Superior from 1924 - 1946
With the IV general chapter (1924), Don Leonardo Mazzucchi (1883-1964) was elected Superior General, spiritual son and favorite collaborator of the founder, reconfirmed in general chapters V (1930) and VI (1936). His long government (1924-46) is of exceptional importance: he took care of the knowledge of the life of blessed Guanella (his is the first and fundamental biography, 1920), the esteem of his spirit (re-edition of the Opere ascetiche and the Regulations, Charitas collection, Divine Providence), the recognition of its virtues until the happy outcome of the diocesan and apostolic processes. He achieved the consolidation of the structures of the Congregation (new text of the Constitutions and definitive approval: 1935).
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Biographical notes Born in Pianello Lario (CO), on 17 June 1883 Priest in Como (for the diocese), 8 December 1905 Entered Como on 15 October 1906 Professed in Como on March 24, 1908 Deceased in Como on March 28, 1964 |
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Having entered the parish priest at Pianello, the S. Martino of 1881, Don Guanella quickly and easily made contact with his faithful. One of the families that opened up to him the most was the young one of Natale and Domenica Mazzucchi: their first little daughter Alessandrina died in 1880, and they now had two little boys: Alessandrino, born on 20 April 1878, and Salvatore, still in swaddling clothes. The third came a year and a half later and it was our Don Leonardo, whom Don Guanella baptized four days later. It was the beginning of a spiritual kinship, which grew ten years later, on another 21 June, that of 1883, when, in Como, in the basilica of S. Abbondio, the seminarian Leonardo received Confirmation from the holy bishop Andrea Ferrari: resting his right hand on his shoulder, Don Guanella was his godfather. Little Mazzucchi had wanted to go to the seminary when he was still nine, with the school preparation for the third grade. He had wanted to write the application for admission in his own hand, even in the uncertain handwriting, and in order to post it personally he had wanted to be lifted up to the letterbox. His poor health added to the failure of the first school year. A strong organic deterioration was already beginning, which produced a psychic breakdown, with the lively concern of the mother and also of Don Guanella. The second didn't bode well either. He resorted to the solution of a change of air; he welcomed her, in the nearby Ticino, to the seminary of Pollegio, for the five years of the high school course, 1893-1898. And then that of Lugano, for the high school classes. For theology, he returned to Como. He was so young that, having come to an end, he still did not reach the minimum canonical age: he was forced to wait for the feast of the Immaculate Conception for priestly Ordination.
8 December: priest, in the chapel of the major seminary; 10 December: first solemn Holy Mass in Pianello Lario; 5 January following: reaches the destination in cure of souls, in Rodolo, a small village in the Alta Valtellina, perched on the mountains. And Don Guanella? Maybe he forgot? Far from it! He had followed him step by step, with a presence that was both assiduous and discreet, with his advice, with attentive concern, with the offer of stays in his houses. He wanted him with him, he was waiting for her; he never he had intervened with a direct invitation. However, it was a powerful magnet and Don Leonardo was soon attracted by it. With the benevolent authorization of his Bishop, less than a year later, he entered the Casa Divina Provvidenza, which became his home forever. Don Aurelio Bacciarini preceded him by a week. Don Guanella welcomed her with open arms: until now she had given him his heart, from that moment on he took care to infuse his spirit into her. Don Leonardo placed himself in a listening position, the best of disciples: no theoretical lessons, but a rolling up of sleeves and readiness for service. There were a few months of novitiate, from 28 September 1907 to 24 March 1908: the intensity had to make up for the extension. And then, side by side, the first official profession of 24 March 1908. The first commitment had been the care of the young aspirants, with the teaching of mathematics, and, parallel, an intense ministry with the nuns, above all at the Binda, the house all of them, on the heights of Lora. Then, as the days went by, confidence and work grew hand in hand; Don Guanella made him personal secretary, called him first to collaborate and then to direct the periodical of the house: "La Divina Provvidenza", he charged him with collecting, drafting and publishing memoirs of people who had interested the Work. Already in 1910, with an extra-capitular appointment, he elected him general councilor. The time came when Don Bacciarini was transferred parish priest to Rome, and much of the work done by the confrere fell to Don Leonardo, especially the propaganda and the causes for the Beatification of Sister Chiara Bosatta and Caterina Guanella.
1915: Don Guanella dies. Don Leonardo is leaning over his coffin to mourn his beloved father. Still on the path taken, his life now has three impulses. The first is to make his holiness known. Already in 1916, he began the publication of his Operette di lui, which he collected in the «Bibliotechina ascetico-morale di don Guanella». He immediately sets his hand to the biography, a classic and fundamental work entitled The life, spirit and works of Don Guanella which will see the light in 1920. His personal notes are precious to him, in which he went on noting, day by day, facts and words: extends direct and indirect research, meditates on what came out of his fluid pen. "Divine Providence" provides him with the monthly tool to keep alive the memory of seeing him glorified. That he is holy is certain and the others are certain: the Church must declare it. He undertook the long journey of the Processes, from the diocesan informative one of 1925, to the other apostolic one, with the many parallel phases: the revision of the writings, the recognition of the body. The joy will be complete when it comes to the proclamation of the heroic nature of the virtues. There is only one step for the solemn Beatification, but it will no longer be there: God will let him taste it in heaven. The second worry is that of how to collect Don Guanella's legacy: a strange legacy, where both the number and the entity deceive. It is a legacy of the poor and in debt, with the even stranger proviso of increase, not zero.
In July 1916, not yet a year since Don Guanella died, the Fara Novarese seminary opened, a blessed "training ground" for new recruits, ready to provide arms and hearts to the various houses. Don Mazzucchi is the rector: it's up to him to think about accommodation and food, the school, especially training. And they also entrust him with the novices of Albizzate. He will complete the lively instruction several times a week and listen to it, with voluminous notes of asceticism, to be copied, to be remembered, to make it a rule of life. Over time, the house of Barza was added, increasingly full of young recruits. There are two eyes and two pupils: Fara and Barza will always be the pupils of his eyes. As the subjects grow, the works multiply; it is a wide-ranging diffusion, which first points to the south of Italy and then does not fear crossing the ocean. 1925 sees the first expedition to Latin America. The various States follow one another: the voice of the Bishops, the voice of the poor are the voice of God. He doesn't care about the number, he looks for quality. He will go on seeing and revising one house after another, with more insistence where the need is greater: in America, four times, in just seven years. And they are long, hard, exhausting journeys, where long readings intertwine with countless rosaries. But above all he feels like a guide. Don Guanella had already initiated him into the general problems of the Congregation: Don Bacciarini, whom the Holy See put in charge of government, immediately, on November 27, 1915, wanted him at his side as general councilor. On June 21, 1921, the General Chapter will appoint him Vicar. And when Msgr. Bacciarini, crushed between the weight of the Diocese of Lugano, to which, reluctantly, the Pope wanted him, and a mass of evils that will show him "Job of the Episcopate", will get to have his resignation accepted, it will be up to Don Mazzucchi to collect them the legacy. A burden to carry for twenty-two years. The first great concern is the third concern, to preserve the spirit of the Founder, even at the cost of some painful cuts. In the countless trips, from house to house, to the confreres, to the young clerics, especially from Fara, Barza, the Mother House, he does not spare his slow, deep, meditated word, to morning meditation or good night.
From 1922 until his last years, he edited the publication of «Charitas», a leaflet reserved for the Congregation. It is a true mine, in which the thoughts of the saints converge with the documents of the Holy See, of various episcopates, in particular the news, the references, the notes of the genuine spirit of the Founder. If Don Guanella lacks the halo, and it is from Rome that it must be solicited, the Congregation lacks the seal of officiality, which also must come from Rome. Don Guanella had obtained the Decree of praise, definitive approval was needed. The hard and long effort of practices, of approaches, of insistence is finally crowned with the approval ad experimentum for seven years in 1928 and with the definitive one in 1935. The General Chapter of 1946, which gathers the forces divided by the war, he thinks it appropriate to take into account his years, his ailments and above all a detachment that trains someone else: he calls another confrere to the office of Superior General. However, he wants Don Leonardo to stay by his side with his experience and great love for the Congregation and appoints him Vicar. The next one he will loosen up again, he will be satisfied with seeing him as an adviser, but always committed. And he, as long as he lives, will continue to watch over the Congregation, the creature born from the heart of Don Guanella, which he helped to make great, to the point of being given, because deserved, the recognition of second Founder. The ailments that had always accompanied him, that had repeatedly brought him under the surgeon's knife, had multiplied over the years. Two conflicting desires filled his heart: to go and find his sweet father, to wait to see him on earth, surrounded by the halo of saints. For him she chose the Lord, and satisfied the first of his wishes.
Don Guanella had told him: - You will live a long time, but you will have to suffer a lot. Prophecy or omen it doesn't matter: one or the other come true.
It was Holy Saturday, when he left earth for heaven. She was accompanied by the joyful sound of the bells, a celebration of joy singing the Easter hallelujah, with the many who had preceded him, with her don Guanella in particular. And his brothers, who could not forget the bonds, who considered him a fundamental stone, father and master of their spirit, wanted his body to rest in the Sanctuary of Como. They removed it from the cemetery of Pianello which had guarded it and transferred it there on October 12, 1980. he shouldn't have separated."
