In Pace Christi

Born at Villa di Chiavenna (Sondrio) into a peasant family of modest means, Costantino lost his mother six days after he was born. Together with his little brother of a year and a half, he was raised by his paternal grandmother. His life revolved around the home, the church and the fields. He was a lively character, cheerful and one who loved company even if his poor health (he suffered from persistent bronchitis) did not permit him to play very energetically like the other children.

From his childhood he wanted to be a priest, either with the Jesuits or the Salesians who were well known in the town, but his poor health prevented him from leaving his family. However, when he was fully grown his health improved so much that he was able to serve the fatherland in the Frontier Guards Corps, first at Males Venosta and later on the Carso. After 8 December, 1943, the date the armistice was signed between Italy and the United States with the consequent German invasion of Italy and the rout of the Italian army, Costantino threw off his arms and equipment and returned home where he took up farming.

On 1 June, 1947, his childhood companion, Giuliano Signorelli, was ordained priest at Como. “I, too, could be a priest today if bad health had not prevented me”, he said to him in his own peculiar way “It is never too late – his friend replied – and if you find it difficult because of your age or lack of means, you can always become a Comboni Missionary Brother. At Como I met quite a few of them and I can assure you they are first class missionaries”.

Consequently, he entered the Comboni novitiate at Florence in 1948. He was twenty six and the first Comboni Missionary of his home town. Others would follow him. The following year he was sent to England to study English and complete his novitiate. On 25 April, 1951, Bro, Costantino Giacomini, who would always be known as Bro. Giacomino, took his first vows. After a year in the missionary seminary at Stillington, where he was doorkeeper, telephonist and assistant cook, he was sent to Verona as assistant infirmarian. It was there that he discovered his new vocation, that of infirmarian, with his goodness and kindness in treating the sick. He would spend most of his life as sacristan and infirmarian.

Bro. Agostino Cerri remembers him thus: “I knew him many years ago at Pordenone. He had come there for a course in general nursing. His one great desire was to serve the sick, in his own inimitable way. We immediately became friends and in the winter evenings we would often walk the long corridors of that house, speaking of our valley and our relatives. When I think of his vocation, I believe it was born during his work as a shepherd in Val di Lei. He would tell me that, as a boy, he would go up to the meadows high up in the mountains to help the shepherds. The blue skies and snow-capped peaks, the thunder of the cascades flowing down to the valley and the summer storms must have nourished his simple soul as he searched for other flocks not yet belonging to the fold of the Lord”.

After three years (1953-1956) at the missionary seminary in Crema he was allowed to leave for Africa. His first and only appointment was to the mission of Mupoi (1956-1963), in South Sudan. Bro. Giacomino worked mainly with Fr. Vincenzo Carradore, assisting him in the difficult job of procurator and bursar of the missions. In 1963 he returned to Italy to regain his health. A few months later, all the other missionaries of South Sudan were to follow him, expelled by the Moslem government of Khartoum.

While in Italy, Bro. Giacomino helped in many houses: Verona, Crema, Pordenone, Sulmona, Asti, Gozzano, Rebbio, Troia and Milan, always engaged in the dual task of sacristan and infirmarian. He was qualified in the latter having attended school at Pordenone Hospital. In 1976, while he was at Sulmona, he celebrated his Silver Jubilee of religious consecration. In 1977, he participated in the Renewal Course in Rome which ended with a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In 2001, at the parish of the Mediatrix in Troia, he celebrated his Golden Jubilee with the words: “Accept, Lord, the little I offer you, the nothing which I am and give me the abundance I hope for, you who are all”. Fr. Lino Spezia wrote: “I would like to choose two of the resolutions he made at the end of his spiritual exercises: The first in which he resolves to wonder at God and at the people with whom he spends the day; the second, which emerges more than once and shows his way of feeling close to the community, is to pray for it and to love it, beginning by asking the Lord to help him to be useful and patient with the confreres”.

Bro. Giacomino died in Milan on 15 March, 2010.