Corporal and Purification of the Venerable Fr Giuseppe Picco
The affection and esteem reserved for the Jesuit by his contemporaries contributed to the birth of a magazine ‘Friends of Fr Picco’, which over time has updated its readers on the process of beatification and the history of the Jesuit. A copy of the magazine can be consulted in the study room of the historical archive of the Euro-Mediterranean Province of the Society of Jesus.
Once again this year, two cloth artefacts make headlines in our column, following the Pope Pius X handkerchief we covered in May 2018.
They are the corporal and purificatory that belonged to Fr Giuseppe Picco SJ. They are all the more precious for their survival to the present day, since the purificators, often in use and in the possession of every Jesuit, are not then consigned to the historical archives but reused at home or by other confreres. The two artefacts also have fine lacework, and it is possible to date their creation between the late 19th and early 20th century.
As with the handkerchief of Pius X, we are not dealing with a simple fabric souvenir, so to find out why we delve deeper into the figure of Fr. P. Picco was born on 4 July 1867 in Nole, in the province of Turin, and entered the Society of Jesus on 22 September 1885, taking his last vows on 2 February 1904.
He died in Gozzano on 31 August 1946; he was a member of the Turin Province.
A number of biographies, published in the years following his death, recall his zealous apostolate in the countryside and in the most isolated mountains, always at the service of farmers, workers and their families.
This is well illustrated by the diaries of the communities where Fr Picco lived, which testify to his continuous journeys in the countryside or in the mountains to reach the most distant believers.
From some testimonies collected in the volume written by Paolo Molinari, ‘Father Picco. Un prete che amò la sua gente’, it seems that the Jesuit always wore a pair of clogs and carried an umbrella to cope with bad weather and difficult paths.
Since Fr Picco has been declared Venerable by the Catholic Church, this handkerchief is also a ‘candidate’ to become a possible Class II relic; it would only become officially so with the Jesuit’s beatification and subsequent canonisation.
The handkerchief, made of cloth, is kept in the Veneto-Milanese Province fund together with the Jesuit’s documentation: diaries, spiritual notes, photographs.
The affection and esteem reserved for the Jesuit by his contemporaries contributed to the birth of a magazine ‘Friends of Fr Picco’, which over time has updated its readers on the beatification process and the history of the Jesuit. A copy of the magazine can be consulted in the study room of the historical archives of the Euro-Mediterranean Province of the Society of Jesus.
P. Picco, so many years after his death, is still well known in the areas where he lived.
Pictured are the corporal and the purificatory.
Maria Macchi
