Priest in
Cremona diocese
Giuseppe Antonio Migliavacca
was born in Trigolo, in the province and diocese of Cremona, on 13th June
1849. When he later became capuchin friar, he abandoned his Christian name
and took the new one of father Arsenio from Trigolo. To make things easier,
we will call him with this name from the first day of his life.
His parents, Glicerio
and Annunciata Strumia, run an inn for a living. Fervent Christians, they
communicated their children the gift of faith and coherent life. Father
Arsenio, when a boy, was cheerful and loved to pray in the nearby sanctuary
of “Madonna delle Grazie“, he devoted himself to the liturgical service,
gathered friends of his age to read some passages from the Bible or some
biographies of Saints. During his spiritual exercises in 1886, to spur
himself to ardour, he would repeat: “How glorious were your first years,
when you started serving God while still a layman; how ardently you then
wished to serve God, to belong to Him alone, how more you did to please
God, how more you prayed, both orally and mentally” (Provincial
Archives Lombard Capuchins, P391/18, p. 35).
At the age of 13 he entered
the diocesan seminary in Cremona, where he devoted himself to studying
and to his spiritual life. In his last theology years he was a student
of mons. Geremia Bonomelli who ordained him on 21st March 1874. Father
Arsenio’s writings reveal how he lived his calling: “Whoever more than
a priest must try to copy Jesus Christ, of Whom he is a minister? A believer
is taught to consider the priest like Jesus Christ, because on His behalf
he christens, absolves of all sins, and on His behalf he offers Jesus Christ
to God, the Eternal Father, in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, all true
things: but how will we succeed in persuading the people of such things,
how will we get the believers to respect, to worship the priest as he has
been conferred such sublime dignity, if they see him so totally different
from Jesus Christ as far as his behaviour is concerned?” ( P
391/6, f. 6v.).
When he said Mass, he
deeply identified himself with Jesus Christ, as we can desume from a note
of 1907: “How many times a day do we sacrifice Jesus Christ on the altar,
and how little do we sacrifice ourselves with Him! How little do we sacrifice
our will with Him to God’s will! How little do we sacrifice our personal
opinions and passions to His own! When do we become one with Him in suffering,
pain and mortification etc.?! How much there is to meditate and solve during
the Holy Mass!” (P 391/26/33 p. 90).
In such a mood he rendered
his first pastoral service in Paderno Ponchielli (from 18th April to 15th
December 1874) and in Cassano d’Adda (from 4th January 1875). His bishop,
mons. Bonomelli, noticed f. Arsenio as an excellent young man, during a
pastoral visit, and was thinking of designating him parish priest, but
f. Arsenio asked to enter the Society of Jesus, where he was accepted on
25th November 1875.