He was a religious and a priest of intense prayer, of a profound interior life which transpired from his habitually collected and reserved demeanour. He possessed a righteous soul in his intentions and works, for this reason, even when his convictions diverged from his, it was necessary to admire and respect his fidelity to the truth which he held absolutely.
Industriousness was one of the outstanding virtues of his life from his youth to old age. He lived with the utmost personal commitment all the responsibilities entrusted to him by his superiors: such as that of local superior in numerous houses, master of novices, guide of the communities of Latin America and, on the threshold of sunset, postulator of the causes of beatification of the then Venerable Sister Chiara Bosatta and Mons. Aurelio Bacciarini.
To summarize, briefly, the two essential traits that characterized his life as a Guanellian, it is obvious to remark:
- the practice of robust asceticism that Don Carlo had established as an essential gift of his life as a religious in the spirit of Don Guanella who combined suffering with prayer;
- the filial transport to the teachings of the Founder and to the Congregation, which transpired in the living memory of our history, which he tried to tell in many ways, and in the custody of our genuine tradition.
In August 1920, the then parish priest of Mombello, a large village on the Lombard shore of Lake Maggiore, presented Carlo De Ambroggi, not yet thirteen, to the superior of the Fara Novarese seminary. He wrote: "My young parishioner Carlo De Ambroggi who comes there is excellent in every respect". In particular, he attested to his "goodness, piety and intelligence" and claimed to have found in him "the best signs of an ecclesiastical vocation" and said he was sure of "a splendid success".
68 years later, it must be said that those predictions have been fulfilled: the good seed has borne fruit. Not without a painful and prolonged work of asceticism, indispensable for accepting the mysterious invitations of divine grace and for reaching a fully mature faith. The best way that St. Paul indicates to the Christian and that Don Guanella has traveled to the point of heroism is charity. How many obstacles it must overcome in order to take root in us and transform life; break down the barriers of selfishness and lead the person to the full gift of self to God and neighbor. Don Carlo imbued his priesthood with the pure asceticism of love in the most genuine way. He scanned himself daily in search of how much he kept him away from his Lord, well knowing his own fragility. He loved to purify the thoughts and the innermost throbs of the heart to remove the banalities of the experience that evil concealed in the not always complete gift of acting and giving. With energy he countered the suggestions of evil; demanding and austere with himself before with others, determined to avoid any compromise, vigilant in maintaining the spirit of daily donation for the poor, the true lords of his life.
There is a second trait that qualified Don Carlo's proprium: love for the Founder and for the Congregation. He absorbed it during the years of the Fara Novarese seminary, under the guidance of Don Leonardo Mazzucchi, who conquered it from Don Guanella and was for him a model of attachment to the Founder and of dedication to the Congregation. He knew Don Guanella's life and works; he quoted from memory the most indicative passages; he made an effort to live its spirit and to transmit its message intact, using words and writings. The process of the cause for beatification followed with trepidation and it was precisely in the six-year term of his superiorship (1958-64) that he joyfully welcomed the announcement of his glorification (1964).
In a letter dated May 13, 1962, he informed his confreres that the Church had recognized his heroic virtues. He commented: «We are children of Saints! This is the most honorific and at the same time the most challenging title for us. If we are children of saints, the nobility obliges us to emulate their examples, to honor their memory with egregious works, worthy of our origins".
Elsewhere he recalled: «Dear confreres, the truest glory, the most hoped for by the Father Founder himself, the most fruitful of good and the most lasting must be constituted by the holiness of life, by fidelity to his program, by the perpetuity of his spirit in us, his Servants of Charity".
Don Carlo always wanted to remain faithful to his Guanellian vocation, in a sincere search for holiness, as a superior he instilled in his confreres: he was at the visceral service of the Congregation, not only in Italy and Spain, but for 12 years in Latin America. Elected Superior General, he above all set himself the task of being the spiritual guide of the Congregation. He did not neglect the expansion of the Opera, which settled in the United States of America. He wanted the Congregation to experience "a renewal or rather the improvement" of the spiritual life and religious formation (Charitas 121, 2). The titles of the letters he published in Charitas reveal his evident primary concern:
- poverty of deeds and not of words, fraternal charity in communities among religious and outside with the poor;
- the future vocations of the Work;
- chastity, readiness to fight against evil;
- duties towards the Congregation; the father's will;
- oboedientia et pax; to suffer; sons of saints; the rule; Divine Providence.
This was his government's most decisive commitment. Don Carlo loved the Congregation with the same enthusiasm with which he loved Don Guanella: for him she was the most loved creature, a sure way to holiness and a genuine witness of the Gospel. He also loved her when, with regret, he noted that the commitment to holiness on the part of the confreres was lazy and without enthusiasm underlined by a lack of correspondence, inadequacies in living the Founder's apostolic and charitable anxiety. Loving the Congregation meant for him: honoring it, keeping its spirit unchanged, keeping its purpose unaltered, promoting its development (Charitas 130). Close to his death, Don Carlo raised his arms three times, extending them upwards. Gesture of offering?... Answering a call?... Meeting with a friend?... In the serenity of Don Carlo in the face of death, the certainty triumphs that for him in that moment the word was fulfilled of Jesus: «Come, you blessed... receive the kingdom...». «Yes, Father, because it pleased you this way!».