Beatified: 03-11-1963Canonised: 03-05-1970Liturgical celebration: 18 May
Leonard Murialdo is one of the figures of outstanding holiness that characterised the Piedmontese Church in the 19th century, like the strong personalities of Cottolengo, Cafasso, Lanteri, Allamano, Don Bosco and Don Orione with their perceptive insights, genuine love for the poor and boundless trust in Providence. Through their activity the Church’s charity was effectively able to promote the spiritual and material emancipation of the children of ordinary folk who were often victims of grave injustice and left on the margins of the tumultuous process of modernisation of Italy and the rest of Europe.
The spiritual experience of this Turinese saint, a friend and collaborator of Don Bosco’s, had its roots in a serious crisis of his youth, a difficult and painful period of alienation from God at 14 years of age that Leonard was never able to forget and that would mark his life and mission, stamping his educative and pastoral activity with gentleness, understanding and patience. His “return to the light” came with the grace of a general confession in which he rediscovered God’s immense mercy. At 17 years of age he came to the decision to become a priest, a response to the love of the God who had taken hold of him in his love. Having returned to God after his youthful abandonment, Murialdo had a strong and vital experience of the Father’s merciful and welcoming love, and this became the soul of his apostolic and social activity especially for the young and for workers.
Leonard (Leonardo) Murialdo was born in Turin on 26 October 1828. His father, a wealthy stockbroker, died in 1833. His mother, a very religious woman, sent her small child to “Nadino” a boarding school in Savona run by the Scolopian Fathers. He was there from 1836 to 1843. Back in Turin he attended theology courses as the University and in 1851 became a priest. His spirituality, based on the word of God and the solid doctrine of secure men like Saint Alphonsus and Saint Francis de Sales, was enlivened by the certainty of God’s merciful love Fulfilment of God’s will in daily life, an intense prayer life, a spirit of mortification and an ardent love for the Eucharist characterised his journey of faith. In collaboration with Don Bosco he immediately chose to get involved in the first oratories in Turin among needy boys and those left to their own devices on the peripheries: first at the Guardian Angel oratory until 1857, then at the Saint Aloysius oratory as the director from 1857 to 1865. He spent a year updating in Paris until Providence called him in 1866 to look after even poorer and more abandoned youngsters: those who were at the Artigianelli school in Turin. From then on his whole life was dedicated to taking in this boys and educating them as Christians and giving them a trade, at a time marked by strong social differences brought about by nascent industrialisation and the hardships endured by the poorer social classes. Amid serious financial problems, this would be his principal activity until the end.
Leonard Murialdo became a friend, brother and father for poor young people, knowing that each one had a secret that needed to be deciphered: the beauty of the Creator reflected in their soul. He saw how fragile they were when left to their own devices or with unscrupulous adults, and how they were forced to live in idleness, ignorance, slave to passions that would only grow more unless this was prevented. All they could boast of was “ignorance, wildness and vice”. He took in everyone whom Providence entrusted to him, faithful to the motto he had been given: “Poor and abandoned: these are the two essential requisites for a young person to be one of ours; and the more poor and abandoned he is, the more he is one of ours.” He wanted to spend his best efforts for these boys, so that not one of them would be lost. He was assisted by confreres and lay people with a great openness of mind who had understood and shared the deepest motivations of his ministry. In 1873 he founded the Congregation of St Joseph for them (the Giuseppini of Murialdo), in order to guarantee continuity for his social and charitable activity. The aim of the Congregation was the education of youth, especially if poor and abandoned. He collaborated in many initiatives in the social field in defence of the young, of workers and the poor. In the years to follow he set new initiatives in motion: a family home (the first in Italy), an agricultural school, other oratories along with a range of other works. The work in Murialdo was a significant presence in the Piedmontese Catholic Movement. He worked for the Catholic Press, was active in the Work of the Congresses, and was one of the leaders in the Catholic Workers Union.
He knew how to be a father for his young people in everything that concerned their physical, moral and spiritual wellbeing, seeing to their health, food and clothing, their preparation for work. At the same time he encouraged the preparation and qualification of those in charge of the various workshops, seeking to improve their educative abilities through pedagogical and religious conferences. He never overlooked the religious growth, as well as their human growth, of the youngsters. He wrote that “Our plan is not only to make our young people intelligent and hardworking workers, even less so to make them proud little know-it-alls, but in the first instance it is to make them sincerely and openly Christian.” To this end, he developed catechesis among them, encouraged sacramental practice and increased the number of associations for children and older youth, encouraging them to be apostles in the midst of their peers, giving rise to the Confraternity of St Joseph and the Congregation of the Guardian Angels.
Gentle in his approach, as his biographers note, he was always modest and his face was softened by a smile that invited confidence. He was calm and friendly even when he had to chide, so much so that his young artisans, when they became adults, described him as “an affectionate father, a true father, a loving father”. He was convinced that “without faith we do not please God, and without kindness we do not please our neighbour”. It was the experience of our heavenly Father’s merciful love that drove him to look after youth. He made this his choice in life, allowing himself to be guided by a solicitous and enterprising love that transformed his life and made him socially aware and patient towards his fellows. He kept his gaze on the heavenly Father who awaits his children, respects their freedom and is ready to embrace them tenderly at a time of forgiveness. His earthly life ended on 30 March 1900.
