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Updated: June 18, 2025
He was groping his way back to the chapel. It was a month before the Consistory met to nominate the new hierarchy for Marqua. It had been expected that the first meeting would end in decisive action and that, immediately afterward, the great missionary of the Community of San Ambrogio would return with increased authority and dignity to his charge.
And, looking back, he could see that Pietro's had been the labor that had won Marqua. There came back to him all the memories of his servant's love of souls, his ceaseless teaching, his long journeys to distant villages, his zeal, his solicitude to save his superior for the more serious work of preaching. Pietro had been jealous of the slightest infringement on his right to suffer.
I have heard" he lowered his voice as he glanced over his shoulder to where Father Denfili sat on the bench by the pond "that it is certain that Marqua is to be made a Province, with an archbishop and two bishops. There is a seminary in Marqua, even now, and they are training some of the natives to be catechists.
Father Tomasso, frightened by the unwonted strangeness of the General's tone, carried the atmosphere of tense and troubled excitement with him when he entered the room the prelate was just leaving. Father Pietro glanced up at him from the table where he was returning to their case the photographs of Marqua.
This letter to the General this letter " he pointed to the document on the table " says that I have been made Archbishop of Marqua." Ramoni took the letter. As he read it he knew what Pietro had not known. The news was genuine. The name signed at the letter's end guaranteed that. Ramoni caught the edge of the table.
I was a man with little, but I could admire the man who had much. I had no gifts to lay before Him, yet I, too, wanted to do a great work. I wanted to make you my great work. That was my hope. You are the Apostle of Marqua. I am the Apostle of Ramoni. For that I have lived, always in the fear that I would be cheated of my reward." Ramoni turned to him. "Your reward? I do not understand."
He had no time to loiter in the garden, and the story of the conversion of the people of Marqua was left to the quiet Fr. Pietro, who told the splendid tales of his Superior's great work, till Father Tomasso and Brother Luigi prayed to be given the opportunity to be Ramoni's servants in the far-away land of the western world.
And the awed crowd he looked down on at the end of his sermon took away from the church the tidings of his greater power. From that time nearly every moment was taken by the demands of people of position and authority, who wished to make the most of him before he went back to Marqua. He scarcely saw his brethren at all, except after his Mass, when he went to the refectory for his morning coffee.
There must be thirty of our Fathers in Marqua now," he continued proudly, "and sooner or later, all novices will have to go out there. Father Ramoni has made a splendid Prefect-Apostolic. No wonder they have summoned him to Rome for consultation.
I knew that there was conflict ever within you between your duty to God and what the world had to offer you the old, old conflict between the city and the world. I always feared it. All unknown to you I watched the fight, and I saw that the world was winning. Then, my son, I sent you to Marqua." The old man paused, and his trembling hand wiped away the tears that streamed down his face.
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