“The Giacomo Cusmano Association is a public association of lay people called to follow the Cusmanian ideal of propagating the faith through charity.”
I begin by recalling Article 5 of the Statute of the Giacomo Cusmano Association, approved and printed in 1990, in order to emphasize the importance of the Cusmanian layperson who, in addition to living according to what is very clearly defined by the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium as baptized within the People of God, also assumes the commitment to be part of the Cusmanian Family, sharing with it the spirit of the Founder, that is, to live one’s own faith in a particular way in the exercise of “charity without limits”.
For this reason, I think it is right to begin this reflection by starting from the idea that Giacomo Cusmano had of the lay person inserted in his Work, with what spirit and soul he wanted to endow him, what tasks and modalities of action he wanted to entrust to him, and finally what place he wanted to give him within the Boccone del Povero.
Giacomo Cusmano was born in Palermo in 1834 and died in the same city in 1888, therefore his human, social and ecclesial experience, from which a concrete and specific action for the benefit of the poorest took shape, matured in a moment in which a new commitment of the laity within the Church began to emerge. In fact, in addition to the medieval confraternities and third orders, there are companies, oratories and various associations where women are also introduced and begin to become active in the apostolate.
With the First Vatican Council, begun in June 1868 and interrupted in 1870, there is the official recognition of the laity. Moreover, in Sicily, in the second half of the 19th century, new needs were felt in the field of the organization of the Catholic laity. The old forms, confraternities and congregations of spirit, oriented to the preservation of the religious life of the faithful, were no longer responsive to new times that also require commitment and active collaboration with the clergy. Thus, the Catholic Movement was born in Palermo in the 70’s, a little late compared to the North, committed to defending religion against the State that was becoming increasingly hostile. In 1863 Melchiorre Galeotti founded the Society of Catechism and the following year the Catholic Association of St. Francis de Sales with the aim of defending the Catholic faith and promote good press, while in 1872 was established in Palermo the first circle of the Society of Catholic Youth.
In the same period, the Pious Union of the Daughters of Mary was born, a real novelty for the female laity, born to counter the intrusiveness of the liberal state.
It must be emphasized, however, that the second-nineteenth-century lay person is still a baptized person of the second order and mainly an executor of the directives of the hierarchy.
In this context, the Association of the Poor Man’s Supper was born in Palermo on February 21, 1867, even before the real lay associations, with the involvement of clergy and laity in a project of the Church that was strongly innovative. A new proposal of ecclesial life based on charity that involves all the components of the people of God at the diocesan level. A truly ecclesial project that united everyone, starting with the Archbishop who approved and blessed it on August 5, 1868, erected it as canonical on December 8, 1868, and later made it widely known with a pastoral letter sent on April 6, 1869.
Cusmano identifies the Boccone as an exercise of charity, inviting us to go beyond the traditional alms-giving to the poor by the rich and proposing communion and the daily sharing of one’s table. Hence the analogy with the Eucharistic Snack, which allows one to experience true communion around Jesus, the true immolated lamb and nourishment for every creature. Starting from this concept of the Eucharistic morsel, Father Giacomo indicates a Church of communion that is renewed through charity. In this vision of communion all find their place, no one excluded, both the bishop and the priest as well as the lay believer or not. His project appeals to everyone and at all levels, overcoming all civil and social barriers, while maintaining the objective of helping, supporting and bringing the poor closer to God with a project of evangelization and salvation that includes the rich and the poor, all saved by virtue of a gesture of love.
In this new image of the Church, Cusmano proposes a new vision of the layperson, who is also involved at various levels in the construction of the Church – Charity. Therefore, the layman is no longer a simple benefactor, who gives alms and wills in favor of the poor, but a full-fledged cooperator.
The Association of the Boccone del Povero represents, therefore, for that period a stimulus for a greater awareness on the religious and social level of a committed laity in close collaboration with the clergy.
In fact, at the first meeting of the Association which took place on May 12, 1867 at the premises of the church of Santi Quaranta Martiri most of those present were lay people and some of them were called to become part of the board of directors. The members were divided into simple, who undertook to keep the Bocconi, and active who in turn were divided into collectors because they were responsible for the collection of Bocconi, and distributors, instead those who were responsible for distribution. There were also collaborators, those who provided services in the homes of the poor, and the Pious Women Cooperators, those who accompanied, advised and educated the poor.
Unfortunately, we know very well that after the iron years of the Association of the Boccone del Povero (the poor man’s mouth), starting in 1878, it was hit by a severe crisis and that later on the Cusmanian Work resumed with the foundation of the Sisters Servants of the Poor in 1880, the Brothers Servants of the Poor in 1884 and the Missionary Servants of the Poor in 1887. At this point it would seem that in this new approach to the Work of the Boccone del Povero the laity were no longer considered. Actually we know that this is not so because Giacomo Cusmano in October 1882 in Girgenti founded the Ladies of Charity and according to his thought they had to rise in every house of the Sisters Servants of the Poor, in fact, in 1883 they were born in Valguarnera, in 1884 in San Cataldo and in 1885 in Palermo. Like the Ladies in the male houses of the Boccone del Povero, Cusmano thought of a congregation of charity for men and planned its implementation in 1886 in San Giuseppe Jato, but this project was not realized.
There are many lay people, men and women who, in different ways, did their best to serve the poor, following Father Giacomo’s project. We remember Giuseppa Palmeri, the Countess Herbert, the pharmacist Vincenzo Rizzo, the lawyers Giovan Battista Guarnaschelli and Ignazio Caputo, the spouses Montana, Salvatore Celestre, Baron Tomasini, Baron Starrabba. These and many others were directly followed by him and accompanied in the spiritual formation and in the service to the poor, entrusting him with tasks of a different nature according to their skills and abilities.
At the death of Cusmano, the laity remained present in the Bocconi houses, and even afterwards, in the future, his spiritual sons and daughters continued to welcome them, train them and involve them in the many charitable activities obviously without any lay organization and this happened for many years.
The Second Vatican Council, convened in 1959, opened in 1962 and concluded in 1965, relaunched the role of the laity in ecclesiology and in particular with the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium the nature of the laity is defined. In particular, the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium defines the nature of the laity. n. 31 of the LG states: “By the term ‘laity’ is meant all Christians, with the exclusion of the members of the sacred order and of the religious state sanctioned in the Church, that is, the faithful who, after having been incorporated into Christ through baptism and constituted the people of God and, in their measure, made sharers in the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ, for their part carry out, in the Church and in the world, the mission proper to the whole Christian people. The concept of the laity is then taken up by the conciliar Decree Apostolicam Actuositatem and from this we take up a part of n. 4 which says: “those laity who, following their own particular vocation, are enrolled in some association or institute approved by the Church, should strive to assimilate faithfully the spirituality peculiar to them”.
On the basis of this Magisterium, in the post-Conciliar period, a new awareness and a new identity of the laity was born, which fostered an increase in the action of the laity within parish communities, aggregations, associations and movements.
This new vision of the Church raised the question of the presence of the laity within the Opera del Boccone del Povero among the members of the Cusmanian Family and in particular Sister Maria Teresa Falzone, historian and great scholar of Cusmano and his Work, began to rethink a new organization of the Cusmanian laity. Having obtained the permission of the Superiors General of the two Congregations and with the involvement of some missionaries and nuns, she began this new mission starting with the laity present at that time in the religious Communities while others were approached, proposing to them once again the Founder’s message of boundless charity and ensuring that they would live it again in associative form.
On March 14, 1979, with the adhesion of the first nucleus of lay associates, formed at the Casa della fanciulla alle Terre Rosse in Palermo, the lay presence in the Cusmanian Work officially resumed.
Subsequently the centers have multiplied: 1980 Santa Ninfa (TP), 1981 Palermo via Pindemonte, 1983 Palermo corso Re Ruggero, 1984 Giarre (CT) and Grotte (AG), 1985 Valguarnera (EN) and Mazzarino (CL), 1987 Rome, 1991 San Cataldo (CL) and Calatafimi (TP), 1992 Mazara del vallo (TP), 1994 Camastra (AG) and Partanna (TP), 1997 Savoca (ME), and in 2001 Palermo “Cuore Eucaristico di Gesù”. In the following years some of these centers have merged such as Palermo via Pindemonte and Corso Re Ruggero, Santa Ninfa and Partanna, while others have died out such as Palermo Terre Rosse, Grotte, Calatafimi and Mazzarino.
This is the Italian presence, but at the same time the Association was born in Brazil where currently there are 5 centers: Joaçaba-SC, Campina do Siqueira and Pilarzinho in Curitiba-PR, Igarapé-MG and Nova Brasilândia-MT; Mexico with 2 centers currently suspended; Democratic Republic of Congo currently there are 2 centers: one in Kinshasa and one in Kananga; Philippines where two centers were born and then suspended; while it is in the process of establishing a center in India where for some years the Missionary Servants of the Poor have been operating.
The Giacomo Cusmano Association, today composed of about 500 members, obtained, on April 26, 2006, with the Decree of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life the recognition of the Holy See as “Opera Propria” of the two religious Congregations of the Missionary Servants of the Poor and the Sisters Servants of the Poor. Subsequently, on February 17, 2011, the Italian reality has obtained legal recognition as a non-profit association with the registration in the register of non-profit associations.
Today more than ever, the message of the Church-Charity of Cusmano is increasingly relevant just think of the magisterium of the Popes of recent decades to understand how the Church invites all believers to concrete service and a common commitment for the benefit of those who suffer or are marginalized.
Pope Francis began his ministry with the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium with which he indicates the mission and commitment of every baptized person. Particularly with regard to the service to the last ones, the Pope exhorts “Every Christian and every community are called to be instruments of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, so that they can be fully integrated into society; this supposes that we are docile and attentive to listen to the cry of the poor and help them.”
In this way, the lay Cusmanian Associate commits himself to make of his own life a gift for others, making his own the teaching of Jesus: “As often as you did it for the least of my brothers, you did it for me.” In this way he commits himself to a journey of spiritual formation that allows him to become more aware of service to others and of the meaning of Christian love that leads him to concrete action in favor of those who occupy the peripheries.
In particular, today the Associate, wishing to live the message of the founder’s limitless charity marked by the practice of the Boccone, commits himself to
– caring for and helping the sick, the elderly or those in need;
– in intervening in particular situations of hardship encountered in the area of action;
– in sustaining families that are economically and morally in danger;
– in the recovery of funds to support missionary projects and long-distance adoptions;
– in accompanying those who are deprived of all necessities and in their reintegration into society.
Convinced that we will be judged on the love we know how to give to our brothers and sisters, each associate commits himself personally and communally to small daily gestures that recall the original meaning of the Boccone, each giving something, even his or her own time, creativity and competence, aware that together we can do a lot.
Giuseppe Bellanti
Presidente Generale
Associazione Giacomo Cusmano
