MILITARY SERVICE
Italy in the center-north was immersed in the Nazi occupation and resistance. At the military visit, Giuseppe was declared fit for the military service but was “left on temporary unlimited leave.” Having two brothers in the army, he was exempted from military service. He then enrolled in medicine at the State University of Milan. Giuseppe, following the example of the bishop, also helped in accompanying the Jews and others persecuted by fascism across the border (a few hundred meters from his home). Then Giuseppe was also enlisted in the army of Salò and sent to the military hospital of Baggio (Milan). A month later, on 26th April, he left for Germany for the Heuberg-Stetten training camp in Württemberg, near Stuttgart. Life in the camp was hard. However, his military life strengthened his character. Above all, he now knew from experience that dying for the country meant nothing to a Catholic and that, if the dead soldiers had been able to choose, they would all, without exception, have chosen life. Many years later, in Kalongo, he would welcome hundreds of wounded soldiers. He would smile at his “fascist” past, almost apologizing for it, and repeat that his “shots” only hit harmless targets, never people!
A cenacle with the end of the war, Giuseppe began a fundamental period for his missionary choice. The meeting that marked Giuseppe’s spiritual life was with Father Silvio Riva, the diocesan assistant of Catholic Action of Como, who gathered the best young people in a group that he baptized “Cenacle”. It is an association in which young people find themselves, in an atmosphere of high spirituality as well as friendship and brotherhood, to pray and to better live the yearnings of the Heart of Christ expressed on the eve of his passion in the speech of the Last Supper with his twelve friends, the apostles. His spiritual growth is translated into the search for holiness understood as identification with Christ.
In this way, day-after-day, he matured his vocation to the mission that he had already allowed his fellow campers in Heuberg to perceive. When the war was over, Giuseppe resumed his university studies. He graduated in medicine and surgery at the University of Milan, on 18 July 1949, with a score of 108 out of 110. Immediately afterwards, he attended the medical department of the Como hospital as a volunteer trainee. Dr Luciano Terruzzi, an assistant in this hospital, recounts: “In assisting the sick and in carrying out the various tasks, he was the most solicitous; always attentive, without being noticed, to compensate for the omissions of others, with the attitude of apologizing, thanking those who had allowed him to practice in various diagnostic and therapeutic tasks.”
From doctor to novice
In the summer of 1949, when Giuseppe presented himself to the Comboni seminary in Rebbio for information, his decision was made, he would be a Comboni missionary doctor, but first, he left for London to attend a course in tropical medicine at the Tropical Institute. Back in Italy, he wrote to the then Superior General of the Comboni Missionaries, Father Antonio Todesco, expressing his decision to join the Institute as a priest.
At the age of 28, Giuseppe, a surgeon, presented himself at the novitiate, renouncing his honorable profession, his career, and the economic position of his family… It was October 16th, 1951 when, accompanied by his mother Palmira and brother Alessandro, the youngest son, that Giuseppe entered the novitiate. His title of “doctor” was replaced by that of “brother”, Brother Giuseppe. He liked it that much better. The life in the novitiate was austere. It was a matter of forming the character of people who would have to face the greatest difficulties that the mission had in store for apostles destined for Africa. In a very short time, he was also at ease with those thousands of rules that broke the day in a puzzle of difficult composition. His obedience was never a renunciation of seeing or thinking.
He had the ability to explain his reasons, even if always with respect and patience. Important for him was the contemplation of the Heart of Christ (the Comboni Missionaries are the Sons of the Sacred Heart of Jesus), finding in the mystery of Christ the impetus for his missionary commitment. Like Comboni before him, Father Giuseppe also discovered that Heart which had beaten and died also for “Africa”, for the Africans. His fellow novices loved him and esteemed him because “he always wanted the last place and the humblest jobs. He was often at the sink to wash dishes, even if it wasn’t his turn”, as one of them testifies. Even though he was a doctor, he had to limit himself to being a nurse.
From professed religious to priesthood
Giuseppe concluded his novitiate with his first religious profession. It was 9 September 1953. On that day, the Comboni celebrate one of the patrons of the Institute, Saint Peter Claver, a Spanish Jesuit, known as the apostle of black slave and under whose protection Daniel Comboni had placed his Institutes, “recognizing in him a shining example of dedication to the poorest and most abandoned.”
On September 9th, 1955, Giuseppe made his perpetual profession. The following 6 November, in the cathedral of Milan, Archbishop Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Pope Paul VI) ordained him a deacon. And on 17th December 1955, again Archbishop Montini, still in the cathedral of Milan, ordained him a priest. While singing the litanies and the ordained were prostrate on the bare floor, those present were able to notice that the soles of the shoes of the future priest Ambrosoli had holes. True that one of the vows of religious life concerns poverty. “It was impossible to see him with a new pair of shoes or a new outfit: he was very happy with second-hand clothes”, recalls a companion. The next day, Sunday, Fr. Giuseppe celebrated his first solemn mass in the parish church of Ronago packed to capacity.
Extracts from the book, “Fr. Giuseppe Ambrosoli: the healing man of God” written by Fr Aurelio Boscaini, a Comboni missionary.
