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Donec Formetur: Where Did it Come From?

1924 marked a key moment in the formulation of Pauline spirituality. It was the

10th anniversary of the printing school, now a flourishing movement with hundreds of

young members. In January, Alberione called everyone together for an intense “Month of

the Divine Master.” After a general introduction, Alberione spent nine days presenting

Christ as Way; the next eleven days focusing on Christ as Truth (with particular stress on

the beatitudes), and the final week centering on Christ as Life. Two weeks later, he

introduced a small group of young women from among the “daughters”1 who were to be

a new congregation of sisters: the Disciples of the Divine Master. Unlike the other

women of “St. Paul,” these future religious wore a monastic style habit. Perhaps it was

seeing these young “suore” among them that reawakened Father Alberione’s awareness

that a solid formation had to be provided, not just for the present members, but for

generations to come. By August, the community bulletin stated: “The principal book for

formation is the exercises of St. Ignatius.”2 That the Ignatian exercises had a particular

stress in 1924 seems clear from Alberione’s comments on New Year’s Eve: in listing the

motives for thanksgiving, the first one mentioned is that “The spirit of the exercises of St.

Ignatius has penetrated better and meditation on the end for which we have been created

has cast shafts of living light on the entire journey of our life. I prayed to the Lord that he

grants to all the grace of making the complete most holy exercises at least once in a

lifetime.”3 The three books then considered “fundamental for formation” were “the Holy

Gospel, the letters of St. Paul, the exercises of St. Ignatius.”4

1
The word “figlie” was used in the Piedmont region to indicate any young single woman.
2
Unione Cooperatori Buona Stampa (UCBS) August 1924, cited in DF Introduction, 162.
3
UCBS, January 20, 1925, cited in DF Introduction, 164.
4
Ibid., 164.
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The late 1920’s saw the canonical establishment of the Society of St. Paul and the

Daughters of St. Paul (which included the “Disciples of the Divine Master”) as religious

congregations of the Alba diocese. The 1930’s were a time of both consolidation and

expansion for the Pauline Family. Communities had already opened in numerous Italian

cities, including Rome, and vocations were so numerous there was nowhere to house

them. Soon the first missionaries would be crossing the Atlantic. Lacking any kind of

directives outside of their freshly printed regulations and their own experiences as

students of Fr. James Alberione, the missionaries were told to “do what we do in Alba.”

But how would new members receive the “Pauline spirit” which had always been

communicated directly by the Founder? And so Bl. James Alberione turned his attention

and energies toward the formation process he had been following. The result was his

1932 publication, Donec formetur Christus in vobis (“Until Christ is formed in you”—

Gal. 4:19).

Donec Formetur: A Pauline Classic

DF outlines the path of Pauline discipleship for those called to serve the Church

with the “fastest and most efficacious means progress and human ingenuity provide.”5

Alberione’s vision encompassed spirituality, mission, formation, intellectual development

—all pursued as a unified whole, all experienced and interpreted in Jesus, whom he

especially wanted considered as Master, the Way, the Truth and the Life. This is “Jesus

as St. Paul understood him” (AD 159).

5
The expression is traditional in the Pauline Family. It demonstrates the Founder’s concern that the
approach to ministry never grow stale.
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It is unarguable that DF represents the Pauline-Alberionian “spirituality” even if

Father Alberione himself did not use the term. His preferred word was “devotion”: not in

the sense of a warm, pious bent in life, but in what he saw as its root meeting (“voto”

meaning “vow”), the total commitment of one’s person to the person of Jesus Christ,

“the” Master, the Way, the Truth and the Life. This devotion involved the whole person

(mind, will, heart) and the whole Christ (Way, Truth and Life), encountered in Scripture,

Eucharist and Church, and resulted in one’s transformation in Christ, a new Incarnation

of Christ in the world.

Clearly, Alberione proposes a vision of self-transcendence to the point of

complete communion and configuration with the person of Jesus Christ. For Alberione,

“self-integration” and “self-transcendence” are realized in a process of “incarnation” of

Christ the Master, Way, Truth and Life, in the disciple. “Christ is the one who lives,

thinks, acts, loves, wills, prays, suffers, dies and rises in us” (DF 64) and “all is carried out in

the Holy Spirit, because as the life of Jesus Christ, so the life of the Church, that is, the

supernatural life of souls, is communicated, developed, completed and consummated in

the Holy Spirit. And so our study is double: that Jesus Christ may be formed in us.”

“Study” is used here in the sense of “studium,” a focused and methodical pursuit

The book’s style—more of an outline than a text—can make it hard to follow, just

as the “Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius” make for a very dry “lectio divina.” The author

seems to be jotting down successive intuitions, and it takes some grounding in his own

experience in order to follow his line of thought. In addition, Alberione makes use of the

traditional language of “spiritual theology” and of the manuals of theology with which he

himself was educated at the turn of the 19th century. Even if we are familiar with the
Anne Flanagan Page 4
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words or phrases he employs, our lack of familiarity with 19th century theology and

pastoral practice can lead us to interpret the text in its literal sense and so prevent us from

recognizing what is new, different and unique in what our Founder is saying. We miss his

particular “spin” because we are looking almost a hundred years into the past, and

naturally reading him in the light of our own Church life and expectations.

Since DF was written as an outline for spiritual exercises or as a novitiate

formation program, it can only truly be known by experience. In other words, Alberione’s

DF is a process more than a text, if only because Alberione’s terse style does not allow

the reader to participate in the author’s own breathtaking experience of God. However,

DF is a methodical way of accessing his extraordinary experience of grace. Those who

have undergone this process testify that it grasped them profoundly.

Donec Formetur: Answering a Need

DF was written just as “St. Paul” was about to open its first foreign missions. Italy

was undergoing political turmoil with Mussolini’s rise to power and the Pope’s relegation

status “prisoner of the Vatican” only slightly mitigated by the Lateran Pacts. The

Industrial Age was still an important social factor: the movement of young people to the

cities was a vital pastoral concern. Europe was thought to be the political center of the

world, and missionary activity included outreach to non-Catholic Christians. Media were

controlled by a powerful few, and assumed to have enormous power over people’s minds.

Alberione’s followers live in an entirely different setting now, both in terms of

geographic extension and in membership. Worldwide, the majority of Paulines are

outside of Europe, and are largely Asian and Latin American. New media technologies
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have multiplied, and even if in the United States there is concern over the concentration

of mass media into a few large, commercially-driven voices, technology is changing

media. Communications has become a culture of its own. The Church, too, is “larger”

than it was understood to be in Alberione’s early priesthood.

But today, as then, consecrated persons desire (and deserve) “to know Jesus Christ and

the power of his resurrection.” DF responds to that need. The title indicates what

Alberione held to be the goal of the spiritual exercises (and, by extension, of the novitiate

year): a person’s total transformation in Christ, so that the religious could say, “Christ is

living in me” (Gal. 2:20).

References to “spiritual exercises” appear on the very first page. Alberione sees

that the same norms and principles apply to the novitiate, and that both could be

characterized as “Exercises of virtue, of pious practices, of divine thoughts, to make the

old person die and bring about that Jesus Christ lives in us” (DF 9). The novitiate year or

time of spiritual exercises is a form of “practice” for the life of heaven, a life Alberione

understands as involving the whole person: mind, will, heart, body. This means that the

preparation should correspond to the anticipated goal—a common theme in 19th century

spiritual writers. For Alberione, that meant preparation “of the mind, since Paradise is

vision; of the will, since Paradise confirms for us the highest good, God; of the heart,

since heaven is joy; of the body, destined for resurrection and for glorious endowments

and for the satisfaction of its just desires” (DF 16). Alberione doesn’t leave it at that, but

goes on to specify, “The preparation of the mind is done by faith; the preparation of the

will is done by observing the Commandments and in general by doing the Divine will;
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the preparation of the heart with grace, and by growth in grace; preparation of the body

by keeping it subject to reason and faith, and mortifying it in what is illicit” (DF 16).

Alberione’s fixation with “tutto”: the whole person (mind, will, heart) and an integrally

lived spirituality (“divine thoughts” corresponding to the mind, prayer—a matter of the

heart—and virtue, the province of the will) appear from the very first page. Even in the

Preamble, he links this “totality” of the person in the journey of sanctification with the

whole Christ, “Way, Truth and Life.” And within the Preamble, he also introduces the

“Way-Truth-Life method” as a way of ensuring that the exercitant or the novice

“exercises” himself or herself in “total” correspondence to the grace of God: “With

mortification, one holds to the way Jesus Christ, with the Gospel and with meditation,

one lives6 the truth Jesus Christ, with Communion, Visit, Mass, one has the life Jesus

Christ. ‘Donec formetur Christus in vobis’ ” (DF 12).

The three part method is not a matter of “religious observance,” but of intimate

association with Jesus Christ, Way, Truth and Life. What predominates in DF (outside of

its core content) is the insistence of the Founder that every dimension of the person

(mind-will-heart) be consciously and explicitly joined to Christ (Way-Truth-Life) in each

and every spiritual practice. This concern (or better, “preoccupation”) with the totality of

the human person dates back, according to Alberione’s 1954 testimony, to at least 1902:

“There remained deep down, the thought that it is necessary to develop the whole human

personality for one’s own salvation and for a more fruitful apostolate: mind, heart, will;

this is what he intended in the inscription for his friend Borello’s tomb.”7

Donec Formetur: the Purgative Way

6
Note the verb: not “knows” but “lives”!
7
AD 22. The inscription (or was it a eulogy?) he refers to is no longer extant.
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Like Ignatius before him, Alberione adopts the language of the threefold way in

his own “spiritual exercises.” Following Ernest Dubois8, he links each step or moment of

the threefold way to one of the Persons of the Trinity.

The Purgative Way as presented by Fr. Alberione is actually a series of points for

meditation; he offers only the barest outline. He calls the Purgative Way the “Theology

of the Heavenly Father” and this section of DF, subtitled “Glory to the Father,” is linked

with two passages, most significantly Jn 17: 3, cited in Latin.9 The chief pattern of this

introductory experience is to first consider “Who is God?” and then “Who am I?” As a

creature, one finds that his or her life is “suspended between two eternities” (DF 21)

destined for eternal happiness in praising God. This truth should orient the person’s

values and choices, always according to the ultimate goal of the Glory of God. The more

this is pursued, the more one grows in the knowledge and love of God, beginning with

the mind which “goes from ignorance and from error to the point of thinking like God in

Jesus Christ10. This is the state of souls that are always united to God and see, judge and

order all things in [God]” (DF 26). This is what Alberione will later refer to as “loving

the Lord with one’s whole mind” (AD 24). Already, Alberione is hinting at the end

product, when Christ will be formed in the person, so that it is Christ himself who thinks,

wills, judges, loves. It is, in the end, of course, entirely a matter of love that is completed

or “perfected” with the love of Jesus, and it is Mary who “takes from us our self-love and

8
Ernest Dubois had published a four-volume work in Latin in which he attempted to reconcile faith
and the sciences by indicating the Trinity as the unifying center of all knowledge, art and virtue. This work
was admired by Alberione’s spiritual director, Francesco Chiesa, and also very much appreciated and cited
by Alberione, who was always looking for a way to bring “tutto” together in Christ. In Dubois’
exemplarism, “the first part is considered as the beginning, or the foundation or efficient cause; the second
as the means or exemplary cause; and the third as the conclusion or final cause” (cf. DF Presentation, 165-
166).
9
“This is eternal life, that they may know you and the one whom you sent.”
10
My emphasis.
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substitutes it with love of God” (DF 26). This is the first appearance of the word

“substitute,” which becomes pivotal in the Illuminative Way of Glory to the Son.

The goal of the Purgative Way is to convince the mind that God is our origin and

our goal, and to guide the will in choosing to let that goal determine the pattern for our

life. This requires grace to “incarnate God in us”— beyond the scope of any human

being, but still calling for “our part,” exercising the mind, will and heart in key practices

of prayer, in particular the examination of conscience, meditation, spiritual direction and

confession (clearly consistent with the traditional understanding of the Via Purgativa).

A person following the Purgative Way of Glory to the Father should thus be

formed as an “upright person” (DF 16) who can then be introduced into the following of

Christ the Master and Way, by means of the key unit of DF: the Illuminative Way of

Glory to the Son

The bulk of DF is concerned with the Illuminative Way of Glory to the Son. The

goal of this “stage” of the exercises is “that Jesus Christ be incarnate in us”: “This period

must bring Jesus Christ into us: Way, Truth, Life, resulting in the new person.” (DF 37-

38). Again, this means an integral meeting of the person (mind-will-heart) with Christ

(Way-Truth-Life):

Jesus Christ is truth for the understanding: from this follows the need to
study Christian doctrine, especially the Gospel.
Jesus Christ is way for the will: from this follows the need to imitate Jesus
Christ, especially being attentive to Holy Communion.
Jesus Christ is life for the heart: from this follows the need to clothe
ourselves in sanctifying and actual grace, especially with the Holy Mass.11

11
DF 38.
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Toward this goal, Alberione applies a threefold method to the Pauline’s daily

Eucharistic adoration: “(a) reading of the Gospel and Christian doctrine so as to honor

Jesus Christ Master; (b) compare our life with Jesus Christ model, and make the

examination of conscience; (c) prayer, especially what will prepare one for Holy Mass

(Via crucis, sorrowful mysteries)” (DF 38). This was to become the characteristic style of

the Pauline Family, not only for spiritual practices, but also for preaching and editorial

productions: Any book, article or script had to include a “message” for the mind, a life-

application for the will, and an invocation of divine assistance so that the message might

truly become incarnated in life.

Under the subheading “Divine Master,” Alberione introduces his special (and

original) focus, summarizing in prayer form the relationship between the Divine Master

and the disciple:

Master,
Your life traces out the way for me;
Your teaching confirms and enlightens my steps;
Your grace sustains and upholds me in the journey to heaven.
You are the perfect Master who gives the example, teaches and comforts
the disciple in following you.12

This is followed by a lengthy prayer, comparable to Ignatius’ “Suscipe” but given

here when the novice has barely crossed the threshold of the Via Purgativa. It is a solemn

consecration in three parts (Truth-Way-Life) in which the exercitant or novices receives

Christ as Master of the mind (“…substitute yourself, O you who...are truth itself, for my

mind and my thoughts…. Live in my mind, O Jesus Truth”), of the will (“your life is

precept, way…a divine way of love of the Father…. Establish your will in place of my

will”), of the heart (“Substitute my heart with yours, substitute my love of God, of

12
DF 39.
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neighbor, of self, with yours”) (DF 39-40). In this prayer, Alberione offers an intimate

picture of discipleship: “placing my feet in your footsteps of poverty, chastity and

obedience.” What comes to mind is the image of a child making exaggeratedly lengthy

strides to match the parent’s every step. The disciple wants to follow the Master so

closely as to be conformed to him. “Devotion” to Jesus Master is not a matter of

objectively following a path of observances or pious practices, but is primarily relational,

centered on the person of the Master.

Donec Formetur: the Illuminative Way (Part 2)

DF’s “Illuminative Way,” like the month of the Divine Master held in January

1924, is divided into three parts, corresponding to Way-Truth-Life. WAY especially

focuses on the earthly life of Jesus. Alberione recommends lengthy consideration of the

hidden life at Nazareth, giving various perspectives for the exercitant to dwell on,

whereas only one set of three points is proposed for meditation on the public life. This

emphasis on Nazareth makes sense in view of the purpose of this “stage” of the DF

process: Nazareth is where Jesus was “conceptus de Spiritu Sancto” (the phrase appears

on the book’s title page) and where he was formed. He is the WAY, and in order that he

be incarnate in us, we need to follow that same path, an extended period “in gestation” in

a Marian environment, from which emerges the “new person” who lives in Christ.

Nazareth is where we need to stay “donec formetur Christus in nobis.”

Each point in Alberione’s outline is presented under three aspects. The private life

of Christ is presented in four sets of points for meditation: the crib; the “entrusting” of

Christ to Mary and Joseph; the 30-year duration of his private life; his taking leave of

Nazareth to enter his ministry. It is up to the exercitant to “fill in the blanks” using the
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WTL method in meditating. Alberione does not develop any one area (except in the sense

of offering a list of points to reflect on). He simply gives signposts of the barest sort. For

example, the first set of points on the private life:

Contemplation of the crib:

Become a child—“homo factus”
Circumstances of the birth:
Poverty, humility, mortification are the documents needed to enter the school
of Jesus.13

Alberione’s presentation of Jesus Master-Truth is surprisingly spare, consisting of

a few paragraphs on Christ as Master-Teacher, an outline for reflecting on the Sermon on

the Mount, and brief, three-part (WTL) treatments of Theology, Scripture and Tradition,

the Pauline disciple’s principle fonts for study and life so that “we will please the Father

by the life of our mind” (DF 50). Typically, Alberione would give pride of place to the

role of the mind and truth as pivotal for one’s relationship with Christ. “No sanctification

without the truth—or at least love of the truth. Sanctification of the mind comes first”

(AD 92). And while here in DF Alberione places his consideration of Jesus-Truth second

(following the order of Jn. 14:6), his process consistently begins with a doctrinal

statement. The “intrusion” of catechetical material can be disconcerting, a jarring

statement of the obvious. But its inclusion reflects Alberione’s concern that the spiritual

life be rooted in a solid interpretation of the Gospel, and not dependent on passing

opinion, trends, or superficial eloquence.

Donec Formetur: The Illuminative Way (Part 3)

13
DF 41.
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Alberione gives special attention to Jesus-Life in a series of points that center on

the Paschal Mystery, especially the dimension of Pentecost. His presentation of the Holy

Spirit’s healing action is especially significant: After a kind of catechetical exposition of

sanctifying grace, and in the context of an outline for a contemplation of Pentecost,

Alberione presents the action of the Holy Spirit healing the effects of original sin in the

intellect, feelings and will. For each faculty, specific wounds are enumerated: “as to the

intellect: healing ignorance, lack of reflection, forgetfulness, hardness of mind, error….”

(DF 60). Some time later, these same paragraphs were re-edited into the prayer of

substitution directed to the Holy Spirit which is found in the Pauline manual: “Heal my

mind of lack of reflection, ignorance, forgetfulness…. And form Wisdom, Jesus Christ-

Truth in everything; my heart…and form Jesus Christ-Life in me; heal my will… and

form Jesus Christ-Way in me: new love for whatever Jesus Christ loves and for Jesus

Christ himself.”14 The prayer continues by asking that the cardinal and other virtues be

“uplifted in a heavenly way” by the gifts of the Holy Spirit: a further sign of how the

Holy Spirit conforms us, mind-will-heart, to Christ, Way, Truth and Life.

While much of DF is focused on the individual exercitant or novice, Alberione

does not ignore the communal. One of the points to be considered is that of “the doctrine

of grace or transformation in Jesus Christ, of whom we become the mystical body.”15 The

person who, in Christ, “bears much fruit,” brings forth “many good works, so that we16

are like many creatures or persons, or plants of grain (an immense field) in which Jesus

Christ implants soul-grace.” (DF 58). He does not offer any clues as to the meaning of the
14
“Invocation to the Holy Spirit” from Prayers of the Pauline Family, 1985 edition (Daughters of
St. Paul, Boston, 1992), 205-206.
15
DF 49. The ellipses in the citations are original. The author is content to merely reference John
15 through key words.
16
All of a sudden, the author moves from third person singular to first person plural.
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interesting phrase “soul-grace,” but the image of the vast, fruitful field seems to suggest a

single shared life, not a collection of individual entities being enlivened one by one. This

dovetails nicely with his earlier, spare references to John 15 and its image of the vine and

branches, in which the “you” is always plural.

The model of this transformation in Christ is the Apostle Paul. This had already

been pivotal in Alberione’s service as a seminary spiritual director. Timothy Giaccardo’s

diary from 1917 (while Alberione was still on the seminary faculty where Giaccardo was

a student) includes this prayer: “Finally, O Jesus, I tell you that I want to live your life.

Transform me into you: in you, O Jesus, like St. Paul, to live your life of holiness as he

did: vivit in me Christus.”17

Donec Formetur: the Unitive Way

Since the purpose of the spiritual exercises (and by extension, of the novitiate) is

the “incarnation” of Christ in the Pauline disciple by the power of the Holy Spirit, already

considered at length in the central chapter of DF, Alberione gives somewhat short shrift

to the “Via Unitiva of Glory to the Holy Spirit.” This section, which in the 1932 edition

filled only 6 pages (compared with the Via Illuminativa’s 28!) at first reads like a series

of catechetical essays on the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church (in its institutional aspects)

and the theological virtues, all treated in Alberione’s by now familiar three-point format.

Evidently, Alberione sees the action of the Holy Spirit as so inseparable from the life of

Jesus (in his earthly life and in his “repeated” incarnation in each Christian), that there

wasn’t much more to add, except to indicate faith, hope and charity as the pinnacle of life

17
Opera Omnia Alberione CD-ROM (1999 Beta version), from the database “DBDIARGI”
(Giaccardo: 1917, plico 4, page 2), (Centro di Spiritualità Paolina, Rome).
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lived in Christ the Master. Overall, DF’s presentation of the Via Unitiva is disappointing

for its lack of development. It seems to be a simple “tag” after the profound, detailed, and

inspiring vision of the Via Illuminativa.

DF does not end there: the Via Unitiva of Glory to the Holy Spirit is followed by

a significant chapter on the “Means of Grace.” Although typographically, this chapter is

distinct from the Via Unitiva, its content supplies what the earlier chapter lacked: the

concrete ways through which the Holy Spirit acts to conform persons to Christ the

Master. These are above all the sacraments, especially the Eucharist (treated—in this

order—as Holy Communion, Holy Mass, and the Eucharistic Visit or Hour of Adoration,

all presented in the typical three-part format, and with the WTL method proposed for the

Mass and Hour of Adoration). After these come prayer, the help of a spiritual director,

the practice of virtue, and the person’s own vocation. (Here we see Alberione drawing the

exercitant or novice to an “election,” another Ignatian note in the book.) And since

Alberione is writing for persons who, for the most part, have already made one degree of

election of religious life in the Pauline Family, he adds a final chapter on the “Apostolate

of the Press.” (The principal points of this chapter will be developed in his 1933

publication Apostolato Stampa.)

Alberione’s “Way, Truth and Life” method attempts to provide a framework for

integral participation in the liturgy, the encounter with Sacred Scripture, and the

preaching of the Gospel (the ministerial aspect is not developed in DF, but in Apostolato

Stampa). Of course, he did not intend the method as a set of rules, but as a “suggestion”

(DF 76) that was “particularly singled out” (DF 77) for the Pauline Family, and there are
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those who, recently introduced to Father Alberione’s spirituality and its method, have

grasped it as a way of presenting their faith in Christ to others in our postmodern context.
 Donec Formetur: A Pauline Classic

DF outlines the path of Pauline discipleship for those called to serve the Church

with the “fastest and most efficacious means progress and human ingenuity provide.”

Alberione’s vision encompassed spirituality, mission, formation, intellectual development

—all pursued as a unified whole, all experienced and interpreted in Jesus, whom he

especially wanted considered as Master, the Way, the Truth and the Life. This is “Jesus

as St. Paul understood him” (AD 159).

It is unarguable that DF represents the Pauline-Alberionian “spirituality” even if

Father Alberione himself did not use the term. His preferred word was “devotion”: not in

the sense of a warm, pious bent in life, but in what he saw as its root meeting (“voto”

meaning “vow”), the total commitment of one’s person to the person of Jesus Christ,

“the” Master, the Way, the Truth and the Life. This devotion involved the whole person

(mind, will, heart) and the whole Christ (Way, Truth and Life), encountered in Scripture,

Eucharist and Church, and resulted in one’s transformation in Christ, a new Incarnation

of Christ in the world.

Clearly, Alberione proposes a vision of self-transcendence to the point of

complete communion and configuration with the person of Jesus Christ. For Alberione,

“self-integration” and “self-transcendence” are realized in a process of “incarnation” of

Christ the Master, Way, Truth and Life, in the disciple. “Christ is the one who lives,

thinks, acts, loves, wills, prays, suffers, dies and rises in us” (DF 64) and “all is carried out in

the Holy Spirit, because as the life of Jesus Christ, so the life of the Church, that is, the

supernatural life of souls, is communicated, developed, completed and consummated in

the Holy Spirit. And so our study is double: that Jesus Christ may be formed in us.”

“Study” is used here in the sense of “studium,” a focused and methodical pursuit.

The book’s style—more of an outline than a text—can make it hard to follow, just

as the “Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius” make for a very dry “lectio divina.” The author

seems to be jotting down successive intuitions, and it takes some grounding in his own

experience in order to follow his line of thought. In addition, Alberione makes use of the

traditional language of “spiritual theology” and of the manuals of theology with which he

himself was educated at the turn of the 19th century. Even if we are familiar with the

words or phrases he employs, our lack of familiarity with 19th century theology and

pastoral practice can lead us to interpret the text in its literal sense and so prevent us from

recognizing what is new, different and unique in what our Founder is saying. We miss his

particular “spin” because we are looking almost a hundred years into the past, and

naturally reading him in the light of our own Church life and expectations.

Since DF was written as an outline for spiritual exercises or as a novitiate

formation program, it can only truly be known by experience. In other words, Alberione’s

DF is a process more than a text, if only because Alberione’s terse style does not allow

the reader to participate in the author’s own breathtaking experience of God. However,

DF is a methodical way of accessing his extraordinary experience of grace. Those who

have undergone this process testify that it grasped them profoundly.

 Donec Formetur: Answering a Need

DF was written just as “St. Paul” was about to open its first foreign missions. Italy

was undergoing political turmoil with Mussolini’s rise to power and the Pope’s relegation

status “prisoner of the Vatican” only slightly mitigated by the Lateran Pacts. The

Industrial Age was still an important social factor: the movement of young people to the

cities was a vital pastoral concern. Europe was thought to be the political center of the

world, and missionary activity included outreach to non-Catholic Christians. Media were

controlled by a powerful few, and assumed to have enormous power over people’s minds.

Alberione’s followers live in an entirely different setting now, but today, as then,

consecrated persons desire (and deserve) “to know Jesus Christ and the power of his

resurrection” (Phil. 3:10). DF responds to that need. The title (“until Christ is formed…”)

indicates what Alberione held to be the goal of the spiritual exercises (and, by extension,

of the novitiate year): a person’s total transformation in Christ, so that the religious could

say, “Christ is living in me” (Gal. 2:20).

References to “spiritual exercises” appear on the very first page. Alberione sees

that the same norms and principles apply to the novitiate, and that both could be

characterized as “Exercises of virtue, of pious practices, of divine thoughts, to make the

old person die and bring about that Jesus Christ lives in us” (DF 9). The novitiate year or

time of spiritual exercises is a form of “practice” for the life of heaven—a common

theme in 19th century spiritual writers. Alberione doesn’t leave it at that, but goes on to

specify, “The preparation of the mind is done by faith; the preparation of the will is done

by observing the Commandments and in general by doing the Divine will; the preparation
of the heart with grace, and by growth in grace; preparation of the body by keeping it

subject to reason and faith, and mortifying it in what is illicit” (DF 16).

Alberione’s fixation with “tutto”: the whole person (mind, will, heart) and an

integrally lived spirituality (“divine thoughts” corresponding to the mind, prayer—a

matter of the heart—and virtue, the province of the will) appear from the very first page.

Even in the Preamble, he links this “totality” of the person in the journey of sanctification

with the whole Christ, “Way, Truth and Life.” And within the Preamble, he also

introduces the “Way-Truth-Life method” as a way of ensuring that the exercitant or the

novice “exercises” himself or herself in “total” correspondence to the grace of God:

“With mortification, one holds to the way Jesus Christ, with the Gospel and with

meditation, one lives18 the truth Jesus Christ, with Communion, Visit, Mass, one has the

life Jesus Christ. ‘Donec formetur Christus in vobis’ ” (DF 12).

The three part method is not a matter of “religious observance,” but of intimate

association with Jesus Christ, Way, Truth and Life. What predominates in DF (outside of

its core content) is the insistence of the Founder that every dimension of the person

(mind-will-heart) be consciously and explicitly joined to Christ (Way-Truth-Life) in each

and every spiritual practice. This concern (or better, “preoccupation”) with the totality of

the human person dates back, according to Alberione’s 1954 testimony, to at least 1902:

“There remained deep down, the thought that it is necessary to develop the whole human

personality for one’s own salvation and for a more fruitful apostolate: mind, heart, will;

this is what he intended in the inscription for his friend Borello’s tomb.”19

18
Note the verb: not “knows” but “lives”!
19
AD 22. The inscription (or was it a eulogy?) he refers to is no longer extant.
 Donec Formetur: the Purgative Way

Like Ignatius before him, Alberione adopts the language of the threefold way in

his own “spiritual exercises.” Following Ernest Dubois20, he links each step or moment of

the threefold way to one of the Persons of the Trinity.

The Purgative Way as presented by Fr. Alberione is actually a series of points for

meditation; he offers only the barest outline. He calls the Purgative Way the “Theology

of the Heavenly Father” and this section of DF, subtitled “Glory to the Father,” is linked

with two passages, most significantly Jn 17: 3, cited in Latin.21 The chief pattern of this

introductory experience is to first consider “Who is God?” and then “Who am I?” As a

creature, one finds that his or her life is “suspended between two eternities” (DF 21)

destined for eternal happiness in praising God. This truth should orient the person’s

values and choices, always according to the ultimate goal of the Glory of God. The more

this is pursued, the more one grows in the knowledge and love of God, beginning with

the mind which “goes from ignorance and from error to the point of thinking like God in

Jesus Christ22. This is the state of souls that are always united to God and see, judge and

order all things in [God]” (DF 26). This is what Alberione will later refer to as “loving

the Lord with one’s whole mind” (AD 24). Already, Alberione is hinting at the end

product, when Christ will be formed in the person, so that it is Christ himself who thinks,

wills, judges, loves. It is, in the end, of course, entirely a matter of love that is completed

20
Ernest Dubois had published a four-volume work in Latin in which he attempted to reconcile faith
and the sciences by indicating the Trinity as the unifying center of all knowledge, art and virtue. This work
was admired by Alberione’s spiritual director, Francesco Chiesa, and also very much appreciated and cited
by Alberione, who was always looking for a way to bring “tutto” together in Christ. In Dubois’
exemplarism, “the first part is considered as the beginning, or the foundation or efficient cause; the second
as the means or exemplary cause; and the third as the conclusion or final cause” (cf. DF Presentation, 165-
166).
21
“This is eternal life, that they may know you and the one whom you sent.”
22
My emphasis.
or “perfected” with the love of Jesus, and it is Mary who “takes from us our self-love and

substitutes it with love of God” (DF 26). This is the first appearance of the word

“substitute,” which becomes pivotal in the Illuminative Way of Glory to the Son.

The goal of the Purgative Way is to convince the mind that God is our origin and

our goal, and to guide the will in choosing to let that goal determine the pattern for our

life. This requires grace to “incarnate God in us”— beyond the scope of any human

being, but still calling for “our part,” exercising the mind, will and heart in key practices

of prayer, in particular the examination of conscience, meditation, spiritual direction and

confession (clearly consistent with the traditional understanding of the Via Purgativa).

A person following the Purgative Way of Glory to the Father should thus be

formed as an “upright person” (DF 16) who can then be introduced into the following of

Christ the Master and Way, by means of the key unit of DF: the Illuminative Way of

Glory to the Son.

 Donec Formetur: The Illuminative Way (Part 1)

The bulk of DF is concerned with the Illuminative Way of Glory to the Son. The

goal of this “stage” of the exercises is “that Jesus Christ be incarnate in us”: “This period

must bring Jesus Christ into us: Way, Truth, Life, resulting in the new person.” (DF 37-

38). Again, this means an integral meeting of the person (mind-will-heart) with Christ

(Way-Truth-Life):

Jesus Christ is truth for the understanding: from this follows the need to
study Christian doctrine, especially the Gospel.
Jesus Christ is way for the will: from this follows the need to imitate Jesus
Christ, especially being attentive to Holy Communion.
Jesus Christ is life for the heart: from this follows the need to clothe
ourselves in sanctifying and actual grace, especially with the Holy Mass.23

Toward this goal, Alberione applies a threefold method to the Pauline’s daily

Eucharistic adoration: “(a) reading of the Gospel and Christian doctrine so as to honor

Jesus Christ Master; (b) compare our life with Jesus Christ model, and make the

examination of conscience; (c) prayer, especially what will prepare one for Holy Mass

(Via crucis, sorrowful mysteries)” (DF 38). This was to become the characteristic style of

the Pauline Family, not only for spiritual practices, but also for preaching and editorial

productions: a “message” for the mind, a life-application for the will, and an invocation

of divine assistance so that the message might truly become incarnated in life.

Under the subheading “Divine Master,” Alberione introduces his special (and

original) focus, summarizing in prayer form the relationship between the Divine Master

and the disciple:

Master,
Your life traces out the way for me;
Your teaching confirms and enlightens my steps;
23
DF 38.
 Your grace sustains and upholds me in the journey to heaven.
You are the perfect Master who gives the example, teaches and comforts
the disciple in following you.24

This is followed by a lengthy prayer, comparable to Ignatius’ “Take, Lord,

receive” but given here when one has barely crossed the threshold of the Via Purgativa. It

is a solemn consecration in three parts (Truth-Way-Life) in which the exercitant or

novices receives Christ as Master of the mind (“…substitute yourself, O you who...are

truth itself, for my mind and my thoughts…. Live in my mind, O Jesus Truth”), of the

will (“your life is precept, way…a divine way of love of the Father…. Establish your will

in place of my will”), of the heart (“Substitute my heart with yours, substitute my love of

God, of neighbor, of self, with yours”) (DF 39-40). In this prayer, Alberione offers an

intimate picture of discipleship: “placing my feet in your footsteps of poverty, chastity

and obedience,” like a child making exaggeratedly lengthy strides to match the parent’s

every step. The disciple wants to follow the Master so closely as to be conformed to him.

“Devotion” to Jesus Master is not a matter of objectively following a path of observances

or pious practices, but is primarily relational, centered on the person of the Master.

24
DF 39.
 Donec Formetur: the Illuminative Way (Part 2)

DF’s “Illuminative Way,” like the month of the Divine Master held in January

1924, is divided into three parts, corresponding to Way-Truth-Life. WAY especially

focuses on the earthly life of Jesus. Alberione recommends lengthy consideration of the

hidden life at Nazareth, giving various perspectives for the exercitant to dwell on,

whereas only one set of three points is proposed for meditation on the public life. This

emphasis on Nazareth makes sense in view of the purpose of this “stage” of the DF

process: Nazareth is where Jesus was “conceptus de Spiritu Sancto” (the phrase appears

on the book’s title page) and where he was formed. He is the WAY, and in order that he

be incarnate in us, we need to follow that same path, an extended period “in gestation” in

a Marian environment, from which emerges the “new person” who lives in Christ.

Nazareth is where we need to stay “donec formetur Christus in nobis.”

Each point in Alberione’s outline is presented under three aspects. It is up to the

exercitant to “fill in the blanks” using the WTL method in meditating. Alberione does not

develop any one area (except in the sense of offering a list of points to reflect on). He

simply gives signposts of the barest sort.

Alberione’s presentation of Jesus Master-Truth is surprisingly spare, consisting of

a few paragraphs on Christ as Master-Teacher, an outline for reflecting on the Sermon on

the Mount, and brief, three-part (WTL) treatments of Theology, Scripture and Tradition,

the Pauline disciple’s principle fonts for study and life so that “we will please the Father

by the life of our mind” (DF 50). Typically, Alberione would give pride of place to the

role of the mind and truth as pivotal for one’s relationship with Christ. “No sanctification

without the truth—or at least love of the truth. Sanctification of the mind comes first”
(AD 92). And while here in DF Alberione places his consideration of Jesus-Truth second

(following the order of Jn. 14:6), his process consistently begins with a doctrinal

statement. The “intrusion” of catechetical material can be disconcerting, a jarring

statement of the obvious. But its inclusion reflects Alberione’s concern that the spiritual

life be rooted in a solid interpretation of the Gospel, and not dependent on passing

opinion, trends, or superficial eloquence.

 Donec Formetur: the Illuminative Way (Part 2)

DF’s “Illuminative Way,” like the month of the Divine Master held in January

1924, is divided into three parts, corresponding to Way-Truth-Life. WAY especially

focuses on the earthly life of Jesus. Alberione recommends lengthy consideration of the

hidden life at Nazareth, giving various perspectives for the exercitant to dwell on,

whereas only one set of three points is proposed for meditation on the public life. This

emphasis on Nazareth makes sense in view of the purpose of this “stage” of the DF

process: Nazareth is where Jesus was “conceptus de Spiritu Sancto” (the phrase appears

on the book’s title page) and where he was formed. He is the WAY, and in order that he

be incarnate in us, we need to follow that same path, an extended period “in gestation” in

a Marian environment, from which emerges the “new person” who lives in Christ.

Nazareth is where we need to stay “donec formetur Christus in nobis.”

Each point in Alberione’s outline is presented under three aspects. It is up to the

exercitant to “fill in the blanks” using the WTL method in meditating. Alberione does not

develop any one area (except in the sense of offering a list of points to reflect on). He

simply gives signposts of the barest sort.

Alberione’s presentation of Jesus Master-Truth is surprisingly spare, consisting of

a few paragraphs on Christ as Master-Teacher, an outline for reflecting on the Sermon on

the Mount, and brief, three-part (WTL) treatments of Theology, Scripture and Tradition,

the Pauline disciple’s principle fonts for study and life so that “we will please the Father

by the life of our mind” (DF 50). Typically, Alberione would give pride of place to the

role of the mind and truth as pivotal for one’s relationship with Christ. “No sanctification

without the truth—or at least love of the truth. Sanctification of the mind comes first”
(AD 92). And while here in DF Alberione places his consideration of Jesus-Truth second

(following the order of Jn. 14:6), his process consistently begins with a doctrinal

statement. The “intrusion” of catechetical material can be disconcerting, a jarring

statement of the obvious. But its inclusion reflects Alberione’s concern that the spiritual

life be rooted in a solid interpretation of the Gospel, and not dependent on passing

opinion, trends, or superficial eloquence.

 Donec Formetur: The Illuminative Way (Part 3)

Alberione gives special attention to Jesus-Life in a series of points that center on

the Paschal Mystery, especially the dimension of Pentecost. His presentation of the Holy

Spirit’s healing action is especially significant: After a kind of catechetical exposition of

sanctifying grace, and in the context of an outline for a contemplation of Pentecost,

Alberione presents the action of the Holy Spirit healing the effects of original sin in the

intellect, feelings and will. For each faculty, specific wounds are enumerated: “as to the

intellect: healing ignorance, lack of reflection, forgetfulness, hardness of mind, error….”

(DF 60). Some time later, these same paragraphs were re-edited into the prayer of

substitution directed to the Holy Spirit: “Heal my mind of lack of reflection, ignorance,

forgetfulness…. And form Wisdom, Jesus Christ-Truth in everything; my heart…and

form Jesus Christ-Life in me; heal my will… and form Jesus Christ-Way in me: new love

for whatever Jesus Christ loves and for Jesus Christ himself.”25 The prayer continues by

asking that the cardinal and other virtues be “uplifted in a heavenly way” by the gifts of

the Holy Spirit: a further sign of how the Holy Spirit conforms us, mind-will-heart, to

Christ, Way, Truth and Life.

While much of DF is focused on the individual exercitant or novice, Alberione

does not ignore the communal. One of the points to be considered is that of “the doctrine

of grace or transformation in Jesus Christ, of whom we become the mystical body.”26 The

person who, in Christ, “bears much fruit,” brings forth “many good works, so that we27

are like many creatures or persons, or plants of grain (an immense field) in which Jesus

25
“Invocation to the Holy Spirit” from Prayers of the Pauline Family, 1985 edition (Daughters of
St. Paul, Boston, 1992), 205-206.
26
DF 49. The ellipses in the citations are original. The author is content to merely reference John
15 through key words.
27
All of a sudden, the author moves from third person singular to first person plural.
Christ implants soul-grace.” (DF 58). He does not offer any clues as to the meaning of the

interesting phrase “soul-grace,” but the image of the vast, fruitful field seems to suggest a

single shared life, not a collection of individual entities being enlivened one by one. This

dovetails nicely with his earlier, spare references to John 15 and its image of the vine and

branches, in which the “you” is always plural.

The model of this transformation in Christ is the Apostle Paul. This had already

been pivotal in Alberione’s service as a seminary spiritual director. Timothy Giaccardo’s

diary from 1917 (while Alberione was still on the seminary faculty where Giaccardo was

a student) includes this prayer: “Finally, O Jesus, I tell you that I want to live your life.

Transform me into you: in you, O Jesus, like St. Paul, to live your life of holiness as he

did: vivit in me Christus.”28

28
Opera Omnia Alberione CD-ROM (1999 Beta version), from the database “DBDIARGI”
(Giaccardo: 1917, plico 4, page 2), (Centro di Spiritualità Paolina, Rome).
 Donec Formetur: the Unitive Way

Since the purpose of the spiritual exercises (and by extension, of the novitiate) is

the “incarnation” of Christ in the Pauline disciple by the power of the Holy Spirit, already

considered at length in the central chapter of DF, Alberione gives somewhat short shrift

to the “Via Unitiva of Glory to the Holy Spirit.” This section, which in the 1932 edition

filled only 6 pages (compared with the Via Illuminativa’s 28!) at first reads like a series

of catechetical essays on the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church (in its institutional aspects)

and the theological virtues, all treated in Alberione’s familiar three-point format.

Evidently, Alberione sees the action of the Holy Spirit as so inseparable from the life of

Jesus (in his earthly life and in his “repeated” incarnation in each Christian), that there

wasn’t much more to add, except to indicate faith, hope and charity as the pinnacle of life

lived in Christ the Master. Overall, DF’s presentation of the Via Unitiva seems to be a

simple “tag” after the profound, detailed, and inspiring vision of the Via Illuminativa.

DF does not end there: the Via Unitiva of Glory to the Holy Spirit is followed by

a significant chapter on the “Means of Grace.” Although this is a distinct chapter, its

content supplies what the earlier chapter lacked: the concrete ways through which the

Holy Spirit acts to conform persons to Christ the Master. These are above all the

sacraments, especially the Eucharist (treated—in this order—as Holy Communion, Holy

Mass, and the Eucharistic Visit, all presented in the typical three-part format, and with

the WTL method proposed for the Mass and Hour of Adoration). After these come

prayer, the help of a spiritual director, the practice of virtue, and the person’s own

vocation. (Here we see Alberione drawing the exercitant or novice to an “election,”

another Ignatian note in the book.) And since Alberione is writing for persons who, for
the most part, have already made one degree of election of religious life in the Pauline

Family, he adds a final chapter on the “Apostolate of the Press.” (The principal points of

this chapter would be developed in his 1933 publication Apostolato Stampa.)

Alberione’s “Way, Truth and Life” method attempts to provide a framework for

integral participation in the liturgy, the encounter with Sacred Scripture, and the

preaching of the Gospel (the ministerial aspect is not developed in DF, but in Apostolato

Stampa). Of course, he did not intend the method as a set of rules, but as a “suggestion”

(DF 76) that was “particularly singled out” (DF 77) for the Pauline Family, and there are

those who, recently introduced to Father Alberione’s spirituality and its method, have

grasped it as a way of presenting their faith in Christ to others in our postmodern context.
Via Humanitatis and Donec Formetur: Two Alberione Gifts

When Alberione made his “Christmas gift” of 1947 in the form of the little
booklet “The Way of Humanity,” he told the Daughters of St. Paul that it had been
“Twenty or twenty-five years that I have been thinking about it, before giving it as a
gift.”
What were the circumstances 25 years before? 1922 was a “banner year” for the
Pauline Family. The year after the great assurance “I am with you” was also the year of
Timothy Giaccardo’s ordination, and of the first public vows of the Daughters of St. Paul;
the year Teresa became Thecla and was named Superior General; the year the chapel at
St. Paul’s was solemnly dedicated (with the remarkable words “Do not fear…” in a
prominent place).
But 1927 seems to have been an even more remarkable year, though in a less
spectacular way. That year saw the canonical establishment of the Society of St. Paul,
and the opportune moment to have the Pauline women’s group formally erected as a
congregation. From October 11, 1927 to May 23, 1928, Alberione led the women of “the
house” on a "course of meditations or prolonged exercises to orient our life."29 Despite
the Ignatian language, the guidebook was not the Spiritual Exercises, but Alberione’s
hand-written text: the manuscript of Donec formetur Christus in vobis (DF). Alberione
reworked his material several times, and finally—after Pauline missionaries had already
set across the Atlantic—he handed it over for publication.
The Via Humanitatis underwent a much longer gestation than DF, but the two
works have a common core. In the language Alberione used in the 40’s, that core is the
contemplation of the “manifestations” of God (in creation, scriptural revelation and
covenants, in the Church and in the “last things”). In DF, these manifestations (expressed
somewhat differently than in VH) are mentioned under the heading “Diffusion of the
Divine Goodness.” It is all in a context of God’s desire to “rope us in” with “cords of
love”; to even bring us into participation in divinity, all out of love. The context is also
quite significant. In DF, these manifestations of love are treated under the heading of
“Jesus LIFE,” toward the end of the “Illuminative Way” in a section full of references to
the Holy Spirit. In the Via Humanitatis, the entire prayer of 30 stations or mysteries is
structured around the “four manifestations” of divine goodness. The action of the Holy
Spirit becomes another key for reading the story of salvation (VH) and of sanctification
(DF).

29
The source of this quotation is not identified; most probably it is the personal notes of one of the
participants. The text is cited in DF Introduction, 194.