been present ever since the years of his youth when he was a Camillian student.  We find the following in his diary of that period: ‘my God, make our Order grow, purify it of the miseries that are so unpleasing to Your Most Holy Heart; Divine Heart, distance all those who by their bad example prejudice perfect observance. My God! Grant that I may be a Camillian saint, or send me my death immediately after my holy profession. My God, I repeat to you, grant that I may be a holy imitator of my Founder Saint, or call me, avoiding my becoming, as well, scandal for others’.

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FATHER CELESTINO RIZZI

‘My supreme satisfaction would be to bathe this arid land in my blood’.

Father Rizzi used every instrument to hand to realise his ideal; ‘he lived for that, before and after its actuation, with rigorous faithfulness and adherence, to the point of heroism’ (Fr. Crotti).

‘The missionary ideal was second nature to Fr. Rizzi. If we look at the cross placed on his grave, we can fully grasp his sacrifice and how far this missionary ideal of his led him’ (Fr. Colzani).

Celestino Rizzi was sent to Peking for a year to study Chinese. The more he reached completion in his learning, the more missionary ardour increased in his spirit. With the drawing near of his return from Yunnan he wrote: ‘I feel very happy! I look forward to the hour of the flight. I feel joy at a new life and I feel as enthusiastic as an adventurous and fortunate young man’. His activity lasted for only three years – from 9 September 1948 to 13 September 1951 – but it was intense and of great value.

In a circular of October 1950 he wrote: ‘There springs forth spontaneously from the depths of my heart a hymn of gratitude to God, who without any merit in us deigned to place us in the glorious army of Catholic missionaries. We often repeat: ‘If I had not one but a thousand lives, I would always become a missionary’. ‘We follow with ardour’, he wrote to a father for whom he had most kindly feelings, ‘the shining star of our Camillian missionary vocation; it will bring us to glory and happiness, in which the souls that we have saved will take part’.

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FATHER ALDO ANTONELLI

He gave the whole of his life to relieving the suffering of his brethren.

The third Camillian missionary, the subject of this special analysis, is Fr. Aldo Antonelli.

We notice in him above all else an aspect that marks him out from the other two missionaries: he was the first Camillian missionary to be both a priest and a physician.

According to what he himself declared when he was already a missionary, Fr. Antonelli nurtured this idea, in relation to which he felt attraction and enthusiasm, even before he entered the Order.

When he entered the Order as an aspirant to the priesthood, and found an environment of missionary fervour brought about by the recent mission in China, he was enthused by it to such an extent that he opted for the missionary apostolate, preferably in China, in order to join his fellow Camillian religious who were in that country.

Precisely at that epoch and in that environment, young men spoke about it being advisable for one of the missionaries to be a physician, this being an excellent contribution to our missions. The young cleric Aldo Antonelli was one of those who was most enthusiastic about this idea.

Fr. Pedroni, the founder of our missions in the Far East and a figure who knew a great deal about what would facilitate the missionary apostolate, supported this idea and during a meeting with the seminarians expressed his wish to find someone who would take a degree and the engage in missionary activity. The first man to offer himself for this, with vivacity and enthusiasm, was the young cleric Antonelli.

Drawing upon his positive attitude, Fr. Pedroni decided that Antonelli should enrol in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Padua and leave the next year (1948), already a priest, for Shanghai, continuing there his studies in conformity with the laws of the country.

After arriving in Shanghai, he stayed there for only two years because he was expelled by the Communists. He then came back to Italy and completed his studies at the University of Padua. With brilliant final marks in his degree in medicine and surgery, he left for Formosa (nationalist China) where he was fully free to practise his profession.

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