Writings

[5846]

My former Secretary, Fr Paolo Rossi, no longer belongs to my Work and has nothing more to do with Africa, for which he lost his vocation, or else he was frightened by last year’s terrible famine and the number of deaths. This is why he forwarded to me from his new location in the country, where he is the curate to the parish priest at the village of Cadidavid, your letter of the 26th in which you inform us of the collection of 216 francs you made at Notre Dame des Victoires, for which I am infinitely grateful.

[5847]

Since I have a bill to pay at the Bon Marché, Rue du Bac 135–137, etc. to Madame Boucicaut et Fils, please deposit this sum with the owner or director of the establishment and collect a receipt.

[5848]

From Paris I shall probably go on to London, where I have business to attend to before my return to Africa.
I am pleased that God has thus disposed, because God wants me to be in Paris when Madame de Villeneuve is there, as she has been kind enough to write to me. In this way, I hope to see her and all my dear de Villeneuves, but above all that admirable woman of the Gospel, model of faith and devotion, etc., etc.

[5849]

Fr Bouchard left Suez on the 22nd with a caravan including 15 persons from my Cairo Institutes destined for Central Africa.
I have received in Verona a devout girl whom I knew well in Paris; she is joining my Institute for Central Africa. Fr Paolo shaved off his beard five months ago, but my Missionaries and I will persevere in our war-cry: “Africa or death!”

[5850]

Send me news of all those with whom I spent such pleasant days at Prat-en Raz and I am glad that Madame de Villeneuve, M. Auguste and his devout wife will be returning to Paris on 1st December.
I bless you, Madame, and remain ever
Your most devoted

+ Daniel Comboni
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa

We will say a lot of prayers for Madame Gaultier. Send me news of Mademoiselle Gaultier.

Translated from French.

[5851]

Today the Mother Superior received your letter of the 18th, and I received that of the 14th. My answer is:
You are definitively accepted, and from this point you belong to the Institute of the Devout Mothers of Africa. As for the time of your entry, the door is open as from today, and the sooner you come, the sooner we test you and the sooner I can make use of you in Africa. But if you need time to put your things together, take it calmly and when everything is in order, come.
[Five lines are crossed out of which only these words are legible: you… because… me… very,… as I argued… letter]

[5852]

The French language is necessary for Africa. Here in the Institute there is a missionary Sister who comes from Damascus and is a teacher of Arabic. I had her come especially from Syria. She is 25 and has spent six years with me in Central Africa, where she has already saved many souls. She has a good knowledge of French as well. But if you have to stay a few months in Chiuduno, then study with the Sisters of Charity as well.
I have ordered a few issues of our Italian Annals to be sent to you. I am also sending you something for your outfitting, etc.
The five Sisters who left on Tuesday after All Souls have reached Cairo safely. Pray for them.
Your most devoted

+ Daniel,
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

[5853]

Please do me the great favour of correcting and putting into good Italian this part of my Report in which I have interspersed some blank sheets for you to correct what can be corrected. Fascicle 19, which among other reports also contains this part of the report to Cardinal di Canossa, has already been printed as it is: but since the report on the Hunger and Famine will also be printed separately, I would like the off-print to be more correct. I therefore beg you to correct it immediately and then to send me the corrected version within this week.

[5854]

You will find this section most interesting. I am in a terrible muddle finding a Superior who is good enough for the mission. Pray to good Jesus.
I would have been happy to go to Lonigo for the confirmations: but the good Archpriest wanted me to be sure to be there at least three weeks in advance. I promised him to go there a fortnight in advance; but nothing came of it in spite of my wishes and those of many of the clergy. However I later learnt that Prince Giovanelli told the Archpriest: “This is not a season for confirmations”. And since this munificent Prince is known to have clothed many of the poor confirmation candidates on other occasions, the Archpriest thought it prudent to wait rather than to lose this charity; a good enough reason. Many respects to the Bishop, to all my acquaintances and friends and a large and affectionate blessing to all the students at the College whom I hope to see quite soon. I had two horse fevers in Limone (you had already seen me in a bad way at Riva), and two more in Verona. Now I am better, but in rather a mess.
Vale et fave.
Your most affectionate friend

+ Daniel Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

[5855]

With the deepest respect, veneration and love, from the depths of my heart I wish you the most joyful spiritual and temporal prosperity for the imminent feasts of Christmas and the New Year; and I fervently implore the divine Child to bestow his abundant blessings upon Your Most Reverend Eminence and to keep you well for many years, for the good of the Church and of the Apostolic Missions in the world of which you are the head and most wise supreme moderator. May God save you especially for the holy and most important Missions of Africa, and particularly those of Central and Equatorial Africa, for which the time has come, appointed by ever-loving divine Providence.

[5856]

Via Madame Cotti I sent you n.19 of my Annali del Buon Pastore in which a letter to me from Mgr Massaia is published. The newspapers and also my own private correspondents say that he is being held prisoner in Debre Tabor by King John of Abyssinia, because this despot, who calls himself king of kings, suspects that the devout and holy Mgr Massaia is on the side of the excellent King Menelik of Shoa, whose ambassador to the king of kings Mgr Massaia
accepted to be, simply for the good of the people of Shoa. However, I hope that as King John released his enemy Gordon Pasha, ambassador of Egypt, he will also release Mgr Massaia, the veteran of the African Missions who was imprisoned several times by kings of Abyssinia at the instigation of the Coptic schismatic Bishop of Abyssinia and his priests.
I beg you, of your great kindness, to pay my deepest respects to the Holy Father and to obtain his apostolic blessing for me, for my Institutes in Verona and for my Vicariate Apostolic.
I kiss your Sacred Purple
Your most obedient and devoted son

+ Daniel Comboni,
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

[5857]

I wish a happy Christmas and New Year to you, to Teresa your wife, doubly my cousin, to your father and mother and to our Beppino, and I wish you a mountain of blessings, firstly spiritual for the great business of the salvation of our soul, and then temporal for perfect health and material prosperity and also millions and millions, because I am sure you would make excellent use of them, far better than gentlemen generally do today. The same wishes are sent to you by my old man who is here with me.

[5858]

I am stuck in Verona because I have so much business here; but even if I were free, with this cold how could I possibly go to Paris, London, Berlin and Vienna? And then what could I do there where there have been so many wretched events, as you will have gathered from the papers? So I will go when I go. You will have received n. 19 of my Annals which I sent to you and to your father.

[5859]

Here my father and I are very happy together (only the weak-minded get depressed) and we often talk of your father. Marvellous! In the world, thanks be to God, I have never stopped loving charity; and the missionary life is charity. But a paternal love as heroic as your father’s for his children has no equivalent in the world. You are right to feel and to show great love for your parents: in this you are an incomparable son; and you are right to boast about your father and mother as you do, to the extent that you are happy when you see your parents happy. I praise you highly for this: these are the holiest and purest joys (apart from your worthy consort); and we know this (you and I) because we have weighed the world for what it’s worth and by the grace of God, we have duped it. But my love and yours for your father and mother are far inferior to the love your father has for his children. And you know why?… Raise your eyebrows and marvel!…

[5860]

After your departure from Limone, with the incomparable clarity inspired by his fatherly heart, your father made me this proposal…
“If a child of mine were to be condemned to eternal hell for his sins, I would be prepared to go to hell forever in his place; that is, in order to free a son of mine from hell, I would be happy to go there myself, instead of him, for all eternity…”

[5861]

So yesterday I said to my father: “Would you do the same as Eustachio for me?” “Gracious me!” he replied, “I would be very confused… I would do this: I would cover my eyes with both hands and then I would say to God: “You decide, Lord”. I told this to Cardinal di Canossa and he was impressed by it, etc. What is certain is that it takes a sublime and prayerful figure to express the greatness of paternal love, for my mind cannot imagine any greater.

[5862]

So give my greetings to your father and mother (whose cousin I am proud to be); thank them cordially on my behalf for their lavish, generous and noble hospitality to me for such a long period in Limone, and not only to me but to that host of gentlemen whom I had with me and those who kept coming and going at the time of the consecration of our parish church in Limone. Tell them that I will always remember this act of generosity and that I shall never cease praying and having prayers said to the God of mercies for them and for their children, for whom your father would go to hell. Tell your father that for God it is enough that he is prepared to do so, but that it is certain that he will never be driven to the point of asking to go to hell for his children because we shall have them all go to heaven; and give them my heartfelt greetings.

[5863]

Virginia (that Sister mentioned in n. 19 of the journal I sent you on pages 17, 18 and 19, who was in such danger that night by herself) told my Mother Superior: “Monsignor’s cousin, Signora Erminia is a woman of good sense, a true matron”. On 10th November, Virginia went to Trieste to welcome her sister who is now here at my Institute and has just asked me if she can become a Catholic.
All my regards to my double cousin Teresa, and a kiss to Beppino. Send me news of yourself and the family from time to time; and whenever you don’t have time, have your mother write to me, as she has so helpfully done so often.

[5864]

My father, Teresa and Virginia (who has so much to say to your mother and Teresa, to whom she wanted to write to wish a happy Christmas and New Year) send all of you these same wishes.
Please do not let yourself get too tired and look after your health. As I embrace you with all my heart, I remain
Your most affectionate cousin

+ Daniel Comboni,
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa

Virginia thanks Teresa for the clothes she sent from Milan, and sends her photograph. Vale .

[5865]

Your short letter of the 26th which I have just received has cheered me up no end. Yesterday I had written to the excellent parish priest of S. Giorgio to ask him to accompany me to Bassano to visit you. But yesterday evening he sent me a message that I could cancel the trip because you are coming any day to Verona. So I have suspended my plans and impatiently await my dear Fr Sembianti’s arrival here.

[5866]

Words fail me to thank Jesus, Mary and Joseph for the most remarkable grace they have granted unfortunate Africa in choosing your Institute to co-operate so effectively and powerfully in the apostolate of Central Africa. I shall never be able to give the Very Reverend Provost, Fr Pietro Vignola, worthy heir of the Bertoni spirit which is none other than the spirit of Jesus Christ, the thanks he deserves for giving me you to assist me in the arduous and difficult task assigned to me by the Holy See of converting Central Africa, the most immense, challenging and important mission in the world. I am deeply convinced that the participation of your holy Institute, which is certainly one of the Catholic Church’s most perfect and venerable, will be the source of many blessings for the apostolate of Africa.

[5867]

The first mission house of the Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa is the African Institute in Verona, which through God’s will you have been chosen to run and to direct to enable it to accomplish its mission. Be assured, dear father, that God will lavish upon you all the graces necessary for the Institute to achieve its aims. You are but doing God’s will, and God will reward you with immense aids and comforts. Then it is a matter of the pure glory of God and the salvation of the neediest and most deprived souls on earth; and all our strength is in Jesus, Mary and Joseph who will never fail us. The Child Jesus never grows old. Our Lady of the Sacred Heart commands the Heart of Jesus, and St Joseph, who never dies, is a gentleman.

[5868]

With the support of these three treasures, we shall fear neither the whole world nor hell. And then in Verona to guide us we have the venerable and most charitable Provost General and the most reverend Cardinal Bishop who have vast experience. In sum, you will not lack all the help and comforts you need to carry out the important mission God has entrusted to you. I too, in my smallness, will give you all my support to make it easier and successful.
In the meantime I thank you with all my heart for your magnanimous willingness to do everything to glorify Jesus in this Work: God will give you his just reward.

[5869]

From now on, I shall never cease praying for you, as you should pray for me, and let the very sweet Sacred Heart of Jesus always be the centre of communication between us, so that together we may manage the interests of his glory in the best possible way for the good of our unfortunate and beloved Africa.
As I intone the veni, propera, et noli tardare, I wish you a very happy New Year and please remember me in your Mass of the 31st because, 25 years ago on the feast of St Sylvester, I was ordained a priest by the holy Bishop De Tschiderer in Trent. In the hearts of Jesus and Mary, I remain
yours affectionately in the Lord

+ Daniel
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic