Luigi Orione
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St. Luigi Orione (June 23, 1872 - March 12, 1940) is an Italian saint.
Born at Pontecurone, in the province of Alessandria (Piedmont), Luigi Orione was a student at the Valdocco Oratory in Turin.
He gained the attention of St. John Bosco, who numbered him among his favorite pupils. Since age 13, Luigi suffered health problems. However, three years later, at age 16, he was present at St. John Bosco's death in Turin in 1888. Immediately upon his death, Luigi's ailments were miraculous cured.
In 1892, the 20-year-old seminarian opened his own oratory, and the following year he started a vocational school for the poor. He was ordained a priest on 13 April 1895.
Starting in 1899 Orione started to gather a group of priests and clerics that were to become Piccola Opera della Divina Provvidenza, or the Little Work of the Divine Providence. In 1903 the group received the full imprimatur of the bishop, and it became what is still called to this day the Sons of Divine Providence.
One of the priests who was in his inner circle was Lorenzo Perosi, who later became Perpetual Director of the Sistine Choir and one of the most famous composers of sacred music. Perosi was born in the same year and the same province (Tortona) as Orione; they remained lifelong friends.
In 1908, Orione went to Messina and Reggio Calabria, both of which were devastated by respective earthquakes. He dedicated three years to help those in need, most especially the caring of orphans. In 1915 he went to Marsica when that region had a similarly devastating earthquate. That same year he founded the Congregation of the Little Missionary Sisters of Charity.
At the end of World War I, Don Orione began to expand his work. He founded schools, farming colonies, and charity organizations -- always with a special emphasis on helping orphans and the poor. Over the next two decades, he started foundations throughout Italy and the Americas.
In 1931 he founded the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Guardia in Tortona, which to this day is the principal church in the world for the Orionine order. It is also a center for annual music festivals in honor of Orione's friend, the hitherto mentioned Perosi.
In the winter of 1940, Don Orione started to suffer serious cardiac and pulmonary ailments. He went to Sanremo to recuperate, but not without a tinge of regret. On March 9, 1940 he is recorded as saying, "It is not among the palm trees that I would like to die," he said, "but among the poor who are Jesus Christ." Three days later, surrounded by fellow priests of his Orionine order, Luigi Orione died. His last words were, “Jesus, Jesus! I am going."
Orione's body was exhumed in 1965; it has resided in the aforementioned Sanctuary in Tortona which Don Orione himself founded since October 26, 1980, the day when Don Luigi Orione was beatified by Pope John Paul II. On 16 May 2004, by the same pope, Blessed Luigi Orione was declared Saint Luigi Orione.
Today, the charitable organizations begun by St. Luigi Orione are still operating in abundance throughout the world. In America, the National Shrine and headquarters of the Orionine order is located on a well-known hill in East Boston, Massachusetts, known as Orient Heights.
