Fr Stan: "I'm an Orionine and am trying to become a complete man"

Specialists in Theology and great scholars have agreed to affirm that love is the generative force of creation. Nature itself reveals an additional dimension, that love of creation is the source of life. Love the Creation is above all express one's gratitude to the Creator for Strength, Beauty, Bounty and Providence of which he continues to fill his creation. For us Sons of Divine Providence, that love of creation also involves healthy use of the resources of this creation and especially leveraging the talents that the same Divine Providence has rewarded each one of us.

A fundamental principle according to Adam Smith was the division of work in intellectual and manual work. This would mean that the society, for its good and wholesome running allocate between its members the necessary tasks. From this distribution or division works we went to the extreme considering the intellectual work as the highest and defeating the manual labor.

In the Orionine charismatic theology, we want to overturn the reality and correct what has long been a gap and an insult to the Creation. St Luigi Orione spoke freely of the Theology of the Holy Fatigue to invite his Sons and Daughters to the love of work.

Before thinking, we must eat isn't? And this is the manual work that produces what is absolutely necessary for humans. The distinction between manual and intellectual work is misleading. That man build a cabinet or that he solves the equations, he is somehow using his intellectual abilities and uses his hands to make them become reality.

Someone once asked me if I was a priest or an agronomist or "Shamba Boy" (farmer in Kiswahili)? Since I spent the majority of my time under tomatoes, cucumbers and planting here and there, running after animals. And my answer, with all possible humor was: "I am an Orionine and am trying to become a complete man." The Orionine and complete man is above all one who knows how to give thanks to God for the gift of nature and its beauty. And to do so, the greatest value is that of the Theology of the Holy Fatigue or of "the sleeves rolled up". A response to the cry of Don Orione "Get out of the Sacristies."

We spoke once of the "Green Providence." It is in this logic of "out of Sacristies." The most suitable framework to instill that love of work is the initial formation.

For us, the manual work, and especially its agricultural orientation, while it is a formation without words but in action, gives us to live "Organic" and save on many aspects economically. For an invitation to self-sustenance mentioned by all our documents, nothing more beautiful than that of manual work.