In Pace Christi

We may summarise the life of Bro. Giuseppe Zamboni in his very own words: “I was born at Scardevara (Verona) on 25 September 1936. I lived most of my life in that town until I entered the novitiate of the Comboni Missionaries in Florence intending to become a missionary Brother. That was on 5 September 1955. I was then 19 years old. Before becoming a religious, I had worked for four years with the Vittorio Meneghini company. When I was a boy I wanted to become a missionary priest and I spent a period of time in the seminary. There I was advised to leave for want of a vocation … Later on, when I was eighteen, a missionary unexpectedly asked me: “Why don’t you become a missionary Brother?” “And why not?”, I answered.

There followed many interior struggles and (it was God’s will) who should I find in the novitiate but that same priest who had advised me to leave the seminary as there were doubts about my vocation? However, the Good Lord also placed on my path a holy priest, still alive and over a hundred years of age, who reassured me in the name of God that I certainly did have a vocation. As a result, I have always forged ahead with happiness and confidence despite the many difficulties, in the joy of Jesus who, out of his goodness, gave me the strength to continue. That is how it was and I hope things will continue this way until my dying breath. I have much to thank the Good Lord for in giving me the vocation I so dearly love.

After the novitiate and a further six years spent in Italy, only and always out of obedience, I travelled all over the world, as it were, serving God and our brothers and sisters. I spent a year in England, 11 years in Brazil in charge of the building works in the state of Espírito Santo, six years in Spain as a formator (or perhaps a “deformator”), almost seven years in La Paz, Mexico, Lower California (as a printer at Boys Town), and the rest of my years here in Malawi and in Zambia. I have now been in the Lusaka novitiate for more than three years, knowing and loving God and my brothers and preparing for a Happy Death … forever thanking God for this vocation of mine … for my good family, especially my grandmother Augusta, my parish priests and all the good people of Scardevara”.

One thing is certain – Fr. Renzo Piazza said in his funeral homily – Bro. Giuseppe left this world surrounded by people who loved him deeply and who witnessed how his life was a life of love. A confrere wrote: “I am still here thinking and praying for Good Old Bepi. It was he who taught me the basics of the missionary life, work and prayer, in all humility. He never managed to learn Chichewa or even English but he always spoke with his life that language that the rest of us have still to learn properly, the language of love. He loved greatly. Perhaps it was due to his great love that his heart gave out. I still keep a place for him in my heart. From above he is continually praying for us. Of this I am certain”.

We may express the human and spiritual experience of that disciple of the Lord in just two words: love and service. Love and service also summarise the life of Bro. Giuseppe Zamboni, who died aged 83, 62 of which he spent as a missionary Brother. He returned to Italy for medical treatment in 2015 and went to Castel d’Azzano where he passed away on 14 December 2019.
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 282 Suppl. In Memoriam, gennaio 2020 pp. 132-135.