Argentina - Ceferino Namuncurá: A story of 19 years since 130 years
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26 August 2016

Ceferino (sometimes spelt Zefferino or Zeffirino) Namuncurá was born on the 26th August 1886 at Chimpay, on the banks of the Rio Negro. His father, Manuel, last great leader of the Araucane Indian tribe, had surrendered three years earlier to troops from the Argentine Republic. Manuel Namuncurá sent Ceferino, after he had wandered free on the pampas for eleven years, to study in Buenos Aires, so one day he could defend his own people better. The family spirit in the Salesian school brought him to love Don Bosco. The spiritual dimension of life grew in him and he began to yearn to become a Salesian priest to evangelise his people.

He chose Dominic Savio as a model, and over a period of five years, by his efforts to adapt to a totally new culture, he himself became another Dominic Savio. He was exemplary for his piety, charity, in his daily duty, and for his self-sacrifice.

He went to school in Turin and then to the Salesian College, Villa Sora, in Frascati. He studied so hard he was second in the class. But an illness not diagnosed in time, perhaps even because he did not complain about it, became life-threatening: tuberculosis.

On the 28th March 1905 he was taken to the Fatebenefratelli Hospital on the Tibertine island in Rome. But it was too late. He died peacefully on the 11th May.

InfoANS

ANS - “Agenzia iNfo Salesiana” is a on-line almost daily publication, the communication agency of the Salesian Congregation enrolled in the Press Register of the Tibunal of Rome as n 153/2007.

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