St. Joseph Benedict Cottolengo

St. Joseph Benedict Cottolengo was born in 1786 at Bra in Piedmont, Italy, and died in 1842. A diocesan priest and founder of the Little House of Divine Providence in Turin, he is patron of the sick, abandoned, disabled, poor, and those who depend on Providence. His life became a vast work of mercy after one encounter with suffering changed his priesthood.

Cottolengo was ordained in 1811 and served in Turin, where he was known as a capable preacher and pastor. In 1827 he was called to a poor woman named Maria Gonnet, who was gravely ill and pregnant. Because she had tuberculosis and no money, several hospitals refused her. She died in misery, and the tragedy pierced Cottolengo’s conscience. He went before an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and resolved to open a place where the abandoned sick would be received as Christ.

The first small shelter grew into the Piccola Casa della Divina Provvidenza, the Little House of Divine Providence. It received the poor, the incurably ill, the disabled, orphans, the elderly, epileptics, the mentally ill, and others whom society rejected. Cottolengo trusted God with remarkable boldness. He often had no funds, but he refused to turn away the suffering. Religious brothers, sisters, priests, doctors, volunteers, and lay helpers gradually formed communities around the work.

Many traditions of providential help and healing are connected with the Little House. Food, money, medicine, and workers seemed to arrive when needed. Cottolengo insisted that the poor were not clients but masters of the house, because Christ was present in them. His charity was practical: beds, bread, cleanliness, prayer, medicine, sacraments, and human dignity.

Exhausted by labor and illness, he died in 1842 at Chieri. Canonized in 1934, Joseph Benedict Cottolengo remains one of the great Catholic saints of social charity. His charism was confidence in Divine Providence translated into organized compassion for the sick and forgotten.