Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - On Sunday 5 September Pope John Paul II will travel to Loreto for the conclusion of a meeting-pilgrimage organised by Catholic Action where he will celebrate Mass and beatify a Spanish priest, Pere Tarrés i Claret (1905-1950), who was assistant to Catholic Action in Spain and two Italian lay members of the Association in Italy Alberto Marvelli (1918-1946) and Pina Suriano (1915-1950). Here are some biographical notes on the three persons renowned for their holiness.
Pere (Peter) Tarrés i Claret was born on 30 May 1905 a Manresa, province of Barcelona, Catalan (Spain). He was educated by the Scolopi Fathers and the Jesuits. A happy boy, loving towards his parents and sisters, he was a lover of nature and a contemplative. Thanks to a scholarship he was able to study medicine. He joined the Federació Jovens Cristians (Federation of Young Christians) with ardent apostolic zeal. The Federaciò was Catholic Action (AC) as Pope Pius XI saw it: prayer, study, and action, under the guidance of the local hierarchy. Pere Tarrés held various positions in the Federaciò and in the AC He felt that the spiritual life of the members was devotion to the Eucharist and love for the Mother of God. At Christmas 1927 he took a vow of chastity.
In 1928, when he completed his medical studies he opened a clinic dedicated to Our Lady Help of Christians in Barcelona, and showed exemplary charity and religious devotion while exercising his profession. During the Spanish civil war he used in secret to take Holy Communion to people persecuted by the red militia and narrowly escaped arrest when his own home was searched. In January 1939 he returned home from the front line (he had been forced to enlist as a medical doctor), he continued his profession, held various charges in AC and prepared to enter the seminary in Barcelona, which he did on 29 September 1939. In 1941, the year his mother died, he received Minor Orders and was ordained a priest on 30 May 1942. In Barcelona he was appointed to various pastoral posts: vice diocesan assistant for AC youth, assistant at the Centre for AC women and youth at San Vicente de Sarriá parish (1944), chaplain of the community and college of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (1945). During mountain holidays he cared for numerous groups of AC youths and he was involved in various other pastoral duties and always left an indelible mark. On 17 May 1950 the doctors diagnosed a lymphosarcoma. He lived his sickness at Tarrés with total abandonment in the hands of God and offering his life for the sanctificaiotn of priests. He died on 31 August 1950 age of 45 at the clininc he had founded.
Alberto Marvelli was born in Ferrara, Italy on 21 March 1918, the second of six children to deeply Christian parents. He went to the local Salesian Oratory and joined Catholic Action where he matured his faith. He prayed with deep devotion, taught catechism with conviction, showed zeal, charity and serenity. He had a strong character, he was generous and firm, with a keen sense of justice and he exerted a great influence on his companions. He loved sport and his great passion was the bycicle, which was also the vehicle for his apostolate.
At university he completed his cultural and spiritual formation as a member of FUCI. He obtained a degree in mechanical engineering on 30 June 1941. During the German occupation of Italy after every bombing raid he would be one of the first to run to search for the wounded, encourage survivors, assist the dying and pull the living out of the rubble. Alberto used to collect things for the poor, matresses, blankets, cooking pans. He also bought food, loaded it on to his bycicle and rode to places where he knew there was hunger and sickness. He saved many from deportation by opening sealed railway wagons ready at Santarcangelo train station destined for concentration camps. When the town was liberated on 23 September 1945 Alberto Marvelli was one of the assessors who formed the Liberation Committee: although not everyone recognised and appreciated all he did for the homeless. Although only 26 he was entrusted with difficult tasks such as assigning homes in the town and the work of rebuilding. In 1945 the Bishop called him to lead the Catholic Graduates association. He started a popular university and opened a feeding centre for the poor. He was tireless, and as one of the founders of the Young Christian Workers ACLI, he formed a cooperative of builders. When he felt that the world around him was suffering from the effects of sin and injustice, the Eucharist became the source of his strength to undertake efforts to redeem and liberate and the humanise the earth. In the evening of 5 October 1946, while cycling to hold an electoral meeting he was hit by a military truck and died without ever regaining consciousness only hours later at the aged of 28.
Giuseppina Suriano, who was always called Pina, was born in Partinico, a farming town in the Province of Palermo, Sicily, on 18 February 1915. Docile and obedient, particularly sensitive to the religious spirit in the family, Pina lived in the large house of her grandparents with the whole family and she was especially loved being the first grandchild. In 1922 she received the Sacraments of Penance, First Communion and Confirmation and in the same year she joined Catholic Action. She was only a young girl when with a profound ecclesial spirit she began to take part in parish and diocesan life, AC initiatives and other activities for the addressing local problems.
In 1937 a new parish dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary was opened in her area and Pina took part with enthusiasm being entrusted with various tasks at different levels in AC. In 1948 she founded the Association of the Daughters of Mary of which she was President until she died. Pina based her apostolate on prayer, sacrifice, Mass, communion and daily meditation; studying the Word of God and following the magisterium. On 29 April 1932 she took a vow of chastity although her mother hoped she would make a good marriage. With kindness but firmness, Pina rejected many offers of marriage proposed by young men taken with her grace and charm. Pina dreamed of becoming a nun but met with unsurmountable obstacles., With three companions on 30 March 1948 she offered her life to God for the sanctification of priests. That same year she developed a form of artrite rheumatic arthritis so violent as to produce a heart problem which was to cause her death only two years later on 19 May 1950 at the age of 35. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 3/9/2004 - Righe 79; Parole 1107)
