Our Lady of Vocations
An Image of Mary from the Congregation of the Servants of Charity

Artist: Mr. Umberto Colonna from Rome, now deceased.

Date: 1951

Location: It was placed behind the main altar at the Minor Guanellian Seminary (Congregation of the Servants of Charity) Chapel on Via Aurelia Antica, 446, Rome, Italy. After Vatican II, the iconoclasts came and got rid of the whole chapel. It is now an auditorium. The painting, together with four others (Good Samaritan, Emmaus, Prodigal Son, Jesus preaching the Gospel) was relegated to rot in perpetuum in some basements. In the 1980s, Fr. Di Tullio, vocations director of the American province of the Congregation of the Servants of Charity, who is an alumnus of that seminary, by chance discovered them and brought them to the United States. Now they are at the Servants of Charity’s House of Formation in Springfield, PA.

The two seminarians (religious with temporary vows) at the feet of the Blessed Mother were two 'prefects' taking care of the young seminarians. They were studying theology and both became priests. They are wearing the religious habit: cassock, sash, crucifix suspended on a cord from around the neck and placed under the cassock. The one on your right, Fr. Vasco Canossa taught Latina and French in high school and the one at your left, Fr. Pietro Pellegrini, was the Provincial Superior of the Northern Italy Province of the Servants of Charity and for many years, he taught Scripture in Rome. Both priests are now deceased.

Description:

1. The Blessed Mother is seated on a throne giving her shoulders to an olive tree, symbol of peace, from which the sacred oil of priestly consecration is taken. Behind, we can see the yellow field of wheat, symbol of the Eucharist, and of God’s harvest: see Matthew (9:37–38) and Luke (10:2): "The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send our laborers for his harvest." A seminary is the place where future laborers are preparing themselves to enter into active work in the field of the Church.

2. The baby Jesus is seated on his Mother’s lap and offers a flame of fire to the seminarians kneeling in front of Him. It is the flame of charity coming from his Sacred Heart. Here, too, there is a reminder of the passage of the gospel of Luke (12:49): "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!" Our Founder (Blessed Luigi Guanella) was very fond of that particular passage. He called us "Servants of Charity", servants of that divine fire that should put the whole earth on fire by our priesthood and consecrated life. Seminarians should learn that priests have to be on fire in their loving the Lord and in saving souls. Nothing else should be more important to their future priestly life.

3. At the feet of the Blessed Mother there is an open book with a Latin sentence from the gospel of John (15:16): "Ego elegi vos ut eatis et fructum afferatis"—"I chose you (and appointed you) to go and bear fruit (that will remain)." A lily lies on the book. It is the symbol of purity of heart and body, and the sign of our vow of chastity. That virtue must mark the life of any seminarian and priest as well.

In front of that sacred Image, hundreds of young men prayed and were blessed.
May Mary bless us also now and forever. Amen.

(Compiled by the Rev. Silvio DeNard, S.C.)