October 19
BLESSED TIMOTHY GIACCARDO
Priest and Religious
Memorial
(At the discretion of the Celebrant or of the Local Superior, this may be celebrated as a Feast, with Gloria.)
Timothy was born on 13 June 1896 at Narzole, in the diocese of Alba, Italy. On the same day he was baptised and named Joseph. Later, when he made the religious profession, he was given the name Timothy.
Timothy was ordained priest on 19 October 1919. Soon after the ordination, he noted in his diary, “I have ascended the altar carrying the idea I had as a seminarian: ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’ It is very sweet for me to remember, to thank with an explicit act, the Madonna, as every priest comes from her heart; and I came from there with a super-abundance of defects, of care, of providence, of grace, of life.”
In January 1926 he was sent to Rome to start working for the first branch of the Society of St Paul.
In 1937 he returned to Alba as superior of the Mother House.
In 1946 he was called to Rome and made the Vicar General of the Congregation. After having renewed the offering of his life for the Pauline Family, on 24 January 1948, he died a holy death.
Preaching at Giaccardo’s funeral, Fr Alberione said, “Fr Timothy was called and truly was the Signor Maestro. He represented the Lord well: at the altar, in the confessional, on the pulpit, in conversations, at recreation, in relationships, in all the many offices he discharged and in his private life, he always represented the Lord well; he was another Christ…” (CISP 393)