Today we remember Blessed Gennaro Maria Sarnelli

Blessed Gennaro was born in Naples on 12th September 1702.

At the age of 14, following the beatification of the Jesuit, St. Francis Regis, he decided to join the Society of Jesus. Having been dissuaded by his father because of his youth he began the study of jurisprudence and took his doctorate in church and civil law in 1722 and for ten years he distinguished himself at the Bar.

As a young man he was enrolled in the Association of the Knights of the Legal and Medical Professions.  Among the rules of this Association there was the obligation of visiting the sick in the ‘Hospital of the Incurables’.  It was here he heard the call of the Lord to become a priest.

In September 1728 he became a seminarian and was incardinated by Cardinal Pignatelli as a cleric in the parish of St. Anne di Palazzo.  On 4th June 1729 in order to study in more peaceful conditions he became a boarder in the College of the Holy Family known as the Chinese College, founded by Matthew Ripa, a returned missionary from China.  In April of the following year he left the Chinese College and in June began his novitiate in the Congregation of the Apostolic Missions.

On 28th May 1731 he concluded his novitiate and on 8th July 1732 he was ordained a priest.  During these years in addition to his visits to the hospital he devoted himself to helping young boys forced to work as dock labourers and to teaching them catechism.  He also visited the old people in the Hospice of St. Gennaro and those condemned to the galleys who were ill in the hospital at the docks.  These were also the years when he developed a friendship with St. Alphonsus de Liguori and his apostolate.  Together they devoted themselves to teaching the catechism to lay people by organizing the ‘Evening Chapels’.  This was a program whereby he, Alphonsus and a few of their priest friends organized and trained lay catechists.  These catechists would then work out of slums, catechising poor unemployed labourers, beggars, and street people of Naples.

Following his ordination he was assigned by the Cardinal as Director of Religious Instruction in the parish of Sts. Francis and Matthew in the Spanish quarter.  Having become aware of the rampant corruption of young girls he decided to direct all his energy against prostitution.

In the same period (1733) he tenaciously defended St. Alphonsus against unjust criticism after he had founded the missionary Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer in Scala, near Amalfi in southern Italy, on November 9, 1732.  In June of 1733 having gone to Scala to help his friend during the mission at Ravello, he decided to become a Redemptorist while at the same time continuing to be a member of the Apostolic Missions.

From his entrance into the Congregation he committed himself unsparingly to parish missions and to writing in defence of “young girls in danger”.  He also wrote on the spiritual life and worked so hard that he was almost at death’s door.  With the consent of St. Alphonsus he returned to Naples for treatment and there renewed his apostolate for the rescue of prostitutes.

Sarnelli’s efforts produced two important results. He changed the way the Church and civil society looked upon the problem of prostitution, and he drew everyone’s attention to the degradation into which one is led by poverty, and by the exploitation of women.  Further, Sarnelli’s style of never giving up reminds us that we should not allow even impossible odds to defeat us.

As well as taking part in preaching Redemptorist missions and the ministry of the Apostolic Missions he promoted meditation in common among the laity by publishing “Il mondo santificato” (The world sanctified).  He also campaigned against blasphemy in another book.

In 1741 he planned and took part with St. Alphonsus in the great missions preached in the hamlets outside Naples in preparation for the canonical visitation of Cardinal Spinelli.  Despite the permanently insecure state of his health he continued to preach until the end of April 1744.

Sarnelli had lived intensely without rest during the twelve years of his priesthood.  His assistance to the poor and the sick, his preoccupation over the religious formation of children, his preaching, the nights spent writing book after book, and finally, his tuberculosis had worn out his personal constitution, which never seemed robust in the first place.

Family squabbles, and a great spiritual dryness mentioned in his letters, often put his mental balance to the test.  Now, nearing death, a sudden deep serenity came over him.  It was the end of his desert trek. 

He made the plans for his final almsgiving and for his funeral.  He left what remained, especially his books, to the Redemptorists.  He died quietly, attended by two Redemptorist brothers, Francesco Tartaglione and Francesco Romito.  It was 30th June and he was 42 years of age.  His body lies at rest in Ciorani, near Naples, the first Redemptorist Church.

Gennaro Maria Sarnelli has left us 30 works, which treat of meditation, mystical theology, spiritual direction, law, pedagogy, moral and pastoral themes.  By his social action in favour of women he was ahead of his time and is considered one of the pioneers on this subject in Europe in the first half of the eighteenth century.

On 12th May 1996 Pope John Paul II beatified him in St. Peter’s Square.