One hundred years of brother Romano Maran: “Charity and mercy”

The programme of entertainment, which started at 4pm, unfolded in an agile and pleasant manner, punctuated by musical interludes. Also solemnizing the celebration was a personal letter from the Bishop of Padua, Monsignor Claudio Cipolla, read by the Provincial Father, and the blessing of Pope Francis, presented to Brother Romano by Father Tesfaye.

After the entertainment, congratulations, cake cutting and toasts, there was a moment of recollection. At 6 p.m., everyone moved to the Centre’s capable chapel for the Eucharistic celebration, presided over by Father Tesfaye.

Like Moses

The first reading of the day, taken from Exodus 33 and 34, lends itself very well to become the focus of Father Tesfaye’s homily. The covenant has been broken. What else can Moses do but return to consult God? And God enters into communion with his great leader, speaking to him “face to face... as one who speaks to his friend”. Moses, therefore, can now return to the camp where the people are waiting for him, and go back to immerse himself in the life of his people, listening to their problems, and then go back again to God to intercede for that “stiff-necked people”. And now God returns to bestow his law, now however introduced by words that send shivers down their spines: “The Lord, the merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness, who keeps his love for a thousand generations”. A God of love, not a chastising judge!

Father Tesfaye has consulted people who have known brother Romano and they assured him that “Romano always lived in deep communion with God, praying for a long time and keeping silence before him”. He comments: “I know that Brother Romano continues to do this today. He can no longer do mission actively... but he continues to be a man of prayer and listening to the Word. If this is not mission, what else is it?”. And he concludes by exhorting all the confreres to imitate him, “devoting all our strength to direct evangelisation when we are young, and intensifying our missionary intercessory prayer when our strength fails”.

Brother Romano, having overcome, in part, the strong emotions felt during the party, he agrees to say a few words about his life as a missionary. A few, meagre words, which, however, sum up not only the celebrant’s homily, but his entire life in a nutshell. He says: “100 years of life... 100 years of charity and mercy… This is what I want to say”.

Brief biographical notes

Brother Maran was born in Selvazzano, province of Padua. He grew up in a Christian family, where he learned to pray and work. At 15, he began to feel the first desire to become a missionary. At the age of 19, in 1942, he entered the novitiate of the Comboni Missionaries in Venegono Superiore (Varese), where he made his first religious profession on 7^th October 1944. Those were war years, and all departures for Africa were blocked.

Finally, in 1947 Brother Romano was able to leave for Sudan, where he worked for 17 years: first in the north (1947-1956 – in Khartoum, where he made his perpetual vows on 7^th October 1950), then in the south of the country (1957-1964). He, too, experienced the heart-rending pain of expulsion, when, between 27^th February and 9^th March 1964, numerous missionaries were declared “personae non gratae” by the Khartoum government and forced to leave their missions, on the sole charge of spreading the Gospel and helping the neediest people.

After a three-year stopover in Italy, brother Romano left for Uganda, where he spent another 16 years (1967-1983). The third stop, in Malawi-Zambia, was the longest: from 1984 to 2009.

Brother Romano was 86 years old when he returned to Italy, ‘loaded’ with 58 years of missionary activity in Africa. He first lived in the Comboni missionaries’ Mother House in Verona, then moved to Castel d’Azzano, at the ‘Brother Alfredo Fiorini’ Centre for sick and elderly Comboni missionaries.

Favoured by good mental clarity and good health, he dedicates his time to prayer during the day and until late in the evening, alternating Rosaries, and long periods of adoration before Jesus in the Eucharist. He says: “The mission is never over. Everyone carries it in their heart. And I present it every day, in prayer, to the Lord – who is the Master of the Harvest – so that he may raise up new vocations for the missions help all missionaries in the arduous but exciting work of evangelization”.

Thank you, Romano, for the testimony of your life!