San Leonardo Murialdo with his followers
Josephites for one hundred and fifty years
educates generations of young workers.
He entrusted his life and his life to the holy Patriarch
his work, now present in sixteen countries.

by Don Gabriele Cantaluppi

Qhen Giosuè Carducci spoke of "regal Turin crowned with victories" he was certainly not thinking of those of the great social saints of his century, who in the Savoy capital achieved daily successes, at the cost of great sacrifices, in the field of education and assistance to the most weak of the population, very numerous in a city experiencing explosive growth. The names of these saints are known, although the best-known exponent is Saint John Bosco. 

Among them there is also Saint Leonardo Murialdo, a Turin native, very attached to his city, so much so that he wrote: «How grateful I am to God for having made me born in Italy, in Turin, in the city of the Holy Sacrament, of the Consolata, in the city of many charitable works." He was born there on the 26th  October 1828 and died there on 30 March 1900. Of his seventy-one years of life, he spent half of it in the direction of the Artigianelli College, founded by Don Giovanni Cocchi, where young people were educated and trained for a trade. The college  It was in dire conditions and it was up to him to revive its fortunes at the cost of great sacrifices.

The working world constituted a great social emergency in that nineteenth century. San Leonardo responded in a far-sighted way, aiming to form a sense of mutual solidarity among the workers that would make them aware of their rights. He often traveled to the South of Italy to learn about the welfare realities of other cities, he who in 1865 had also gone to Paris and had had contact with the educational and social realities of the French capital, including the Conferences of Saint Vincent de Paul , and had also stayed briefly in London. In a speech given in 1865 at a Conference of Saint Vincent he said: «The lay person, of any social class, can today be an apostle no less than the priest and, for some circles, more than the priest».

On 19 March 1873, one hundred and fifty years ago, the feast of Saint Joseph, he founded the Pious Society of Turin, naming it after the holy Patriarch. Even today his religious congregation operates in schools, oratories, parishes, missions, addressing in particular young people and their education. But from the beginning, specific attention was paid to the world of work, professional training and young workers.

Having originated in a college dedicated to education and with special attention to young workers, the reference to Saint Joseph, Jesus' educator and humble worker in the workshop of Nazareth, who taught Jesus work for around thirty years was quite obvious. years of his life. Own
on 8 December 1870, about three years before Murialdo founded the congregation, Pope Pius IX, with the decree Quemadmodum God he had proclaimed Saint Joseph the patron saint of the universal Church.

In the Artigianelli college, Saint Leonardo Murialdo began to spread the devotion to Saint Joseph. He often resorted to the "Holy Craftsman of Nazareth" and invited others to do so with repeated novenas. He had a simple and filial trust in him; on the college safe, always empty and therefore open, he had placed a statuette of Saint Joseph, "so that - he said - he can see that there is nothing and therefore take action". He assured that he had never made a novena without obtaining tangible proof of his help, because «on this earth he was the Providence of Jesus and Mary and still is of all the poor».

However, Saint Joseph is not only the guardian, but also the model and example of those who truly want to love Jesus because, after Mary, he was the greatest lover and the most loved by the Heart of Jesus. With a beautiful image, Saint Leonard presents in the house of Nazareth the arms of Saint Joseph who welcomed Jesus while he slept. 

Of himself he asserted: «In the eyes of God I hold the office of Saint Joseph in relation to the boys, who are just as little Jesuses». He invited the workers to sanctify their work, continually directing it to God and carrying out his will. He wrote: «Educating is the most divine work of all. The child is the most precious thing there is in society. The heart is the most precious thing in a child. Education of the heart is what we aim for."

Having become a priest in 1851, he immediately chose to get involved in the first Turin oratories, among the poor and homeless boys of the suburbs: in the oratory of the Guardian Angel and, on behalf of Don Bosco, in that of San Luigi, as director. For this reason, as Benedict XVI will underline in the general audience of 28 April 2010, «catechesis, school, recreational activities were the foundations of his educational method in the Oratory».

His educational work also came to the aid of those who were drawn to activities in the primary sector with the foundation of agricultural colonies, starting with the first in Rivoli, where the children could enjoy  a real theoretical-practical school of agriculture with courses in botany, physics, drawing, horticulture, chemistry and agronomy.

The exhortation written in his youth also applies to us today: «Take lessons from the past but live in your time, listen and understand the voices of the universe, of your land, of your people, of your city, of your homeland, the voices of the suffering, the poor and the oppressed. Fill yourself with everything that is beautiful, good, true and holy. Nothing is lost by living generously, nobly, amiably, nourishing sincerity, justice, common sense and goodness in the soul. Only in this way will you learn to read the signs of the times and of God, and to hear the calls of souls."