Blessed Louis Guanella

Blessed Louis Guanella, son of Lawrence Guanella and Mary Bianchi Guanella, was born in Fraciscio, a little town located in the Italian Alps near Switzerland on December 19, 1842. After completing his studies at the diocesan seminary of Como, he was ordained a Priest on May 26, 1886, and with zeal cared for souls in his diocese for nine years.

Following his interior impulse, and urged by divine signs and the desire to help distressed and indigent brothers and sisters, he searched for his mission with St. John Bosco, who welcomed him gladly. He held Father Guanella very dear during his three year stay, and dreamed of sending him to his newly opened missionary activities in South America.

Summoned by his Bishop, Father Guanella returned to work in his diocese, confidently and patiently waiting for the time he used to call "the hour of the mercy of God," when he could start those works of charity, for which he felt an inborn attraction and a divine vocation.

Unfortunately, he saw all his attempts stamped out from their very beginning, because of suspicion, lack of understanding and persecution from his fellow priests and local government.

Sent finally by his Bishop to Pianello, a little town on the shores of Lake Como, he found a group of young women formed in piety and sacrifice by his predecessor, Fr. Carlos Coppini. In a few years they grew and were ready to venture toward the unlimited borders of Christian charity. On April 6, 1886, a little boat carrying two sisters, a few orphan girls, and a few pieces of furniture left the town leading for the city of Como where Father Guanella prepared for them a little and simple home. This would become the "Mother House" of the Religious Congregation he dreamed of founding, the Daughters of St. Mary Providence and the Servants of Charity.

Here the WORK took root, once again among trials, oppositions and persecutions. The grain grew into a seed-bearing stalk. The houses multiplied. The two Congregations he founded helped him to increase assistance to those "favorites" of Providence: the incurable, abandoned, aged, physically and mentally impaired, and orphaned and needy children in Italy and abroad.

Still energetic in his seventies, Father Guanella sailed to North America in 1912 to begin his WORK in Chicago with Italian immigrants.

In January 1915, he hastened to help the victims of the disastrous earthquake in a central region of Italy which caused the deaths of more than ten thousand people. Father Guanella reached the area with his priests and sisters looking for the survivors and sheltering orphans and aged. This was his last labor, which weakened his physical condition and quickened his end. He died a martyr of charity, in Como on October 24, 1915.

After a regular canonical process, Father Louis Guanella's heroic virtues and sanctity were recognized, and Pope Paul VI declared and venerated him BLESSED on October 25, 1964.

The process for his Canonization will continue in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to study the circumstances of an extraordinary healing of a young man through the intercession of Blessed Louis Guanella.