BL. GIUSEPPE AMBROSOLI, SURGEON, PRIEST, AND MISSIONARY - 27 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH

Saints celebrated on the 27th of March

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

BL. GIUSEPPE AMBROSOLI, SURGEON, PRIEST, AND MISSIONARY 

Blessed Giuseppe Ambrosoli was born July 25, 1923 in, Como, Italy. He died on March 27, 1987.

Comboni Missionary Fr Giuseppe Ambrosoli dedicated his life to helping the people of Kalongo, Uganda. On December 17, 2015 Pope Francis recognised the heroic virtues of Fr Giuseppe Ambrosoli, an Italian surgeon, priest and missionary. This is the first of several steps on the road to being named a saint.

THE CURE OF MRS LUCIA LOMOKOL

In May 2019, the cause for Servant of God Giuseppe Ambrosoli was furthered when the medical commission instituted by the Congregation for the Cause of Saints recognized as “extraordinary and unexplainable” from the clinical and scientific point of view the following cure: On the night of October 25, 2008 a 20 year old Ugandan lady, Mrs Lucia Lomokol, was dying of Septicemia (blood poisoning) after losing the baby she was carrying. In the hospital in northern Uganda, where she had been brought in extreme conditions, there were no other means, there was no hope to save her. But Dr Eric Dominic, originally from Turin, placed on her pillow the holy card of Fr Giuseppe and asked the relatives the pray to the “great doctor,” who had died on March 27, 1987 in Uganda, when he was forced to abandon the mission and his hospital that had been torched by guerrilla fighters. The next morning, Lucia had recovered, was alive and no one thought it would be possible.

WHO WAS FR GIUSEPPE AMBROSOLI?

Fr Ambrosoli was assigned to Kalongo, Uganda in 1956 where we served as a parish priest and took charge of running the local dispensary. The dispensary was started in a grass hut by Comboni Missionary Sister Eletta Mantiero in 1934. Soon after she started delivering babies and attending to medical and pediatric patients.

HE REVOLUTIONISED THE CARE FOR LEPROSY PATIENTS

In 1957 Fr Giuseppe began transforming the dispensary into a full-fledged hospital. At that time the dispensary was treating many leprosy patients. Fr Giuseppe revolutionised the care for leprosy patients by admitting them to the same hospital as other patients instead of confining them to the often neglected and poorly managed leprosarium.

ST MARY'S SCHOOL OF MIDWIFERY

Today the Kalongo Hospital, recently renamed the Dr Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital, is a 350-bed facility that treats nearly 60,000 patients every year. Another of Fr Giuseppe’s achievements was establishing the St. Mary’s School of Midwifery in 1959.

(For the full article by the Comboni Missionaries please see:

https://www.combonimissionaries.org/on-the-road-to-sainthood-fr-giuseppe-ambrosoli/)