in memoriam

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There was really a lot of snow that morning of February, four years ago; and the climb that leads from my house to the alley where is the entrance to the sacristy of St. Antony’s church was full of it. There was no trace of cars, much less of people.  

I told my wife “Today we  won’t go out: we’ll stay holed up at home, reading a book in front of the fireplace”  so I went to search one. Suddenly she called me: “Erberto, come here and see!”

I went back immediately into the living room, asking myself what was going on. My wife was mesmerized, looking through the window, so I moved closer to have a look. A man wearing a black coat, with a beret on the white head, was trudging along in the snow, leaning on his umbrella and stopping now and then for breath.

He was don Rocco, going to celebrate the mass at the church of St Antony.

“But … how old is he?” asked me Katia. I did a quick calculation, ad said “95”

So, I put on a pair of boots and a coat, and left home telling my wife “I’m going to Mass and to keep him company”

In the church there was nobody at all; don Rocco celebrated the Mass normally, without any hurry.

At the end, in the sacristy I reproached him: “But don Rocco, at your age, with such a bad weather, this is really an imprudence: you well know that no one would come to mass!”

“You see” he answered “I wanted to become a priest to celebrate the Eucharist for my followers, regardless if many, a few, or nobody” 

When I was back in Rome (at that time I was going there quite every week) I told this nice story to a priest friend. His comment was “What to say? Ask that saintly priest to put also myself and our dreams in the paten, because I’m sure God will be pleased and will help us”

Well, that’s what don Rocco is: a priest according to God’s heart. And to me, that’s enough.

 

Then, as everybody here, I could tell lots of ​things about his closeness and comfort in moments of pain; and doing that, he was never common and predictable but sincerely affectionate.

Don Rocco loved and served the Church in obedience; although he was a priest since many years, he accepted the changes which have occurred in the Church, at the same time suffering because of the crisis of faith in our Country and the whole Europe. But he was anyway cultivating the Christian Hope and Love, sure that they at the end will surely win.

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Dear Monsignor, you did not live in vain: you left a deep mark in your people. You’ve been here strong as an oak, living shelter to many, also to those who wanted just to rest for a moment in the shade of your branches.

 

I don’t know why, but thinking to you some lines by Edgar Lee Masters came in my mind:

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YOU are over there, Father Malloy,

Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave,

Not here with us on the hill—

Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision

And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins.

You were so human, Father Malloy,

Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us,

Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River

From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality.

You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand

From the wastes about the pyramids

And makes them real and Egypt real.

You were a part of and related to a great past,

And yet you were so close to many of us.

You believed in the joy of life.

You did not seem to be ashamed of the flesh.

You faced life as it is,

And as it changes.

Some of us almost came to you, Father Malloy,

Seeing how your church had divined the heart,

And provided for it,

Through Peter the Flame,

Peter the Rock.

 

Yes,don Rocco, I wonder why  …

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Erberto Stolfi