Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints (photo Agenzia Romano Siciliani)
«I love repeating this phrase: that holiness is motivated by hope. And, in turn, hope is supported by realized holiness. Not only that, we must remember that there is no holiness without joy. Indeed, joy is one of the signs of holiness, as Pope Francis explains very well in his exhortation Enjoy and rejoice. And today, in this “age of sad passions”, we need the testimony of people who know how to give themselves without depression and melancholy. Where there are no smiles there is always something wrong.” The cardinal Marcello Semeraroprefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, explains what it means to be saints through some exemplary lives that he has chosen for his volume Companions of hope. Stories of witnesses capable of the future (Lev). Seven already canonised, three venerable and two blessed, who “make us understand how faith helps us not to be suffocated by suffering”.
How did you choose them?
«They are emblematic figures because they have experienced the same hardships as us and make visible that Christian hope has the face of a person who accompanies you and takes you with him, that is, the Risen Christ. They are our big brothers and sisters. And they show us the way. Giuseppe Labre does it, which I told about first. He, who was the “wanderer of God”, walked a lot, always searching, living on the streets. When I see so many homeless people sleeping near St. Peter’s, I think of him as a prophet. And then there are other figures, from Giuseppina Bakhita to François-Xavier Nguyên Van Thuân, to the Ulma family… who have in common, despite the diversity of their lives, being capable of showing us the path of prayer, charity and joy . Because, I say it again, God loves those who give with joy. All these witnesses teach us that, in any situation – think of Cardinal Van Thuân condemned to forced labor and isolation in Vietnam – faith helps us to know how to rejoice.”
Even Paul VI?
«Especially him. They describe him as a sad figure, but instead Pope Montini had a strong sense of humour. In Castel Gandolfo they said that when Cardinal Giulio Bevilacqua came to visit him, their laughter could be heard throughout the palace. He was a man of spirit; one day, for example, when meeting the Soviet Foreign Minister, an avid smoker, he gave him some American cigarettes. The butts are still preserved in the Vatican. But, apart from these amusing anecdotes, we must remember that, precisely in preparation for the Holy Year of 1975, he had written the exhortation on Christian joy, Gaudete in Domino».
So saints are neither sad nor desperate?
«It was said of Saint Vincent de Paul, who is the apostle of charity, that if he hadn’t been a saint he would have been a joker because he loved to joke and make fun of people. And let’s also think of the joy of Saint Philip Neri. Or again to Saint Thomas More and his Prayer of good mood. It is a simple, authentic joy, not the superficial one that needs ever stronger ingredients and which, in the end, leads you to desperation. It is anchored to that hope which is fixed to the sky and which lifts us upwards.”
How can you be joyful in difficult situations?
«Our traveling companions, the saints, teach us this. Even those of today. I think of Pier Giorgio Frassati, who will be canonized during the Jubilee. He is a beautiful and contagious figure, who has generated other sanctity with his example as we are seeing from other causes under study. Frassati was also joyful in his language, in his way of behaving. And he never thought about himself. His last gesture, before dying from fulminant polio, was to give a friend a note to take injections to a poor person who needed them. “Later I will pay you for what you did,” she wrote to him. He never lost hope.”
And Carlo Acutis?
«It is a different sanctity, of an adolescent with the passions of his age, with a simple faith, which however is very attractive. I am particularly attached to him because, a few days after my appointment as prefect of the Dicastery of Saints, the bishop of Assisi, Domenico Sorrentino, invited me to conclude the celebrations for his beatification. I went and there, in front of his body, the image of an icon that the Pope had given me came to mind, that of a young monk carrying an elderly man on his shoulders. And so I asked Acutis to take me on his shoulders to help me live well the service to which the Pontiff had called me.”
Cover image credit Emilio Morenatti/Ap photo/LaPresse