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As a Founder and a Father of the Poor... To carry out his ideals in the Church he founded two religious Congregations: the Daughters of Divine Zeal, founded in 1887, and ten years later, the Rogationist Fathers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The two Congregations were officially recognized by the Church on August 6, 1926. To his men and women religious he entrusted the ideal of "Rogate" and, besides the three religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, he bound them by a fourth one: to pray daily for vocations. Blessed Hannibal never considered himself as the Founder of his two Congregations but only their initiator. The true Founder, he would insist, was Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. On July 1st, 1886 after two years of intense spiritual preparation on the part of his children and poor, during a solemn celebration, the Blessed Eucharist was brought for the first time in a room that had been transformed into a chapel in the Avignone squatters. In his devotion he regarded this event as the foundation day of his institutions. The Holy Eucharist will always be the center of Blessed Hannibal's life and of that of his religious institutions. After spending a hectic day going from door to door begging for food for his poor and orphans, Blessed Hannibal would often spend the night in front of the Blessed Sacrament in prayer vigils. Here he received light and strength to carry out his works of charity. In a letter to Tommaso Cannizzaro, a well known poet and writer, whom Blessed Hannibal wanted to convert to the Catholic faith, he once wrote: "My dear professor, consider that if it were not for the love I bear to Jesus Christ, I would get easily tired of spending my time among the outcasts, of wasting all of my money for them and of losing my peace of mind and sleep for children and orphans". "The entire Church must formally pray for this intention - he once wrote - because the purpose of prayer to gain vocations must concern both the faithful who have at heart the welfare of souls and more specifically the Bishops who are the shepherds of the mystical flock. They are the living apostles of Jesus Christ today. The souls are entrusted to them". (Ant. Rog., page 711) He had held the priesthood in greatest esteem and strongly believed that only through the mission of many holy priests the world could be saved. That is why the bishop of Messina entrusted to him the spiritual formation of his seminarians. Regarding the subject of priestly formation, Blessed Hannibal used to say that without a lot of payer and a solid spiritual training, "the efforts of bishops and of seminary educators would only result in superficial priests". more.....
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