Bl. Contardo Ferrini – October 27th
Contardo’s father was a teacher of mathematics and physics and he early began teaching his little son his own love for study. As a young man, Contardo could speak many languages besides his own Italian. He did very well in every school and college he went to, and his great love for study and for his Catholic Faith made his friends nickname him their own ‘St. Aloysius’. It was Contardo who first started clubs for college students to help them form themselves into good Christians.
When he was twenty-one, he was offered a chance to study at the University of Berlin in Germany. It was hard for him to leave his home in Italy, but he was happy to meet many devout Catholics at the University of Berlin. He wrote down in a little book what he felt the first time he went to Confession in a foreign land: it thrilled him to realize that the Catholic Church is really the same everywhere a person goes.
By the next year, Contardo was trying to decide whether he should become a priest or a monk, or whether he should marry or just what he should do. As it turned out, he took a vow to give himself only to God, but he never became a priest or a brother. He went on teaching and writing and trying always to become a more perfect Christian. While enjoying his favorite sport of mountain-climbing, he would think of God, the Creator of all the beauty he saw. People noticed that there was something different about Professor Ferrini. Once when he had passed by with his usual warm smile, someone exclaimed “That man is a Saint!”
Today I will offer my prayers for lay apostles, so that they may be able to do much good, by their good example to the people with whom they live and work.
