Expressive figures
Archbishop Dominic Turano
Cardinal Celesia, successor to Bishop in 1870, wants to make a public acknowledgment of the merits and capabilities of Father James insisting that they accept the appointment as a canon. During the same period, the comunal council of Palermo, unanimously called Cusmano to hold the office of pastor of Sant'Ippolito, has become vacant. Just be aware of the fact, he moved in secret to San Giuseppe Jato to keep hidden until the Municipality of Palermo fails otherwise. Accepts, however, like those assignments that require hard work and sacrifices. Becomes director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith and Holy Childhood and a member of the Board of Directors of Storage Mendicity and the Congregation of Charity.
In 1872, Msgr. Turano was appointed bishop of Agrigento and reveals at Cusmano the desire to be monitored and assisted by him in that difficult government diocese. The priest tries to resist to the lovely call but at, the end, satisfied his spiritual father. Until the eve is uncertain whether or not starting. On the one hand, away in a moment it seems difficult to gl a desertion, and second, in his humility, doubt of being more than help, the obstacle to the progress of the Opera. Indeed, within two months of enforced absence, the institution founded by Cusmano fell significantly. "It totally abandoned the Opera Boccone of the Poor," James wrote to his father families. When they return to Palermo, immediately raises the fate of the already nearly destroyed.
Doctor Enrico Albanese
If it is firm in rejecting a revolution stained with blood, that does not mean that his attitude is less severe against the tyrant. The friend Enrico Albanese recalls with admiration an episode of which was a witness.
In 1855, being one day in Naples with three academics - a Florentine, a "Romagnolo" and a Neapolitan - Giacomo expects the transition of King Ferdinand them before the staircase of the royal palace. Having been derided by colleagues and rejected because of servility Sicilian monarchy, Cusmano scorned reply: "I bet you mainland, liberal and daring, do not you know how to stay in front of Her Majesty without salute, and I his subject, Sicilian and Bourbon, I will watch it without numeracy hat".
And so comes shortly after the passage of the king: the others are discovering the head and bow as would be the most loyal subjects, Giacomo is standing up to watch it without taking off his hat.
"And that? I've must allegiance?" adds Cusmano when Albanese says the fact his friends. "I had to join all complacent to injustice and poverty that sowed around? We Sicilians, the government we want honest people who love the truth, act with justice, foster true brotherhood and equality among men, to provide true freedom. "
Precisely because of the courage and clarity of ideas shows that James, Enrico Albanese and some friends invited him to join the revolutionary movement for the good and unity of Italy to the shout: "Long live V.E.R.D.I.!"-The first letters of Vittorio Emanuele Re d'Italia (Vittorio Emanuele King of Italy). For companions, James has the capacity of mind and soul to become among the conspirators anti - bourbon, "as the genius and soul of the regeneration of Italy" in the words of Albanese.
James declines the invitation because it disagrees with the methods and some goals of the revolutionaries. He is all taken from the noblest ideals that do not allow him to approve the use of violence.
Doctor Michele De Franchis
he divine inspiration when he was less if the waiting. One day, there is a house of his dearest friend: Dr Michele De Franchis.
And the hour of lunch and the whole family is sitting at the table. Father James says that everyone, at every scale, takes away from your dish a bite and puts it into a bowl placed in the center of the table. He was asking what all the way to go, De Franchis replies: "And we leave a small Bite to give to the poor and call it the poor bite." He explains that in his house, this is practiced daily habit "to educate children to love the poor." At the end of the meal comes a need. The children of the De Franchis offer the bowl and serve him with gentle care and love.
At that time, Cusmano is illuminated by God that makes him "see all the beauty of that today the most appropriate consequences."
"If all the Christian families - think the priest - even the less wealthy, did the same ... We would have the bite of the poor," Father Giacomo also makes a quick calculation: "If, not all, half of Palermo it is decided to make this work beneficial, depriving everyone of a mouthful, in a single day could be seven thousand food well poor!.
He has found a way to encourage everyone to practice charity.
P. Cusmano made his choice. He decided to abandon the idea of questua money to the poor.
Mother Maddalena Cusmano
Around Cusmano father gathers a group of people who have assimilated its charism of Eucharistic bite and bite material given to the Poor: from father Mammana, his first successor, to Father Filippelli to the many missionaries and servants of the Poor.
Around the founder gathers an even larger crowd of nuns who follow his example and that of sister Vincenzina first superior general, was made to serve the living sacrament of Christ, the needy, the marginalized, orphans, the elderly. ..
Rarely a founder has been able to attract so many vocations in his own family of origin, as in the case Cusmano. In the first group were consecrated, in addition to Vincenzina sister, his niece Magdalene to be the second superior general of the congregation and one of the top entertainers of the Bite of the Poor.
Will be the younger brother of Father James, Joseph and the grandchildren Carolina Cusmano sister Maddalena with the other sisters Giuseppina and Germana, Luigina religion in Morocco, which takes the name of Esther, which will be added to the grandchildren, in the second degree, father of James , Judith and Giacomina Patti.
Maddalena Cusmano - Nene, for family members - is the granddaughter of favorite uncles James and Vincenzina. They keep it in his studies when Peter's father is unable to do so. Already in 1870 goes to Palermo from uncles to help in the "Bite of the Poor", founded three years earlier. And among the most zealous and enthusiastic "pious women" engaged in the work of sceverare items derived from questua of sewing, mending, prepare packages for distribution to the poor. Its main task is, however, to make the school the 25 orphan internal and external to the other.
Forced to return to the family in 1874 death of his mother, back at four years later.
His few writings - only 4 letters dated almost exclusively since 1883 and Valguarnera - and not very abundant information from other sources, we show in a safe a Servant of the Poor closely the cusmanian ideal: with the whole religious' soul, given to God in contemplative dimension that the Rule requires, and totally dedicated to serving the poor.
Mother Mary Magdalene was the first pupil at the school of heroic sanctity of Cusmano.
Mother Ester Marocco
Thirty years after becoming a superior another nephew of Father James: mother Ester Marocco Cusmano, daughter of a sister of the founder. Born April 25th 1870, at only 28 years can embrace their vocation in the sign of his inner motto: "God glorified, I destroyed." Superior General for two decades, from 25 March 1930, gave considerable impetus to the congregation he founded seven orphanages, five nursery school, eleven shelters, three hospitals, plus six other works.
Cultured and austere, kind and strong, mother Ester looks at the reality. And the kind of strong woman, as mentioned in the Bible. His virtues are the activity and foresight, prudence and charity, wisdom and goodness. If widening the field of the apostolate of the Servants of the Poor, not least for this ignores the primacy of religious sisters.
He says to her daughters: "The Silence is necessary for recollection in the presence of God When this point of regulation is neglected, the whole edifice of perfection falls. I heartily recommend to you all not to give you desperately and passionately to work, ignoring the religious duties that should have the preference and priority. "
The heart that mother Ester miatreat too, claiming his right to rest in bed nailed for three years. On the last day October 22th 1950 the sisters that attend the call-I remember thinking: "The young people who come to embrace our Opera - says slowly chanting the words - taught that the mission of the Servants of the Poor is the foundation prayer and sacrifice. "
Mother Mattia Ligotti
Mattia Ligotti mother, who died November 25 1969 to 99 years and 2 months after 85 years of religious life, was considered for many decades to serve all of the Poor, the "living relic" of the father Cusmano, one who has witnessed the spirit and charism, linking the timing of the foundation with the present day.
The cusmanian spirit and charism were sent to hundreds of nuns in her decades-long office mistress of novices.
Father Salvatore Gambino
Before Spoto, Salvatore Gambino father has given himself the mission of the Mexican Santa Cruz de Rosales. He was among the young priests Cusmano collaborators of the thousands of initiatives to find suitable accommodation and support to the "Masters", that is, to the Poor, under the name dear to his father that James was also used. Gambino father was the first to implement the missionary ideal of the founder, who wanted his children for missions.
The 29th August 1893, with the blessing of his father Mammana, the successor to the Cusmano, he left Sicily for the transplant of Bite of the Poor in America. After several months of ups and adventurous, he settled in Rosales in the Mexican State of Chihuahua, in a poor country, completely devoid of priests and considered a completely sterile soil. Salvatore father soon began to work the same miracles of love that the founder had made in Palermo. Before long, the people is transformed by his ardent zeal, and the heroic tenacity of the missionary from the immence charity. Beside the church there are two schools: a home for orphans and for the elderly.
The trials and difficulties that put all the terrible danger in not missing the end of 1904, a terrible flood destroys the work costing many years of sacrifices, but Gambino father bravely over again. In 1910, a hurricane more violent and deadly is crashing down on his work: the Mexican revolution.
"To go where the revolutionaries - wrote bitterly father Gambino in 1912, - does not return a thread to be born derb. Undergoes various harassment but not the missing certificates of benevolence on the part of skilled revolutionaries. However, January 24 1914, Pancho Villa himself, leaving the underwear with the first train to the North, because "person not pleasing to the revolution." Exile in the United States, first in El Paso, then to Bisbee, in Arizona, lasts two years. In 1916, Fr. Gambino is back to Chihuahua, in order to continue their work despite the alternation of spells and storms. During one of these, was sentenced to death but the platoon of execution, for myracle, not execute the sentence when the guns are already smooth against him. He died saintly the 18th March 1927 in the big house for the elderly which had been director of skilled work and tireless worker. The common regret for his death was an echo also in local newspapers, despite the climate of persecution then in force.
Father Prospero Sanfilippo
The story of missionary father Prospero Sanfilippo continues to the present day, the experience of apostolic father Gambino, but not in Mexico but in the middle of Africa, Zaire. Precisely for this achievement missionary to Biringi implanted in 1959 by Sanfilippo father, gave his life father Spoto.
Father Francesco Spoto
That spared the bloody martyrdom founder, Providence to give him one of its most distinguished sons, father Francesco Spoto, who falls victim of Congolese rebels in 1964 while making one visit to the mission Biringi. He was elected superior general, only 35 years in 1959. A few months before leaving for the mission of Biringi in the former Belgian Congo (now Zaire), Father Francesco says: "More than projects, our mission needs blood."
He went to Africa to bring comfort to the missionaries at a time of delicate political transition. Simba The revolution is ongoing and is to Biringi. The father generally prefers to stay with his brother until the storm has passed. The Lord, however, Spoto father asks the sacrifice of life. Despite the good hiding places and help people in place, the father generally is discovered, captured and savagely beaten by Simba who drop dead when you believe. Father Francesco still manages to escape, but shortly after, died in the hut of a Christian. And on 27 December 1964.
His mortal remains have rested there a Biringi, in the heart of the Black, for twenty years and now are buried in Palermo. The letter who Sanfilippo father was able to drive home in Italy, describes the events that led to the death of his father Spoto: it can not be denied the title of martyr. For this reason, we will have the cause of beatification of the young superior general, worthy son of Blessed Giacomo Cusmano.