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- Journeying with the young

A CENTENNIAL GIFT

1909 -2009

“Finally, for the first time, I’m alive!” said a noted artist as he went around Florence and the other great cities of Italy. The country seems like one magnificent museum – be it architecture, sculpture, music or painting, everything set in stone, brick or canvas has been preserved for future generations. Not to know Italy is a tragedy and Rome – the eternal city, is a miracle revealing its beauty and passing it on from one era to another. The city is a magnet to tourists. “See Rome and die” thus sang the people of this Mediterranean paradise.

Every youngster delights in discovering Italy on the map. This country becomes his first friend – “Look!” he tells his dad, “How easily I can draw Italy. It is just like my boot, with a heel and a sole and a football at my toe. All you need to know that it has one long mountain range: the Apennines and one long river the Po.”

His Birth

Naples is the gateway to Italy but high up in the Adriatic Sea lies Venice, dreamy Venice, immortalized by Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley and Wordsworth and called by Ruskin the ‘Paradise of cities. Near Venice lies the province of Treviso and here in the valley of the Po, on the slopes of the Dolomite Alps, hedged between two small rivers Bremia and Piave and 50 km from Venice shrouded in idyllic surroundings lies the village of Vazzola. That was where Aurelius Maschio was born on 12^th February 1909, a hundred years ago!

His father Giuseppe was a firm, hardworking and kind man. His business kept him busy all the time but his devotional insistence kept his family well knit with regular family prayer. Orsolina Dalla Cia his wife was thrifty and kept her home as a good mother would, mending, cooking, tending to the children. She was often heard whispering to herself: “How I wish the days were a bit longer.’ But never was she heard regretting the fact that she had to work hard to keep her large family of twelve children fed, clothed and bred. Aurelius was the sixth of the twelve. The only time she really relaxed was when she went to the market which was a combination of recreation and business. Her good nature and simplicity won her the affection and friendship of the other mothers around Vazzola.

The parents of twelve children, nine brothers and three sisters they were a happy lot. It was a heartwarming sight to see them around the table on feast days…draped in bright colours though not extravagantly as the Venetians are wont to do.

Enter – The Salesians

The teacher of the elementary school where he spent his first years said: “He is an intelligent and diligent pupil endowed with strong good will. It will be a pity not to help him continue his studies.” And so the time came for Aurelius to be admitted to school and his parents chose Genoa, a long way from home. Treviso is on the East coast while Genoa is on the West. One had to travel a good two hundred miles over the plains of Lombardy to reach the Salesian school at Sampierdarena.

On his long journey back for his annual holidays he eagerly looked forward to being reunited with his family as much as they yearned to have him home. Then one day he revealed to them his desire to become a priest and so his parents agreed to send him to a ‘minor seminary.’  So when the time came for him to leave school, his superiors at the school had followed him closely till then, agreed that he had the qualities necessary to make a good son of Don Bosco. If he really wanted it, they would send him to the Apostolic School at Penango in Piedmont. “There” he was told, “you will be able to continue your studies and, at the same time, find out clearly whether God is truly calling you.” The decision hurt his mother deeply but she exclaimed: ‘If God calls we cannot but say ‘yes.’” A short time later, on Sunday 5^th October, 1924 at a grand and moving ceremony in the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin, Aurelius received the missionary Cross along with other 18 Salesians who were being sent to the missions that year. The people who filled the church that day watched with keen interested and commented: “Look, at that one, but he’s just a little boy!” pointing to young Aurelius. They were right, Aurelius was the youngest in the group, not yet sixteen, yet he had a clear vision of what he wanted and that left no room for hesitation at all.

The Missionary Goes Forth

Aurelius was with the first group to leave that year on the 2^nd November on the ‘Pilsna’ a ship of Lloyd Trestino Shipping Company. Fifteen days later on 17^th November the young cleric Maschio set foot on Indian soil. From there little band of young missionaries immediately left for the North-East of India. The young Aurelius never even imagined then that the city he was just ‘passing through’ would be his mission field for the major part of his life.  Imagine! This young lad of fifteen, at an age when he should have been slipping off to the movies, climbing trees, whistling and jumping over fences had decided to become a priest. 

Soon he found himself pacing the roads of steamy Assam. What a change from sunny Italy, land of olives trees and wine to the humid and verdant plains of Assam known for its forests and wild life. Yet the sprightly youngster was a hero of circumstance. He had willfully left the enjoyment and pleasures of his Mediterranean climes behind and after a year of novitiate in Shillong he made his profession of Christmas night 1925. On completion of his philosophical studies in Shillong he taught at St. Anthony’s High School there. It seemed as if heaven was in a great hurry to make him a priest. Then three years of hard study from 1930 – 1933 by kerosene and candle light rolled by quickly and at the age of twenty four, the proudest day of his life dawned. On 29^th April 1933 he was summoned to the altar by Mgr. Perrier, Archbishop of Calcutta and ordained a priest – “the minister and dispense of the mysteries of God.” His first assignment was as assistant parish priest to Fr. Mlekus at Cherrapunjee and for six months.

In his zeal what did he not do for the people of Cherrapunjee? Imagine an Italian learning to speak and write the Khasi language. What an experience in perseverance and missionary zeal! The young Aurelius went out of himself to be “all things to everyone” and never once did he flag. He stooped to enter the lowly huts of the poor and bending down over the bedside of the sick he lifted their agonizing hearts to regions of hope with words of comfort.

His work in Assam proceeded apace. He mastered Khasi to such an extent that he wrote two books which were approved by the Government to be used as texts in Khasi schools. While in Shillong he had the special privilege of working with revered and legendary missionary of the Khasi hills Fr. Vendramme.

Thunderbolts were not unknown in Cherrapunjee but one such “bolt out of the blue” struck at the heart of the young Parish Priest, Fr. Aurelius Maschio when received his assignment to leave for Bombay. He, who had, by now, been rooted in Assam, mastered language, culture, habits was now being uprooted. Yet with a firm trust that God wanted the best for him and for the people entrusted to him, he obediently moved to Bombay. He had only passed through the city on his entry to India and now he was now being sent there, to his new mission field. Thus it was that in 1936 at the age of twenty seven, still in the freshness of his youth, the austere, dignified and zealous young Rev. Father Aurelius Maschio reached Bombay with a spontaneous smile on his lips, a spring in his step and a ready desire to take on another culture and another language. Bombay would receive in him a phenomenon of a man, a holy priest and a tireless Salesian.

Stepping into Bombay

As the new principal in Bombay, Father Maschio was not well versed in English but at the welcome reception accorded him he memorized his speech within an hour and delivered it verbatim, like a born orator.

Don Bosco School at Tardeo, at that time was housed in a hired building for about five hundred boys. As soon as Fr. Maschio arrived in Bombay he resolved that the number increase ten times over. He started put into action some ambitious plans and began looking for a dream-plot for his dream-school. Even before he could find one, the school building was requisitioned by its owner and he had to shift the school to another hired bungalow at Cumballa Hill. Parting was not without its pangs. When he was leaving Tardeo, the Konkani speaking people whom he administered to, through special Konkani services, absolved in Konkani, wept around him like little orphaned children.

In 1939 he acquired a plot for a school at Matunga. It was a marshy mosquito-infested piece of land in the middle of nowhere. “Could he not find a better place?” many were heard commenting. But God’s ways are not our ways.

In fact, Don Bosco High School today is considered a ‘premier’ institution thanks to his vision - seventy years ago! Besides his untiring activities as principal and rector (1936-1952) he fulfilled many other roles on behalf of the then province of Madras.

Fr. Maschio was a man of vision who thought ahead and in many directions. He thought of giving school dropouts a place to learn a trade and St. Joseph’s Technical Institute was born which today houses the prestigious BIT – Bosco Institute of Technology. Then for orphans and boys from unstable homes he opened Dominic Savio Boys Home at Andheri…and many other institutions. The institutions that he brought about serve the various scopes that constitute the sum total of Salesian activity in and around the city. It is with difficulty that we refrain from defining such activity as the ‘Magic’ of Fr. Maschio’s foresight.

And the Show Goes On

Cement never dried upon his projects. Here a building was completed but elsewhere a foundation had already been laid. Yet, it was not a multiplicity of schools but a mosaic of institutions tailored to suit the needs of the youth of society at all levels. One was a boarding school, another an orphanage, a third a seminary, a fourth a technical workshop where the less academically inclined were able to learn a trade in order to earn their daily bread.

Today, in this twenty first century the Salesians are almost breathless trying to keep pace with the momentum that Fr. Maschio set, aware of the challenges that the world of youth throws at them. Today, for instance, at their headquarters at Matunga, Mumbai, there is a Skills Training Centre that equips young, bright but less fortunate youngsters from the bastis – slums around, to hone their communication skills, with the rudiments of conversational English and a smattering of computers they are eager and equipped to get to work in order to bring home the bread to feed their families.

Following the inspiration of their Patriarch, the Salesians of the Mumbai Province now approach corporate scions not “with cap in hand” but with promising proposals to profitably tap their Corporate Social Responsibility so that they may bring to bear their expertise to the marginalized youth of our city and its surroundings . These corporate train the youngsters at our institutes and induct them into the industry as reliable and responsible employees - and today various industries looking for candidates of such a cadre.

The Magic of Maschio

Permit me to conclude with the words of a very dear admirer of Fr Maschio and a beloved friend of the Salesians, Mgr. Patrick J. Gonsalves:

“Eighty five years ago there landed on the shores of India a lean, fair-complexioned, pink cheeked, teen-aged boy, whose name was destined in a few years, to become a household word in thousands of Catholic homes here and abroad. Young Aurelius Maschio had left home, wealth, friends and his beautiful Italian countryside to come and labour as a missionary in the newly-opened Salesian Missions in North East India. This voluntary exile undertaken in order to bring the people of the hills to Christ already foreshadowed the great heart and far-sighted vision from which would spring a great number of splendid achievements to the glory of God, the spread of the Gospel of Christ, and the honour of Mary, Help of Christians.

However, it was not his Northern missions but the city of Bombay that was destined to be the scene of Fr. Maschio's greatest and most fruitful labours. Again it was his magic touch that transformed a barren marshy wasteland into the imposing complex of buildings that is today Don Bosco High School, Matunga, Provincial Headquarters, Shrine office and the grand richly-decorated shrine in honour of Mary, Help of Christians. The vast playgrounds alone are the envy of many a school in the city.

Fr. Maschio was above all a priest and a religious: a holy priest and a faithful and fervent religious. Through his monthly "Don Bosco’s Madonna", eagerly awaited in thousands of homes, he still continues to bring the message of Christ, the example of His Blessed Mother and the teachings of the Saints to innumerable souls all over the country and abroad. He had a great heart for the poor and the deprived of society; every week hundreds of poor people are still given bread and alms in the precincts of the shrine; and numerous other poor unfortunates are helped in ways that are too many to mention.

Every magician has a secret word, a word from which he obtains his strength and power. Fr. Maschio may have been reputed to have had the golden touch but it came from his secret word. That word he kept in his heart; he has pondered it, loved it, cherished it, from the days of his youth, and all throughout his life in this country that had become so dear to him; and strange to say, he broadcast his secret word and made it loved and honoured throughout the land throughout his life. Fr. Maschio's secret word, the magic of Maschio was MARY HELP OF CHRISTIANS.

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