Innocenzo da Berzo

Blessed Innocenzo da Berzo was born in Niardo, Val Camonica, Italy on 19 March 1844. His parents were Pietro Scalvinoni and Francesca Poli. He was baptized with the name of Giovanni. He spent his childhood between Niardo, the maternal village, and Berzo Inferiore, the paternal village. His father died when Giovanni was only three months old. Although his name is related to the village of Berzo Inferiroe, once he became a friar, he used the name of Father Innocenzo of Berzo.

As a small child he had great mercy for the poor, giving generously to those who asked, even though his family was in need.

From 1855 to 1860 he attended the municipal college in Lovere, Bergamo, and passed with high marks. In 1864 he entered the diocesan seminary of Brescia. He was ordained a priest in 1867 and was assigned as the Praochial Vicar at the parish of Cevo in Valsaviore.

In 1870 he returned to Berzo Inferiore where his duties were to act as Confessor and to direct the local primary school. During the time in the parish he found a need for solitude, prayer and penance. In 1873 he entered the Capuchin Franciscan Order at the Annunciata Convent in the village of Borno. Four years later he took his Solemn Vows and took the name of Fr. Innocenzo of Berzo.

Except for short assignments of preaching spiritual exercises in some convents in Lombardy, he remained at the Annunicata Convent. There he lived a life of intense abandonment, living the adage of 'do good and disappear'. He had a deep devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, finding his sustenance in front of the Tabernacle. He also had a devotion to the crucified Christ, and encouraged penitents to the exercise of the Way of the Cross.

On 3 March 1890 he died in the infirmary of the convent of the Capuchin friars in Bergamo. From 26 to 28 September of the same year his body was transferred to the cimitery of Berzo Inferiore in a trip defined as "the last itinerant adventure connected to the earthly world of the little friar from Berzo". The mortal remains of Father Innocenzo from Berzo, now venerated as Blessed, arrived in Vallecamonica some months after his death. Even though the news went slower than now, a great number of people asked the Conventual house, where his body was resting, to have a relic of his mortal remains.

Once the people obtained the permission, on September 28, nearly seven months after his death, the body was arranged in a coffin and then carried on the shoulders of his Franciscan brethren and was taken to his last resting-place.

There are two miracles attributed to Innocnezo. The first is a cure of a boy of the age of four from leukemia. The second is the cure of a boy of the age of five from peritonitis.

References

[1] Sanctuario della Ss.ma Annunciata e del Beato Innocenzo

[2] Mini-biography from the Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Mary

[3] Patron Saints Index