Episodes from the life of God’s servant Mons. Pio Alberto del Corona

  

Mons. Pio’ s Holy Mess

Mons. Pio used to prepare himself for the Holy Mess preaching two hours long: from 4 till 6 in the morning. In this period nobody could knock at his door or talk to him, even if very important things happened. He got to the altar as if he got to the Calvary and even though he was very confident reading the Epistle and the Gospel, from the Offertory to the Communion, he wasn’t self controlled because of an inner communication with the Saint Victim, Jesus himself. In that moment his face was in flames, his eyes were full of tears, he sweated, shook and trembled. When someone asked him the reason of that feverish trembling, he simply answered that in those moments he felt his lips approaching the Saviour’s ribs and was inebriated by that blood which burns the soul. Mons. Pio nourished his eucharistic love paying very frequent visits to Jesus who lived in the sacrament of the altar. To increase his devotion he imagined a circle of light all around the ciborium, an angels’ crown, rays of Jesus’ humanity flowing from His wounds, like five suns, five sources of grace, five red roses.

 

 

The brothers of Saint Dominic of Fiesole had transformed a cloister’s room in Chapel, so that mgr. Pio during the last year Fiesole retreat, should not tire him to arrive in the Church. 

 

 

The One Who Believes In The Providence And The One Who Does Not

Mons. Pio’s faith glowed in various episodes during the building of the nursery school, the Convent in Via Bolognese. He has so much faith in the Providence that the 50 lire that he put on the altar of a provisory chapel became 170.000. One day, the workers’ chief, in the absence of money, advised him to suspend the building of the church, but Mons. Del Corona answered with a letter in which he wrote: “ If you don’t have faith, give it up. We must not interfere with God’s plans. God’ bank doesn’t go bankrupt. We must go on and build also the church (…) God would be angry with us if we couldn’t pay for His home.” And the money came soon to pay the works.
Once again it happened that a person who lent 30.000 lire for the works at the nursery school, asked for the money back before time. Mons. Pio, trusting in the Providence, didn’t get upset and fixed a close date to give the money back. The lawyer, who was the person in charge of the collection and knew the bishop’s poverty, said: “Monsignor, you’re in the clouds! I can’t believe it!” Mons. Pio said nothing, but on the agreed day the money was there and it was given to ing. Romei, who gave it to the incredulous lawyer saying: “ Monsignor is in the clouds and as you can see the money fell exactly from the clouds!”
 

 

The Monastery’s Church is changed in during the years: here see the Church as it was at the beginning

 

Mons. Pio And Saint Antoninus

The most precious object which Mons. Del Corona had, was a beautiful Episcopal ring with a topaz. It had a very affective value because it was given to him by Pope Pius IX in 1874.

Mons. Pio was present when in 1897 in Florence the urn of St. Antoninus (city’s Archbishop 1389/1459) has been opened in the Basilica of St. Marco. Mons. Del Corona bent down on the well conserved body of the Dominican Saint and took delicately his right hand, he took the poor ring away and replaced it with the ring he had received from blessed Pius IX; he did the same with the pastorals changing the plain one of St. Antoninus with his rich one: a simple wooden golden pastoral, which is exposed at the moment in the crypt of his Nuns’convent, where other objects used by the God’s servant Pio Alberto are.
(Unluckily in the 70s the urn with the corpse of St. Antoninnus was violated and all the objects given by Mons. Del Corona were stolen).
 rubati.

 

The Saint Antoninus’ pastoral and some liturgical canonicals wearing by Mgr Pio

 

St.Mark’s Church: in the Salviati Chapel can admire the tomb that it conserve the whole body of Saint Antoninus

 

Charity Always And For Everyone

Mons. Del Corona received requests from everywhere, because people knew that they would have been granted in some way or another. The alms of the Messes didn’t stay one day in his drawer because everything was for his poor, for the Institutes and Religious Homes. His love for the poor was really heroic: nobody had to be sent back empty handed, no advise of human prudence could bring him to reduce his alms. He was really happy only when the last cent had been given away. When he became Bishop he gave his golden chain to a poor woman who didn’t have money to pay the rent for her house and we had to buy a silver chain for him. He later sold his Episcopal ring and a gentleman of the diocese gave him another one with a simple green stone, on which he graved these words: Spes mea in Deo est (My hope is in God).
In another circumstance a barefooted poor man met Monsignor on the way to his palace and asked him for a pair of shoes. The bishop, took off his shoes and gave them to the poor man and went back home with his socks only.
Poor churches and convents had great benefits thanks to the alms of this God’ servant. For his Episcopal silver wedding (in St. Miniato, January 18th, 1900) he received magnificent precious presents, which were exposed in three rooms of the episcopate. But soon all this was given to needy churches and convents.
 

 

The “Sacrament” Of Poverty

During his religious life he always was thankful for what he got, his only passion was reading and when he needed one book he couldn’t find in the convent, he asked his friends for a “charity”. Before eating, in the refectory, he said to himself: “Miserable, you are not worthy of the bread you’re eating. I thank you, God, for the food you prepared for me in your great mercy”. He had to beg for help to everyone for the cost of his bishop’s ordination, because it was too much money for his poor condition. When he was bishop he maintained his habits: his due and love for poverty, so much so that he had to apply to the parishioners’ and nuns’ goodness for all that was strictly necessary. He said: “ I thank God for the poverty. Some days I don’t have a cent and in those days I feel better; I don’t care for money. We have to follow Jesus who was poor and fugitive on earth and made of poverty a sacrament”.
 

 

The Refusal Of The Cardinal’s Dignity

On April 17th, 1899 Mons. Del Corona was in Rome when he got the news of the death of Cardinal and Dominican brother Agostino Bausa, Archbishop in Florence. When he went to a private audience with Pope Leo XIII, this proposed to him to become Archbishop and then Cardinal of Florence, keeping on with the holy work done in Florence by other two Dominicans: Saint Antoninus and Bausa.
Mons. Pio - feeling the burden of 24 years of Episcopate and seeing only his deficiencies and weaknesses - answered the Pope: “We need a giant for that bedlam! Anyone who’s not a giant, like Cardinal Bausa, will be wrecked. Everyone would be in trouble there!” Later, when he received the news that the new Florentine Bishop would be Alfonso M. Mistrangelo, Bishop of Pontremoli, Mons. Del Corona explained to the seminarists of the Seminary Della Calza: “You followed your heart (referring to the fact that they wanted him as Archbishop of Florence), but I had to take care of my poor shoulders”.
Previously, when he was 33 years old, Mons. Pio refused an important office because he considered himself unworthy: when he was elected on May 10th, 1870 General Vicar of the Dominican Congregation of St. Marc, he implored the General Master of the Order to relieve him from that office because he had “no strong character, no prestige, no authority”, which were preconditions to worthily fill the office of General Vicar.
 

The Cardinal Agostino Bausa Archbishop of Florence

 

 

 Mgr. Pio and the new Archbishop Mistrangelo at the Florence’s Seminary

 

A Bishop Who Feels Nostalgic Of Obedience

As Mons. Pio left the management of the Diocese of St. Miniato he retired to the Convent of San Domenico di Fiesole and could fulfil the aspiration he had in his youth, the aspiration always to obey, which he had to leave to practise his bishop’s office. The Prior of St. Dominic made the most of it and ordered to the Bishop to limit austerities and to leave some heavy practices of convent’s life. The lay brother who assisted him always said: “The Prior doesn’t want it” and Mons. Pio diligently obeyed; he obeyed more than his due, when he thought that the lay brother acted in accordance with the Prior’s will. He wanted to take care of his room himself, but the lay brother, according to the Prior, ordered him to let him be served.
 

 

View of the Monastery of saint Dominic of Fiesole at the beginning of 900

 

 

An Unusual Night

One night, during a pastoral visit, he had lingered in the confessional; he decided to go back to the episcopate with his secretary and reached it late in the night. The two servants - who had waited for him long time - thought that he would not have come back in that night and went peacefully to sleep. The secretary knocked at the door many times, but he had no answer. He stopped only at Mons. Pio’s request, who, decided to take a walk on the lawn in front of the palace under the moonshine; later he said that during that time he had meditated on the words of the parable of the prudent and foolish virgins (Matthew 25,1-13), who –knocking at the door of the groom – said: “Lord, Lord, open to us!”. And he thought: “What would it be of myself in the moment of my death if I heard the Judge saying the terrible words: I don’t know you?”
He went on like that for some hours until the secretary went at two in the morning to wake up the bell-ringer, who offered them a poor place to sleep in the entrance of his house. They remained there until four when the servant finally heard them and opened the door. The bishop didn’t say a word of reproach and he went at once to celebrate the Holy Mess. The only thing servants received from him was a blessing.

      

Overview of the city of S.Miniato (Pisa) at the beginning of 900

 

A Long Awaited Conversion

Giuseppe Levantini-Pieroni, contemporary of Mons. Pio and schoolfellow at the Barnabites’ School had competed with him in goodness of heart and intelligence; but he lost his mother when he was 10 years old and he wasn’t supported by his father, so he abandoned his Faith and the Church and became a layman. In his life he met many times Mons. Pio and had with him some religious discussions; in one of these meetings, after having replied to his objections, the bishop – pulling his beard – said to him: “We need other beards to refute our faith!” In the following years Levantini-Pieroni was seriously ill but he continued to refuse priests and religious supports; his wife, who was very religious, reminded him of his old friend Alberto (Mons. Pio Alberto), and her husband accepted in the name of their old friendship. They called Mons. Pio who came at once and stayed with him for long; when he went away the Bishop declared: “I have obtained more than I could hope”. And the ill man confided to his nephew: “I’m peaceful, I’m very happy. Forget my past”.

 

Blasphemies And Blasphemers

One morning, while he was going to the Florence’s seminary to teach, he heard some young people swearing; Father Pio Alberto came up to them and asked them - kindly but resolutely - if they had the courage to address to the king only one of those abuses they daringly used for the King of all Kings. The young people were struck dumb and the Father went on his way. After a few months he was called to confess a young dying man who was demanding for him: he was one of the young men, who repented during his incurable illness and proclaimed he would have never found his peace until he had seen near him the friar who had told him off.
 

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