Saint Annibale Maria di Francia (1851-1927)

An orphaned childhood in the nobility of Messina

Annibale Maria di Francia was born on 5 July 1851 in Messina, Sicily. He was the third of four children of a minor noble family: his father Francesco di Francia, a knight and pontifical vice-consul, died when Annibale was only fifteen months old^[6]. That early loss marked his whole sensibility: the Holy See's official biography sees in it the root of his "particular tenderness for orphans"^[7]. Raised by his mother Anna Toscano, he grew up in an early Eucharistic devotion and obtained — a rare thing at the time — permission to receive Communion daily^[8].

An education disrupted by the Risorgimento

Admitted in 1858 to the Cistercian college of San Nicolò in Messina, the boy saw his schooling shattered by the political upheavals of Italian unification: withdrawal from the college at Garibaldi's landing in Sicily, then final departure in 1866 when the suppression of religious orders closed the school^[9]. Gifted with a "lively intelligence and remarkable literary dispositions"^[10], he henceforth educated himself largely as an autodidact, began writing verse, and entered the clerical state on 8 December 1869^[11].

The “revelation of the Rogate” (at seventeen)

At seventeen — the Rogationist biographical chronology dates the episode to c. 1868^[12] —, at prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, the young Annibale was seized by what he would call all his life "the revelation of the Rogate": the interior illumination of Christ's commandment recorded in the Gospels.

"Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest." — Gospel according to Saint Matthew 9:37-38^[13]

The conviction that seized him would become the heart of his whole apostolate: priestly and religious vocations come to the Church only in proportion to the prayer made to God to obtain them. Annibale would later recount that he had sought "a way out" of the shortage of priests and had found it "broad and immense, in those adorable words of Our Lord Jesus Christ"^[14]. He passed on that unique intuition to Pius X in 1909 in a formula that has remained famous:

"From my earliest youth I have consecrated myself to that holy Word of the Gospel: Rogate ergo…" — Letter of Saint Annibale di Francia to Pope Pius X, 1909^[15]

The blind beggar and the discovery of Avignone

A few months before his ordination, guided — according to the account given by the Rogationist biography — by a blind beggar named Francesco Zancone, Annibale entered the Avignone district, a wretched suburb of Messina populated by orphans, old people and abandoned poor crowded into insalubrious slums^[16]. He immediately recognized in it the concrete place where his prayer for the harvest had to take flesh. He settled there, shared the life of the destitute, opened a school and organized community prayer in a makeshift chapel. It was not, then, in a well-kept seminary but in the mud of a slum that his two foundations were born.

Ordination (1878) and canon of the cathedral (1882)

Annibale was ordained a priest on 16 March 1878 in Messina by Bishop Giuseppe Guarino^[17]. On 12 January 1882, he was appointed canon of the cathedral — an honorary office he accepted without giving up his life among the poor of Avignone^[18]. His whole singularity already lay in that contrast: a noble, lettered canon spending his days among the orphans of the slums.

The Antonian orphanages and the “Bread of Saint Anthony” (1882-1883)

From 1882-1883, Annibale opened orphanages — one for girls, then one for boys — which he placed under the patronage of Saint Anthony of Padua^[19]. The wonder-working saint became for him the "provider of the Daily Bread": Annibale instituted the Bread of Saint Anthony (Pane di Sant'Antonio), a charity in which alms given to the saint concretely fed orphans and the poor^[20]. These homes, known as "Antonian", financed the apostolate and rooted Antonian devotion in the popular piety of southern Italy.

The Daughters of Divine Zeal of the Heart of Jesus (1887)

In 1887, Annibale founded the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Zeal of the Heart of Jesus (Figlie del Divino Zelo), the women's branch destined to educate orphaned girls and poor children, to serve parishes and to carry, through prayer, the petition of the Rogate^[21]. It is in this congregation, surrounded by its sisters, that he would die, and it is this congregation that would transmit much of his memory.

The Rogationists of the Heart of Jesus (1897)

Ten years later, in 1897, he founded the men's branch: the Rogationists of the Heart of Jesus (Rogazionisti del Cuore di Gesù), priests and brothers whose specific mission was to embody, preach and spread throughout the world prayer for vocations^[22]. The two congregations received their definitive names on 15 September 1901, and their constitutions were canonically approved on 6 August 1926^[23].

The fourth vow: living and spreading the Rogate

The juridical originality of the two institutes is a fourth vow of their own, added to the three classic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience: "to promote and obtain, among all the faithful, the fervent observance of the Gospel precept of the Rogate"^[24]. To carry that prayer beyond his own houses, Annibale launched associated works reaching far beyond the religious setting:

Pope Pius XI, who would canonically approve both congregations, would call the Union of prayer for vocations "the work of works"^[25]. Annibale, for his part, remained convinced that the Church suffers first not from a lack of structures but from a deficit of prayer: the remedy is evangelical before it is administrative.

A pen in the service of faith

Even before his ordination, Annibale had entered literature and journalism. From 2 June 1868, at seventeen, he contributed to the Catholic bi-weekly La Parola cattolica, which he would direct from 1881^[26]. In 1908, he founded his own periodical, Dio e il prossimo (God and Neighbour) — a title summing up his programme: "a spirit of twofold charity: evangelization and relief of the poor"^[27]. The circulation of that devout press would reach considerable figures in the twentieth century, a sign of his work's popular rootedness^[28].

Spiritual writings and prayers

Annibale was a prolific author of prayers: supplications for vocations, novenas, manuals of piety, hymns to the Heart of Jesus and to the Virgin. His literary and apologetic output always aimed at the same practical goal — making people pray for the harvest. Among the publications listed by the Dizionario Biografico are an essay on a great Italian mystic, Un tesoro nascosto, ovvero scritti inediti di s. Veronica Giuliani (Messina, 1891) — evidence of his interest in mystical spirituality —, various occasional addresses and letters, and the verse collection Fede e poesia, published posthumously in 1935^[29].

The “prolific poet, combative journalist”

The Italian Cathopedia sums him up in one formula: "a zealous priest, a prolific poet, a combative journalist"^[30]. That literary dimension is no ornament: it belongs to his active holiness. Annibale understood very early that prayer for vocations had to be spread abroad, and he placed at the service of that spreading every means of his time — the pulpit, the press, the book and the poem.

On 28 December 1908, a catastrophic earthquake, followed by a tsunami, struck the Strait of Messina and killed, by various estimates, tens of thousands of people — one of the greatest natural disasters of twentieth-century Europe^[31]. The Avignone district was largely destroyed. Thirteen religious of the Daughters of Divine Zeal perished; but — a fact the Rogationists regard as a sign of protection — none of the orphans sheltered by the saint died under the rubble^[32].

Himself stricken, Annibale organized relief, evacuated the children to the mainland and rebuilt his works. It was in the wake of that post-earthquake mobilization that he extended his foundations toward continental Apulia — Francavilla Fontana, Oria, then Trani^[33]. And it was precisely at Trani that, in 1910, he would hear of a bedridden mystic of the neighbouring diocese.

The Rogate, the “idea-resource” of his whole life

Annibale called the verse of the harvest an idea-risorsa — an "idea-resource" — in the sense of a unique intuition from which all his apostolic activity sprang^[34]. The Rogate is not for him one devotion among others: it is the evangelical key to the reform of the Church. Where others multiply institutions, he returns tirelessly to Christ's command: begin by asking the Master of the harvest.

A “Eucharistic” charity

Annibale's Rogate is a Eucharistic prayer. He loved to repeat that one can implore the Master of the harvest only in the presence of the Bread of the harvest, and all his houses are organized around adoration of the Blessed Sacrament^[35]. His charity to the poor and his prayer for vocations are but the two faces of a single Eucharistic love: it was before the Host that he received his vocation, and it is from the Host that he makes his works flow.

Madonna del Rogate: Marian devotion

His devotion to the Virgin takes shape in a title he forged himself: Our Lady of the Rogate (Madonna del Rogate) — Mary as "the first to intercede for the labourers of the harvest"^[36]. The saint moreover died "comforted by the presence of Mary Most Holy, whom he had so loved", at the Marian shrine of Messina^[37].

“Innamoratevi di Gesù Cristo”: the pedagogy of love

Annibale summed up his whole spiritual pedagogy in an exhortation addressed to the young orphans of his houses:

“Fall in love with Jesus Christ!” — Saint Annibale Maria di Francia, his habitual exhortation to youth^[38]

For him, holiness is less a matter of ascetic effort than of burning love for the person of Jesus; consecration to vocations, charity to the poor and patience in suffering are but the natural consequences of that enamoured love. It is that formula, and no treatise, which Saint John Paul II quoted in full in the canonization homily as the summary of his spirituality^[39].

An heir of Saint Alphonsus' piety

The Dizionario Biografico places Annibale in the great lineage of southern piety inherited from Saint Alphonsus Liguori: love of the Eucharist, Marian tenderness, zeal for the salvation of the humblest souls^[40]. Far from an isolated innovator, he extends into the twentieth century a deeply traditional spirituality of love and trust.

The World Day of Prayer for Vocations

The intuition of the Rogate found universal consecration. In 1964, Pope Paul VI instituted the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, celebrated each year on the Fourth Sunday of Easter^[41]. In the living memory of the two congregations, that day is the gradual fulfilment of Annibale's great petition: the whole Church, at least one day a year, obeys the Rogate ergo.

A more hidden part of Annibale's life belongs to the history of Catholic mysticism. In 1910, having come to Trani to follow a foundation of the Daughters of Divine Zeal, he met Luisa Piccarreta, the bedridden mystic of Corato. He became her extraordinary confessor, then the appointed ecclesiastical censor (censor librorum) of her writings. It was he who edited The Hours of the Passion and published, in 1926, the first volumes of the Book of Heaven, with Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. His judgment has remained famous:

"I see in them a sublime and Divine Science […]. In my opinion, no human intelligence could have conceived them." — Saint Annibale Maria di Francia, letter on the writings of Luisa Piccarreta^[42]

That ministry, which he pursued until "practically neglecting his own institutes" in his final months^[43], never dimmed his canonical rigour: Annibale never published without diocesan approval nor erected a "parallel magisterium". The detail of that collaboration, the doctrinal content of the writings, the 1938 placing on the Index and the canonical resumption of Luisa's cause belong to a dossier of their own.

📖 See the detailed article: Saint Annibale di Francia, censor and confessor of Luisa Piccarreta

The final months

From December 1924, a pleurisy contracted during a stay in Rome lastingly weakened the saint^[44]. His strength declined through 1926, after the canonical erection of his institutes and the publication of Luisa's writings. He dictated his last recommendations to his spiritual sons and daughters, and finished putting his works in order.

Death in Messina (1 June 1927)

Annibale died in Messina on 1 June 1927, at 75^[45]. His dying words, handed down by the Daughters of Divine Zeal, sum up his whole theology of abandonment: "I want to do His Will. The Will of the Lord surpasses everything."^[46] He was buried in the Sant'Antonio shrine in Messina, around which his cult would develop^[47].

The incorrupt body and the shrine

At the exhumation and canonical recognition of 1 June 1990, with a view to the beatification^[48], the body was solemnly recognized. Kept at the Saint Anthony shrine in Messina, where it is today exposed under glass, vested in priestly ornaments, it is venerated there as incorrupt and is the object of regular pilgrimage by the Rogationists of the whole world and by the faithful devoted to the prayer of the Rogate.

The trial and the heroic virtues (1989)

The diocesan informative process on Annibale's life and virtues opened in Messina on 21 April 1945 and closed on 6 August 1952^[49]. After the introduction of the cause in Rome — the Positio was presented in 1975^[50] — Saint John Paul II promulgated on 21 December 1989 the decree recognizing the heroicity of his virtues, earning him the title of Venerable^[51].

The beatification miracle: Gleida Danese (1990)

The miracle retained for the beatification is the inexplicable healing of Gleida Danese, a little Brazilian girl suffering from a ruptured aorta deemed fatal, suddenly restored with no possible medical explanation^[52]. The Vatican medical board certified in 1990 the absence of scientific explanation, and the healing was attributed to Annibale's intercession. The beatification decree was promulgated, and John Paul II beatified Annibale on 7 October 1990, calling him "an authentic forerunner and zealous teacher of the modern pastoral care of vocations"^[53].

The canonization miracle: Charisse Nicole Diaz (2004)

The second miracle concerns Charisse Nicole Diaz, a little girl of the Philippines struck in 1993 by severe meningoencephalitis complicated by septic condition, hydrocephalus and cortical atrophy — a clinical picture which, even in case of survival, foreshadowed irreversible after-effects^[54]. Her family, after applying a relic of the blessed and beginning a novena, obtained her complete healing with no after-effects. The diocesan process closed on 24 October 2002, and recognition of the miracle came on 20 January 2004^[55], opening the way to canonization.

The homily of Saint John Paul II (16 May 2004)

On 16 May 2004, in Saint Peter's Square, John Paul II canonized Annibale Maria di Francia together with five other blesseds. In his homily, the pope reread his whole life in the light of the Rogate:

"If anyone loves me, he will keep my word" (Jn 14:23). In these Gospel words we see outlined the spiritual profile of Annibale Maria di Francia, whom love for the Lord impelled to consecrate his whole existence to the spiritual good of his neighbour. […] It is this same invitation that Father Annibale Maria Di Francia addresses to the young people of our time, summing it up in his famous exhortation: "Fall in love with Jesus Christ" — Saint John Paul II, canonization homily, 16 May 2004^[56]

The statue in Saint Peter's Basilica

A statue of Saint Annibale Maria di Francia stands in Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, among the founders of religious orders whose effigies adorn the basilica — an honour reserved to saints of major importance in the history of the Church. Placed in an exterior niche of the basilica, it is the work of the sculptor Giuseppe Ducrot (2010), commissioned by the Rogationists, and was blessed by Benedict XVI on 7 July 2010^[57].

The Rogationists of the Heart of Jesus and the Daughters of Divine Zeal are today present on five continents, where they run vocation centres, schools, nutritional centres, homes for the elderly and for mothers in difficulty^[58]. Their works maintain the two founding axes: intense, liturgical prayer for vocations, and the educational and charitable service of the poorest.

Annibale's great petition — that the whole Church pray to the Master of the harvest — has overflowed the frame of his institutes to become an ordinary dimension of the life of the Church through the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. In that sense, the poor priest of Avignone was, in John Paul II's phrase, a true forerunner: a century before it became universal, he lived the intuition that every vocation is first born of a prayer.

• Saint Annibale di Francia, censor and confessor of Luisa Piccarreta — the detailed dossier of his role with the mystic of Corato
• Luisa Piccarreta — the Servant of God whose extraordinary confessor he was
• The Hours of the Passion — the work he published in four editions
• The Book of Heaven — the work whose first volumes he published in 1926
• The Divine Will — living in the Will of God, and not merely doing His will: a single will with Him, where it is God who acts; the spirituality whose first ecclesial guarantor he was
• Saint Veronica Giuliani — the mystic to whom he devoted one of his first books
• Saint John Paul II — the pope who beatified him (1990) and canonized him (2004)
• Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur — the ecclesiastical seals he granted