Saint Luigi Orione

Luigi Orione was born in Pontecurone, in the province of Alessandria, on June 23, 1872. His father Vittorio was a road paver who had fought with Garibaldi and was known in town for how little he liked priests; his mother Carolina, an illiterate farm woman originally from the Veneto, was a fervent Catholic and had worked for years as a maid in the Rattazzi household. He carried that contradiction inside him all his life, and maybe that’s why he wasn’t afraid of anyone. At thirteen he joined the Franciscans in Voghera, but after a few months they sent him away because of an illness that nearly killed him. On October 4, 1886, he arrived at the oratory of Valdocco, in Turin, and stayed three years: there Don Bosco noticed him and counted him among his favorites. In 1889 he entered the seminary in Tortona, where, to pay for his studies, he worked as custodian of the cathedral — his family couldn’t help him. He didn’t wait to be a priest to get started. At twenty he had already opened an oratory; at twenty-one, in 1893, a boarding school for boys who wanted to study and couldn’t afford it. He was ordained a priest in 1895, and from 1899 he began gathering around him the priests and clerics who formed the Little Work of Divine Providence. He died in Sanremo on March 12, 1940. Beatified in 1980, he was declared a saint by John Paul II in 2004. If your name is Louis or Louisa, today is your name day — even though many wait for June 21.