PERLINI Celeste (Father)

It was without fanfare that Fr. Celeste Perlini arrived in our community (2017) and it was also without fanfare that he left on Holy Thursday. Silence was one of the traits of his personality: he was not a big talker. But when asked for his opinion on economic problems, his words were measured, thoughtful and consistent.

Father Perlini - as everyone called him - has always been the quintessential bursar! A commitment that followed him everywhere... from Colico, to Gravedona and then to the St Joseph house and to the community of the Betharram Centre in Albavilla. This was also the case in Nazareth and Bethlehem in the Holy Land, then in other residences again in Italy.

The parish of Lissone knew Fr. Perlini both as bursar and as parish priest. When I went to meet him for information on my new eld of activity, I found him not behind a majestic desk, but on the roof of the church arranging a few tiles, a job that took him several days.

Father Perlini changed a lot in these last two years as a chaplain to the Residence for the Elderly in Albavilla. Knowing how to engage others and address a little word to everyone, he made himself appreciated like a brother. I have even been told that with a lot of patience he won everyone’s hearts and that he managed to speak at length even with the most reclusive types: he was no longer a man of silence.

And it is another kind of silence that today took him away from us.

Fr. Davide Villa scj 

Father Perlini was a big man, like the Valtellina mountains, where he was born 90 years ago. Many knew him above all as a teacher and educator at the St.Joseph Apostolic School in Albavilla, then at the Lyceum of the St Michael residence.

One of his former students said: “Father Perlini made the education of the new generations his mission... a mission that he led not only in class, but also on the volleyball courts as coach of the school team and as president of the FIPAV coaches (Italian Volleyball Federation) of the Province of Como. A man of great build, but good and gentle, he has long been a father figure in Albavilla for his way of caring for the most needy. He was a very kind and charitable man, always ready to help those in need. He was also an excellent mason. An art learned from his family which he made available not only to the community of Betharram, but also to the commune.“

Work, even material, was his way of living the vow of poverty. Poverty that he could see and practice even in the long years spent in the Holy Land, when he was the “guardian” of the residences of Nazareth and Bethlehem. A man of “Ecce Venio”, he always accepted and lived with enthusiasm the many commitments entrusted to him: the experience of parish priest in Lissone, ministry with the sick at Sobiate Comasco and - finally ministry of chaplain of the Ehpad Opera Pia Roscio, again in Albavilla, among people he had known in his youth and who had accumulated in the meantime years and a few health difficulties, like him.

He was invariably in community every Monday for prayer, a good meal and a good glass of wine with his brothers. ...A little taste of perfect communion with the Father.