GIOVANNI BATTISTA MANZELLA, CM
(1855-1937)
He was born on 21 January 1855 in Soncino, a characteristic medieval town in the province of Cremona. After finishing his technical studies, he joined his father Carlo’s work as a mattress maker, first in the village and then in Lecco in the Castello district, where he moved with his parents in 1875. Here he learned about Saint Vincent de Paul, especially in the charitable experience of the Men’s Conference of Saint Vincent.
His spiritual director referred him to the Congregation of the Mission. On 2 November 1887, he presented himself at the Mission House in Turin and, on 21 November, he took the Vincentian habit in the Novitiate in Chieri. He received priestly ordination in the chapel of the Archiepiscopal Seminary of Turin on 25 February 1893, by then 38-years-old.
The first seven years of his priesthood saw him almost totally committed to the formation of young people. In November 1900, he was transferred to Sardinia, to the Tridentine Seminary of Sassari, as Spiritual Director. In 1904, he also began preaching Missions to the people.
Once his mandate as Superior of the Mission House of Sassari was over (1906-1912), he resumed the activity of “full-time preaching” uninterruptedly until 1926, when he was again assigned to the Seminary of Sassari, again as Spiritual Director. These were the 13 years of a particularly intense and fruitful apostolate that made him known in all walks of life in Sardinia.
The famous trumpet, borrowed from the town crier who went around the town to give important notices, became characteristic of his missions. He was called “the trumpeter of Christ.” In his writings, we find some significant traits of this spirituality of the apostolate.
Another characteristic of his was his apostolic style. At a time strongly marked by anticlerical socialism, he was able to carry out fully the Vincentian principle of “evangelizing in word and work.” Thus Manzella’s popular missions, aimed above all at the sacraments of general Confession and Communion, ended with the foundation of the Ladies of Charity and the Conferences of Saint Vincent, and then followed with other foundations.
For this reason, he was rightly considered as the Saint Vincent of Sardinia for his great charitable activity and was able to conquer the hearts of all, believers, Masons, and socialists. True father of the poor, he never knew how to deny them alms, even going so far as to give them his own shoes!
In 1927, he fulfilled one of his old dreams, gathering the first Sisters of Gethsemane around the co-foundress, Mother Angela Marongiu (1854-1936). He thought of this new religious institution with a double physiognomy, apostolic and contemplative: an apostolate especially among the poor girls of the villages, to be inserted with dignity into professional work, but also a spirituality centered on the Eucharist and the Passion of the Lord.
The illness that led to his death lasted only ten days: a cerebral hemorrhage caught him in the middle of his preaching, completely removing his sight, not in Sassari, but in Arzachena, where he had been sent for a preparative triduum for the pastoral visit. He died on Saturday, 23 October 1937, at four o’clock in the morning, surrounded by the confreres and Sisters who had watched over him during the night’s agony.
It was normal for the population to comment that “Saint Manzella” had died. All, in fact, had been referring to him in this way for years, when they met him in the streets of Sassari and asked him for a blessing for their child or sick person.
Prayer to ask for the glorification of the Servant of God, Giovanni Battista Manzella and to obtain graces:
O God, who has promised to exalt the humble and to make those who have taught many the way of justice shine like stars in eternity, glorify Your faithful Servant Giovanni Battista Manzella and make his name shine among Your saints. You who said, “Blessed are the merciful,” remember the charity and patience of the humble son of Saint Vincent toward the poor and the suffering. Multiply the graces to the faithful who implore You by mentioning his name, so that we may soon see the Church honor his memory and propose to us in him a new model to imitate, a new protector to help us achieve the beatitude of heaven. Amen.
