Page 150 - Reflections on St. Joseph

printing shop, and finally the tailor shop. Some times I had to go to the chancery for jobs, and I
met with Fr. Marello, who was the Secretary of the Bishop. He was so courteous and kind with
me that I was filled with admiration and this admiration increased over the years. I never lost
sight of the Servant of God, who I saw often in the Cathedral and more often in the Michelerio
where he frequently came on Thursday to preach the Hour of Adoration. I was especially
struck by seeing him during the sacred functions in the Cathedral. It seemed that Our Lord was
filling him with a special light” (From the Processes). Around this more notable activity there
were flourishing other works of the apostolate, about which there is more to be discovered
historically, in order to reconstruct that which was born from them in the course of the years.
It cannot be said that a true and proper youth Association arose as a type of external apostolate.
But it is also not possible to dismiss the experience of those years as of now consequence.

13 – Proof of this is that Canon Cerutti was very happy about it, and when Fr. Marello was not
there he preached, and all of that coming to the Church called the “Gesu” brought also
benefactors to his orphanage and charitable assistance in general.

It was in that climate that Marello’s idea developed of setting up a Congregation there where the
atmosphere was already established: it could only be in the Michelerio where Marello was
already at home. Have we never thought about why the Congregation was born in the
Michelerio and not elsewhere?

In 1878, there was no longer need to write a long letter like the one in 1872, in order to be
welcomed by Canon Cerutti. Actually the Canon was the first in a way to search for, or at least

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Reflections on st. joseph