Angelo Bignami was born on 13th March 1896 at Caviaga, N. Italy. After attending an agricultural school, he worked on the family farm till he was drafted into the army during World War I. Coming out of it, unharmed but horrified, he continued to attend to the farmyard chores till, on 10 July 1927, he left his home against his father’s wishes and joined the Jesuit novitiate at Gorizia. He went through the usual period of postulancy and novitiate, learning the different trades needed for a Brother, but specializing above all in the generous service of his new leader, Christ.
Br Bignami did not at first volunteer for the missions, considering himself too old and hence unfit for the strenuous work in mission territory. But as each batch of new volunteers left for India, his heart bled. Hoping against hope, he asked Bishop Paul Perini of Mangalore to take him along to India; permission was granted him in October 1930. After his brief visit to his dear ones, he set sail from Venice, never to see Italy or his dear ones again. November 21, 1930 saw him at Bombay and a week later he was in the Mangalore Mission, the home of his dreams.
Once in India, his only prayer was to persevere and die there, a generous worker for the spreading of Christ’s Kingdom. This prayer was granted him in ways he never expected. Never remaining for more than three years in any house, except from 1948-56 in the orphanage of Marikunnu, Calicut, and from 1956-1969 at Mount St Joseph, Bangalore, he gave of his best in work and initiative to the different houses in Mangalore and Calicut, and of his art to the different parishes and schools in the dioceses of Mangalore and Calicut and later even to the missions stations of Mysore.
If one goes through his diary kept from 1928 till a stroke deprived him of the use of his right hand on 6 January 1966, one gets a clear insight into the heart of the man which was transformed through prayer, mortification and self-denial into the heart according to Christ. His love for the poor made him struggle to save every cent. Often he declined the offer to go on holiday, since he did not earn the money it entailed. In the difficult war years, while interned with his compatriots, and then in the more difficult post-war years when in charge of the orphans, he struggled, in spite of meagre rations, to keep everyone with a stomach full and a happy heart, working with his own hands in the fields, though the local people laughed and jeered at him.
His love for the house of God was clearly manifest in his willingness to paint in oil or in fresco any church, be it in the Cathedral of Calicut or the much frequented shrine of St Jude in Chundale or the smaller churches in the mission stations. Wherever his paintings would add something to the beauty of plain walls and enable a single soul to make an act of love of God or draw nearer to him, he was ready to give his time and skill and ask for nothing in return save the cost of the materials so that his orphans may not be deprived of their pittance. While the Mattul paintings have faded, at Chundale they are well preserved. One can get a glimpse of his paintings in the Karnataka Jesuit Centenary Souvenir (1978) page 170, adorning the walls of the Immaculate Heart Chapel of Kalena Agrahara, now, unfortunately demolished to make way for the magnificent and spacious edifice that has taken its place.
Such was Br Bignami in health and no less noble was he in suffering. Not a word of complaint, not a request for anything better, but only a loving “I am doing God’s will” and a sincere “Thank you, you are doing too much for me” met any question about his health or his meals. All who came into contact with him admired not only his resignation to the will of God but his loving acceptance of this saving will. This sanctity was born of that self-denial and intimate union with God in prayer and work which St Ignatius demands of every Jesuit. With God’s holy name on his lips and surrounded by those for whom he had worked, prayed and suffered, he went to meet his Master in peace and joy. May the good Lord be his reward for evermore.
Fr Maxim Rasquinha, working then in St Joseph’s Boys High School, Bangalore, once took a batch of Catholic boys to Mount St Joseph, promising to show them a living saint. Here is what he has to say of that encounter: “I was then sent to St Joseph’s Boys’ School to take charge of the ‘Crusaders’- namely Catholic children of fourth, fifth and sixth standard. Fr. Claude D’Souza was the Principal then. One day I took these children to Mount St. Joseph promising to show them a living saint. Br. Bignami was in the wheel chair with his right side paralyzed. He was himself moving the wheelchair with his left hand. At Mount St. Joseph I told the children to go to the chapel and recall a special intention, and ask the saint to pray for the intention. After praying fervently they went in a line to meet the saint. He listened to each one and blessed them. At the end the children shared their thrilling experience saying that the saint blessed them with his left hand!”
“O Thou the last fulfillment of life. Death, my death, come and whisper to me! Day after day I have kept watch for thee; for thee have I borne the joys and pangs of life,” sings Tagore in His Gitanjali. Truly we can say this of Br Angelo Bignami, who for four long years, chained down to his wheel chair because of partial paralysis, looked forward to the day when death would bring him to the house of the Lord he served so faithfully and generously for 41 years as a Jesuit. That day came when God sent his angel of love in the afternoon of 2 December 1969 to call Br Bignami to himself. It was the morrow of the feast of the English martyrs and the eve of the great Missionary saint Francis Xavier. Br Bignami, the ardent missionary was also a martyr in his own way, especially during the final few years of his illness.
- By Fr Richard Sequeira, SJ
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