The starting point for this work was the document of Fr. Joseph Henchey, “Stigmatine Calendar. Annotation of events in the Stigmatine history, 1777 – 1910”.
Fr. Joseph did a very good job of collecting information from many sources. He had put the entries in a calendar order, which means, for each day of the month there are more events (i.e. all events which happened on the 1st January in different years; then all the events on the 2nd January, and so on). I have re-arranged his work in chronological order.
I went through his entire work, comparing the entries with two more recent works, one of Fr. Michele Curto (“Dal convento delle Stimmate al Mondo”, 2017), the other of Fr. Luigi Mantovani (“Albero rigoglioso e frondoso…”, 2020). Here and there I discovered discrepancies in the dates or names, so I made further research, retaining what seemed most fitting.
Then there was the second part of the work, almost new, covering the following years, up to 2020. For this part I consulted the English version of Fiorio’s ‘Breve Cronaca’, the books of Curto and L. Mantovani, and a book of Pietro Mantovani, (found by ‘providence’ in Morogoro) which continues the title of Fiorio’s book: ‘Brief Chronicles; years 1945 to 2000’.
The work certainly will result in two styles of presentation: the first part, based on the work of Fr. Henchey, is more linked to dates. The second part, totally new, often puts together topics which cover a broader span of time than a single date.
This work started in Morogoro, Tanzania, in January 2020. In the misfortune of been held two weeks in Rome and six weeks in Verona because of travelling restrictions (for the pandemic crisis of covid-19), I could access the full collection of Il Bertoniano and some other books, so I had material for building up the third part, after the year 2000. The work was delayed a bit, but became more complete, and was closed in Kutaisi, Georgia on the 14 September 2020 – Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
Although the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata of Our Lord Jesus Christ always remained a “pusillus grex” – a little flock, the desire to live the heritage of St. Gaspar Bertoni and to serve the Church without hindrances has moved the Stigmatine history and continues to bring fresh support to the evangelization in all its aspects.
A great thanks to the Holy Spirit and to his faithful servants as well.
LDS – Praise to God always!
Fr. Daniel Giacomelli, CSS
(Excerpts from the Forewords)
Stigmatine Historical Notes - by Rev. Daniel Giacomelli, CSS [2023] [A4 format] | |