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Jul 02, 2020

ANTONINI Carlo (Father) - Italy

Rho, 20 July 1931 • Albavilla, 1st December 2019 (Italy)

Fr Carlo Antonini SCJ

You might think that Father Carlo deliberately chose this first Sunday of Advent for his ultimate meeting with the Lord who had called him.

The beautiful metaphor of a monk, in a reflection about the time of Advent, enlightened me: Advent, he says, is like a door wide open in front of us, which we are called to cross in order to venture on a path which will lead us to an encounter. A door wide open... a path... an encounter! This image depicts as well Fr. Carlo’s life, his whole life and above all his last years. I recall him sitting in his armchair, in front of the wide open window giving on the house gate, watching who was ringing at the door, waiting... continuously waiting.

Waiting, yes, but after hearing the bell, he ventured, with his fresh, candid enthusiasm, beyond this door to meet the persons who were waiting for him, whom the Lord entrusted to him one after the other.

After the seminary and his studies in Colico and Albiate, after the consecration to the Lord in the family of the Sacred Heart of Betharram, and once he had reached the sacerdoce on May 31st 1958, he had devoted himself to the formation of the small seminarist in Albavilla. So to say, he had become their idol because of his passion for motorbiking, for sport, for football, and also because of his abilities in engines and also in maths.

Enthusiastic, even impetuous, he did not remain a long time inside the closed doors of the seminary, he often opened them wide to go in haste and animate the oratories and parishes of the neighbourhood. He rushed to organize catechesis, sport tournaments, courses for engaged young people, to celebrate weddings, to take photos (his passion), bringing everywhere his irrepressible enthusiasm, his impetuous human warmth and his natural sympathy.

Many young people, nowadays grown-ups, still remember his friendly pats on their cheeks. Fr. Carlo wanted, in the middle of his life, to obtain first the licence in theology in the Angelicum in Rome, then the doctorate, also in theology, in the Latran, with a thesis on our Founder which he was always proud of.

To venture for meeting the young people and every person, to announce the Gospel accurately, added to enthusiasm, he felt the need for listening to the Word and meditate it attentively, for a personal deepening, for a strong cultural and theological preparation. Assets which, added to his everlasting enthusiasm, enabled him to live the most various personal experiences: 

  • a well-loved teacher during many years in the scientific High School of Erba (Lombardy) and the headmaster’s right hand in the years of students’ contestation.
  • called afterwards to found a new parish in Giussano (Lombardy).
  • assistant to the parish priest in Santa Rosa da Viterbo in suburban Rome.
  • parish priest in Carcano, near Albavilla (Lombardy).
  • and at last, for more than fifteen years, parish priest in Sant’Ilario al Gallaratese (suburb of Milan) where he accompanied lovingly the parochial community and embellished the new church without sparing his efforts, and where his strong constitution began to show the first signs of weariness.

After having reluctantly left the responsibility of the parish, and remembering the words of Jesus we have also heard today : ‘He who wants to walk after me, let him renounce himself, take his cross everyday and follow me’, he lived his last six years in Albavilla, never sparing himself, and crossing again, at the smallest opportunity, the wide-open door of his heart to meet the people he had known along the years, whom he found again with happiness. Every morning, he made his daily walk to the newspaper seller’s, walking with difficulty but happy to meet old friends in the bar, venturing in a pastoral ministry while the faithful often had to hold their breaths, since they were not used to his frequent falls precisely at the altar during the celebrations... like Jesus on the way to Calvary. A Calvary becoming for Fr. Carlo harder and harder, and exhausting the last years. Anyway, he faced it smiling and without any complaint.

During these ultimate days, waiting for the last and most true encounter, surrounded and taken care of by his family, was arduous. I suppose he once more watched, with his heart’s eyes, the wide-open door in front of him, waiting...

He did not need to move and venture on other paths of life, he did not need to go out, nor to go and meet Him... the Lord Himself came to meet him ! He came ahead of him, with Mary, the true ‘star’ of his life, to welcome him in His paternal embrace. We believe he is now clasped in strong arms which ‘sustain’ him, and the arms of an immense tenderness which protect him, in a hug which is the truest encounter.

P. Piero Trameri scj

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