In Pace Christi

Fr. Mario Negrini was born at Caspoggio (Sondrio) on 24 May 1932. His missionary vocation had a fortuitous beginning: “A sort of challenge to my cousin Dino – he himself tells us – who wanted to go to the seminary and I said ‘why him and not me?’ On 15 October 1944, at the age of twelve, after a long journey of two days on foot to Sondrio accompanied by my mother, then by train and boat as far as Como, and finally on board the pick-up of the superior as far as Crema”, Mario began his life in the seminary; it was a tough beginning, made no easier by the war.

Mario spent three years in Crema where “an iron discipline ruled”. Then he moved to Brescia where he stayed until 1950; he was then sent to the novitiate in Florence where he took first vows on 9 September 1952. From that year until 1956 he studied philosophy in Verona. During that period he had to interrupt his studies due to lung disease and he was admitted to the Comboni house for the sick in Arco (Trent).

When he recovered, he finished his theological studies at Venegono Superiore (Varese) where he made his final profession on 9 September 1958. On 2 April 1960, he was ordained a priest by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Pope Paul VI). He said his first Mass at Caspoggio on the evening of 28 June 1960, as he entered the town together with Fr. Pietro Bracelli coming from Como where he had been ordained on 26 June.

Fr. Mario’s first appointment was to Brescia, responsible for mission promotion in the parishes and as a teacher of science in the Comboni High School, until 1963. He was then sent to San Sebastian in Spain, editing the Spanish edition of the “Piccolo Missionario” magazine. Meanwhile he studied Spanish. Around that time he also had a relapse of his previous illness and was immediately taken to Arco. After treatment, he returned to Brescia as a teacher.

At last, in 1970, he realised his dream of going to the mission: he was sent to Lower California, Mexico, in the capital, La Paz.

For the first year he worked in the seminary as bursar. He then moved to the parish of Santa Rosalia and again to La Paz as curate at the parish of Our Lady. “My mother had died in the meantime (1971). I couldn’t go home to attend her funeral as the news reached me several days afterwards. I finally came to Italy for holidays and an aggiornamento course in Rome. I could then visit my family and pray at my mother’s grave”.

After the course, Fr. Mario returned to Mexico and was charged with the financial administration of the province and the Comboni communities: for five years his home was in the capital, Mexico City. For four consecutive years he exercised his ministry among the parishes on the outskirts of the great city. In 1985 he returned to Lower California as parish priest at Ciudad Constitución where he stayed for eleven years. During those years, he built or renovated various churches and catechetical centres.

In 1996, after many years of pastoral work, in agreement with his superiors, he again took up the work as mission promoter and formator of the Comboni seminarians. For this reason he returned to Mexico City where he remained until 2000.

He then returned to Italy for three years as superior at the seminary in Thiene and, for a further two years, at the house of Rebbio. In 2005 he returned to the parish of the Holy family, in the outskirts of La Paz, in Lower California.

On the occasion of his Golden jubilee of ordination, Fr. Mario asked to return to Italy. He was then able to celebrate that important anniversary, on 4 July, with Fr. Pietro Bracelli, the parish priest, numerous priests, relatives, friends and the entire community. He wrote in his short autobiography: “On all those latter occasions, I missed the presence of my brothers and sisters, all of whom had died without my being able to assist at their funerals. However, in the mission I offered this sacrifice to God and shared the sorrow of the whole family”.

After 2010, Fr. Mario again felt he could return to the mission but his superiors sent him to Rebbio to work in mission promotion and mission appeals in the nearby parishes. “Today, in 2015, I continue my role as a Comboni Missionary in Rebbio, in the company of other confreres and my home-town fellow Fr. Pietro. Here I alternate work and prayer. I occasionally help out in the local parishes and sometimes I make a short visit to Caspoggio where I celebrated my first Mass, to pray at the grave of my parents, brothers and sisters”.

Fr. Mario died in Milan on 27 June 2018.
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 278 Suppl. In Memoriam, gennaio 2019, pp.63-67.