Fr. Luigi Faccenda was born August 24, 1920 in San Benedetto Val di Sambro, Bologna, a quaint village on the Italian Apennine Mountains, on. When he was 12 years old he entered the Seminary of the Conventual Franciscan Order in Faenza. Periods of precarious health conditions forced him to leave the seminary, and return home.

Deeply convinced of God’s call, he did not give up. He looked for someone who could help him continue his theological preparation. Fr. Guido Zambrini, a diocesan priest and pastor in a neighbouring parish, welcomed him in his rectory. Fr. Luigi Faccenda always ascribed the salvation of his vocation to him.

Thus, he remembered those years: “I attended the school of life, studying how to be faithful to my vocation. It was a school of profound charity and detachment, of service and daily good example. Eventually I became a priest.”
He made his temporary profession of vows in Assisi on August12, 1938, and his perpetual profession in Faenza in 1941. He was ordained a priest on May 18, 1944 in Fognano, a village not too far from Faenza where the local Bishop, Mgr. Battaglia had moved following dramatic war events.

The Institute soon received the blessing and approval of the Cardinals Giacomo Lercaro, Antonio Poma, and Giacomo Biffi of the Archdiocese of Bologna, Italy. In 1992, the Institute received the definitive approval of the Holy Father John Paul II as a Secular Institute of pontifical right.

In his untiring missionary efforts, in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Maximilian Kolbe, Fr. Luigi Faccenda promoted many events and apostolic activities of evangelization imbued with the specific Marian spirituality. In 1946 he began also a flourishing editorial activity with the publication of “Milizia Mariana”, a monthly publication of Marian spirituality and formation with a missionary orientation. It was addressed in a special way to families and youth. Besides this periodical, a few years later Fr. Luigi Faccenda established a publishing house – Edizioni dell’Immacolata (Immaculata Press).

As the Institute grew and spread to Argentina, California, Bolivia, Luxembourg, Poland and Brazil, Father visited each of these missions, as often as his health would allow, He followed in prayer and suffering the development of each Missionary and mission.

With the approval of the Congregation for Catholic Education, on May 17, 1995, the Pontifical Theological Faculty “St. Bonaventure” in Rome, conferred the Honoris Causa Doctorate degree in Sacred Theology on Fr. Luigi Faccenda for his contribution to a deeper understanding and development of the Marian doctrine and thought of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

This new foundation was seen as a beautiful completion of the whole missionary picture. In 1988 it was approved to invite laity and clergy to be associated to the Institute as Fr. Kolbe Volunteers of the Immaculata.

In 2004, Fr. Faccenda was blessed to celebrate his 60th anniversary of priestly ordination and the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Fr. Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata. During the summer of 2005, his precarious health conditions worsened.

Feeling that his end was near, Fr. Luigi wrote: “I do not think of myself as a hulk or an old-fashioned man. I am living, not merely surviving. I am not a dried trunk. Rather, I am like a tree bursting with new foliage, branches, and fruits. I feel like enjoying a youthfulness that does not know the rules of aging. I am like a tree that gives life as it dies, and that thus keeps on living.”

Sunday morning, October 9, 2005, while the liturgy was meditating on the nuptial banquet that God prepared for all His children, Fr. Luigi Faccenda entered eternity, sustained by the love and prayers of his confreres, Missionaries (men and women), Fr. Kolbe Volunteers, MI members, priests, relatives, and friends.

How bountiful the Lord was to us through Fr. Faccenda’s life and work! We cannot but express our gratitude to Him in the words and feelings used by the Blessed Virgin Mary: “The Almighty has done great things for me!”