The Province gathered around Rev. Fr. Alfred Marzo as he celebrates his 91st birthday. The Holy Mass was celebrated by Fr. Alfred Marzo himself, in the company of Rev. Fr. Sebastian Kuricheal SDB, Provincial and the community members of the Provincial House.
In a homily shared with the community, Fr. Marzo reflected not on his advanced age, but on a lifetime of listening, obedience, and unwavering work.
“I celebrate more than the ninety-one,” he said. “It’s the seventy-fifth year of Salesians. Seventy-five years in the Salesian way.” Fr. Marzo recalled his vocation beginning at a “vocation camp” in Italy, where Salesians would visit schools and villages, inviting young boys to spend a month observing religious life. From those early steps came a journey that would take him across continents.
“Of these seventy-five years, seventy-four are in India, which for me is a great blessing,” he said, speaking on a day of political significance. “Today, as we celebrate, we pray for our country, India, especially for the state of Assam, where the elections are taking place today.”
The veteran missionary’s homily, however, was not about nostalgia but about a simple, profound spiritual rule: obedience. He traced the Salesian mission in Northeast India back to the first missionaries who arrived in Guwahati and then moved to Shillong. Their first act, he noted, was to enter a church, where they found a statue of Mary Help of Christians waiting for them (now kept at the novitiate).
“The secret of the work and the progress,” Fr. Marzo said, “is this: Do as He tells you. We have to work. There’s no way out.”
He drew the lesson from the Strenna 2026 of the Rector Major and the Wedding at Cana: “Mary told the servants, ‘Do whatever He tells you.’ Because they obeyed, water changed into wine. Our difficulties will be turned into success through our obedience.”
Fr. Marzo also recalled the motto of Monsignor Louis Matthias: “Dare and hope” to work with courage, but to hope in the Lord.
Rev. Fr. Sebastian Kuricheal SDB, Provincial, speaking on the occasion of Fr. Marzo’s birthday, described “his life as a beautiful homily, rich in faith, deep in compassion, and steadfast in service.” His life, the Provincial added, is a “life with no regrets.” Three former Provincials were also present at the birthday celebration.
As he enters his 92nd year and continues to witness a life of service, Fr. Marzo left the Province with a simple instruction: “Let us ask our Lord and Mother Mary Help of Christians to help us be faithful to our vocation till the end, by doing God’s will as manifested through our superiors.”
