In Pace Christi

“Courage and forward, in the Lord! I am trying to accept all as the will of God and in the hope of returning as soon as possible to the mission. Thank you, Fr. Ravasio, for the contacts you keep for me with the major superiors who help me to feel part of the Institute”.

These are the last words of one of his letters, perhaps the last, he sent from Bergamo to Fr. Pietro Ravasio. Some of the words convey the two great principles which motivated the life and mission of Fr. Alberto: his passion for evangelisation and his belonging to the Institute

Fr. Alberto Ferri was born on 5 September 1935 at Cologno al Serio, near Bergamo, a land of families full of faith and love for the Church. He was the first son in a middle-class family and his father wanted him to take over the family business. Once he overcame the initial parental opposition, a very young Alberto joined the apostolic school of Crema: in those years a large number of boys responded to effective missionary animation in the diocese of Bergamo. He took his first vows on 9 September 1954 at Florence novitiate and began the scholasticate at Verona and afterwards moved to Venegono to continue his theological studies. He took his final vows on 9 September 1960 and was ordained priest by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montina in the cathedral of Milan on 18 March 1961.

His first appointment was to Spain where he collaborated with Fr. Enrico Farè in administering our magazines. Two years later he was sent to Ecuador where he began his apostolate at Quito, taking care of the Indians in the outskirts of the city. Meanwhile, the north of Esmeraldas needed generous missionaries sensitive to the needs of the poor. Fr. Alberto was sent to Limones, an island in the Pacific where he did his pastoral work with Fr. Luigi Zanini, Fr. Alberto Vittadello, Fr. Lino Campesan and Fr. Raffaello Savoia. From Limones, by sharing the work, they served the numerous communities of people of African origin along the Onzole and Santiago rivers. He stayed at Limones until 1972. After his holidays and the renewal course in Italy, which moved him to study further the council documents and the new ecclesiology of communion, Mgr. Angelo Barbisotti sent him to Viche, on the road to Quinindé, to start a new parish.

All his letters of this period have been collected in a book published by EMI in 1976, “Una Chiesa Sui Fiumi” (A Church on the rivers).

Here are two brief extracts from these letters from which one can understand the unique style which, from his earliest years, Fr. Alberto adopted as his missionary methodology.

Viche, 8 April 1978: “Holy Saturday, during the celebration of the Vigil I baptised around thirty new Christians, many of whom were adults... The Lord is truly risen and this changes everything. I proclaimed it in three places on Easter Sunday: Viche, Male and Lagartera. It gives me great joy and much hope to see even in this world the victory over death, evil, injustice, poverty, hunger and all that our Lord has overcome by his resurrection”.

Chigue, 3 June 1972: “Here we are still cutting down trees to build the seminary... I visited areas I had never been before, along the banks of the rivers, going from hut to hut and gathering the people at night in the places appointed, bringing them whatever little bit of comfort I could with medicine and some good laughs… To visit a new chapel I walked up to my knees in mud with my bag on my shoulder. I don’t think I ever sweated so much and that was just to reach the first hut. All my life is like that, a continual proclamation of the Llord and a continual reawakening of these poor people cut off from everyone”.

In 1978 he was one of a group of Comboni missionaries who, faithful to the charism and attentive to the needs of other dioceses, made themselves available to leave Esmeraldas to go and start a new missionary experience in the diocese of Portoviejo, a much bigger diocese than Esmeraldas but with very few priests. He chose the difficult area of Honorato Vasquez where, together with Fr. Livio Martini, he dedicated 13 years of his life visiting and forming numerous Christian communities.

He had a methodology which we Comboni missionaries in Ecuador adopted as our own and which gave great fruits. It consisted in involving and committing the people: the local laity, not just to be faithful to their baptismal promises but also to commit themselves to the construction and growth of their own Christian community.

Various ministries emerged from this work with people who were trained through various courses of formation for community leaders, catechists, extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, health agents, those in charge of chapels and those helping the poor. Fr. Alberto also knew how to make the laity responsible in the financial administration of the community. This resulted in his last work of creating a savings bank.

It was from this involvement of the people, but most of all from his example, that the first vocations to the religious, missionary and diocesan life emerged in a land where results were not foreseen. Besides, at that time and in accordance with the serious commitment he required of his Christians, a group of “lay women missionaries” was born. These were young women who were committed to serving the local Church through missionary activity in those areas of the diocese requiring a missionary presence for reasons of isolation or other needs. This group of people went ahead, defining itself ever more clearly, to the point where it became an association of consecrated persons approved by the Bishop.

Mgr. Mario Ruiz, Archbishop of Portoviejo, always maintained that the methodology of Fr. Alberto was “admirable” but could not be imitated. He was extremely exact and demanding in planning the visits to the communities, never omitting a single one, and especially in being faithful at any costs to his commitments towards God, the people and the Institute. We might well say that he made his own the motto of Comboni: “I have only one life and I wish I had a thousand to spread enthusiasm for the missions”.

With great reluctance on his part, he was sent from Honorato Vasquez to El Carmen for seven years, to continue the pastoral work in the numerous rural communities. However, Fr. Alberto, chose to concern himself with “Manga de cura” where the Christians were more numerous; so he remained in the area, together with Fr. Antonio Mangili, from 1988 to his death. He founded the parishes of Bramadora and El Paraíso-La 14 and had plans to open the parishes of Santa Teresa and Santa Maria.

The number of chapels and churches built with the cooperation of the people during those year is countless, with many classrooms for catechism and, in the centres, buildings to house the formation courses of his collaborators. He left the Blessed Sacrament in many communities, as these were growing with great fervour.

In 2008, the doctors diagnosed a tumour of the pancreas but, after a course of chemotherapy, Fr. Alberto asked to return to his mission of La 14 to help the young priests of the diocese continue his pastoral work.

In April 2009, he asked permission from the General Council to be looked after at the home of his brother Mario, in Bergamo, close to the “Blessed Luigi Palazzolo Hospital”. During his last weeks, his sister wanted him to be close to his mother, then 103 years old and a great missionary like her son. Fr. Alberto died peacefully, having at his side Fr. Enea Mauri who had gone to visit him on the afternoon of 16 October, in the parental home in Cologno al Serio.

The body will be buried in Ecuador. The bishops and the local people insisted so much that the family agreed that the body of Fr. Alberto should return to the missions for good so as to be a “missionary and priestly reference for the Ecuadorian bishops, clergy and faithful, especially in this year dedicated to the priest.

Fr. Alberto was a true son of St. Daniel Comboni. We may also apply to him what was written of the founder before his canonisation: “Once he had clearly realised the genuineness of his missionary vocation, his entire life became dedication without reserve, coherent and constant despite all difficulties. His zeal seemed to have been sustained by faith in the universal value of the sacrifice of Christ and the urgency of his mandate to evangelise all peoples”.
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 242 suppl. In Memoriam, ottobre 2009, pp. 70-76.