DON BRUNO BELFI was born in Vodo Cadore on 13.06.1920 to Arcangelo and Caterina Marchioni. On 27.06.1920 his parents take him to the baptismal font so that he becomes a child of God and fits fully into the Holy Mother Church. Little Bruno's life grows and develops like that of any other child; we do not know particular episodes that characterize his childhood and his family we only have the note that we find in a letter from Don Giovanni Calvi, superior of Velai di Feltre, which defines him as "very poor" to the point of not even being accepted into the seminary.
Bruno resolutely and convincedly confirmed his faith in the sacrament of Confirmation conferred on him by Mons. G.Cattarossi in Vinigo di Cadore on 26.03.1927. At the age of 13, on 22 September 1933, he entered our Congregation, Servants of Charity, in the house of Fara Novarese, as an aspirant. He was welcomed by the local Superior and Father Master, Fr Michele Bacciarini, upon presentation by Fr Giovanni Calvi: "I attach to you the application for admission to the first gymnasium from a very poor boy who is repeatedly recommended to me by the parish priest and the neighbor and they present him as a truly choice. He was not received by the Salesians of Belluno because he was very poor; nor from the Seminary because he has a priest cousin… ..Do you want to take him? I would like it because these countries could give other vocations, including lay ones. Otherwise I would be forced, if you believed, to try it myself, but it would be a lost year. If you admit it, please send me a postcard immediately, numbering the necessary certificates. I already have some” (Velai di Feltre, 6 September 1933).
He attended high school with profit, completed the year of postulancy in the social year 1938/1939 and the canonical year of novitiate in 1939/1940. On 12 September 1940 he was able to make his first religious profession as a Servant of Charity in our house in Barza d'Ispra (VA).
He returned as an educator to the boys in the Istituto di Velai di Feltre for the following three years and definitively consecrated himself to God with his perpetual profession in the Casa di Gatteo on 12.09.1944. In the chapel of the same house he was ordained a priest by Mons. C. Stoppa on 15.06.1946.
He began his mission as a priest as a teacher in Rome Trionfale and as a minister in Valle Aurelia from 1946 to 1948. He was then sent as First Councilor to Naro (AG) from 1948 to 1951, where the Work is present with a Institute for boys and a small seminary for aspirants. He returns again to Valle Aurelia from 1951 to 1955 as deputy parish priest. From 1955 to 1958 he was the second councilor in the community of Ferentino (FR). From 1958 to 1964 he was sent to the community of Albizzate (VA) as adviser to the local superior. The last stop on his earthly pilgrimage was the Basilica of San Giuseppe al Trionfale. He arrives there in the autumn of 1964, coinciding with the solemn Beatification of our Blessed Founder in St. Peter's and works there in the ministry of reconciliation and in the home service of the sick until 21 September 2000, two days before his death: 36 uninterrupted years . At dawn on 23 September, without giving anyone any "inconvenience", as he used to say, he left this earth for heaven.