In memoriam...

Father Raimondo Perlini

Desco, 23 October 1937 - Albiate, 27 October 2017

A missionary with a great heart

Someone wrote: “Death, the last mass of the priest.” Fr. Raimondo Perlini “celebrated” his last “Mass” at Lecco Hospital (Italy) on Friday 27 October 2017. After 80 years on this earth, he rendered his soul to God.

I would like to apply in his case the words that St. Paul wrote to his disciple Timothy at the end of his life: “Me, in fact, I am already offered in sacrifice, the moment of my departure has come. I led the good fight, I finished my race, and I kept the faith. I have only to receive the crown of justice: the Lord, the just judge, will deliver it to me on that day.”That day, for Father Raimondo arrived. He finished the race of this earth, he fought the good fight of the Gospel, he poured, and he gave his life as an offering to God. Now the Lord will certainly reward him because he was a faithful servant. We have celebrated his funeral in the church of Paniga this Monday, 30th October with 22 Betharramite brothers, the parish priest of Don Battista, the chaplain of the retired home of Morbegno Don Riccardo, and the many people who loved him. He rests today in the Paniga cemetery near his mother Maria.

Fr. Raimondo Perlini was born in Paniga de Morbegno on 23th October 1937. As a child, he heard the voice of the Lord who called him to serve him in a special way in religious and priestly life. He said: “Here I am, Lord” like Jesus, our Lord, making himself human, as did St. Michael Garicoits, who said, “Here I am, O God, without delay, without reserve, without return, by love. Here I am! And Raimondo in 1948, following the example of Father Pierino Donini of Desco and Father Celeste Perlini of Paniga, he entered the seminary of Colico, like many of us. His vocation matured in prayer and study, and he became a Betharramite religious in 1955. He was ordained priest on June 13, 1963. He left immediately after to our mission in Thailand (Siam, it was called at the time). I lived with him in the seminary for three years, from 1960 to 1963. I admired and envied him for the great step that he took to give his life to the Lord by carrying the proclamation of the Gospel to so many distant people. Since he had gone on a mission, his mother Maria simply called him: Father. And he was truly a good father to many who needed his testimony, his word and his help including material, in order to become human and Christian. He did a lot of good in Northern Thailand, in Chiang Mai Province over 50 years. He devoted himself both body and soul to the education of children, to celebrate the sacraments, to catechise adults, to give food especially to the poor, to help seminarians to grow in the love of God and of the people, to build churches and schools in order to give people a place to pray and to learn to live. He was really a master of the language. He was involved so much in the mentality and in the local culture that he was asked to collaborate at the national level to translate the Bible into Thai.

More than once, he was also the intermediary, he told me himself, between the civil authorities and some young Italians who had been found themselves in prison because of drugs. He knew Thai better than Italian. He was really impregnated in this culture and in the oriental mentality that when he returned home for the holidays he felt uncomfortable. He had trouble in speaking Italian especially to understand the social, cultural, political and social and also religious changes of our Western civilization. When he wrote to me, he told me about certain parts of his life, his plans, and his occupations.

As a priest and missionary, he was truly a man of God and a man for others. He gave himself totally to the mission, as St. Paul said: “The Lord has helped me. He filled me with strength so that, through me, the proclamation of the Gospel would be fulfilled to the end. To him also, the Lord gave strength to do a lot of good.

Giovanni Papini wrote: “Do not be afraid of death, but only the uselessness of life.”

His life was neither empty nor useless. He wanted to imitate, on the example of Saint Michael Garicoits, the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Betharram who told us: “Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart”. The Heart of Jesus has been an open heart to all, especially to those who are tired, discouraged, poor and sinners. Father Raimondo had a soft heart like Jesus because he put himself at the disposal in an attitude of merciful, tolerant, and generous towards all. Like Jesus, he had a humble heart because he made himself available by doing the Father’s will and serving his brothers.

Fr. Raimondo was truly a priest according to the heart of Christ. A man who spoke little but kept his word, a man with a great heart. He is now living with God. For, as Father David Maria Turoldo (Servite Brother) wrote about the dead: “Do not call them dead, because they are more alive than the living, and they are always with us, close to us, and they see us from inside. Let us call them “those who have preceded us” and who are waiting for us in the encounter with the Lord. So, dear Father Raimondo, you preceded us. See you soon in Heaven. And thank you for the good you have sown on this earth.

Alessandro Paniga, scj