WHO IS BLESSED JAMES ALBERIONE

On August 20, 1914, in Alba, Italy, Father Alberione founded the first congregation of the "Pauline Family," the brothers and priests of the Society of St. Paul. They were to use the modern means of communications to spread the Gospel. The following year, along with Sr. Thecla Merlo he founded the Daughters of St Paul to carry on with the men this important mission. In 1924, a second congregation for women was born: the Sister Disciples of the Divine Master for the eucharistic, priestly, and liturgical apostolates. To guide these sisters in their new vocation, Father Alberione chose Sr. Scholastica Rivata. Before his life was over he founded and organized a grand total of 10 groups that now make up the Pauline Family. He stressed a spirituality based on the Eucharist and the study of the Scriptures. He presented his followers with Christ as the Divine Teacher, the Way the Truth and the Life. He stressed the importance of developing the whole person and transforming the person into the whole Christ. Prayer, study, work and poverty were the four wheels that would keep his followers moving towards Christ and make them instruments of salvation. In a papal audience of 1969, Paul VI stated, "Here he is: humble, silent, tireless, always vigilant, ever recollected in his thoughts that run from prayer to work, ever attentive to the ‘signs of the times,’ that is, the most ingenious forms of reaching souls. Our Father Alberione has given the Church new instruments to express herself, new means to add vigor and breadth to her apostolate, a new capability and new awareness of the validity and of the possibilities of her mission in the modern world and with modern means." On November 27, 1971 Fr. James Alberione died. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on April 27, 2003.

"Blessed James Alberione felt the need to make Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, known "to all people of our time with the means of our time", as he liked to say. He was inspired by the Apostle Paul, whom he described as a "theologian and architect of the Church", remaining ever docile and faithful to the Magisterium of the Successor of Peter, a "beacon" of truth in a world that is so often devoid of sound spiritual references. "May there be a group of saints to use these means", this apostle of the new times was in the habit of repeating.
What a formidable heritage he left his religious family! May his spiritual sons and daughters keep intact the spirit of their origins, to respond adequately to the needs of evangelization in the contemporary world. "
(From the Homily of Pope John Paul II, during the beatification ceremony at St Peter's Square, Vatican).