Vera Grita's Cause of Beatification Opens

Vera Grita's Cause of Beatification Opens in Savona

“Someone to look to”

(ANS – Savona – April 12, 2022) – On Sunday, April 10, at the episcopal seminary of Savona, the diocesan inquiry for the cause of beatification and canonization of the Servant of God Vera Grita (1923-1969), laywoman, Salesian Cooperator, elementary school teacher, and “spokeswoman” for the Work of Living Tabernacles was officially opened. The day saw the participation, both in presence and online, of various people belonging to the groups of the Living Tabernacles and the Salesian Family, in particular Salesian Cooperators and members of the Association of Mary Help of Christians (ADMA).

In the morning, Dr. Lodovica Maria Zanet, collaborator of the postulator general for the causes of saints of the Salesian Family, presented the itinerary with which the Church traces the process of beatification in its various phases and dynamics, underlining how the story of Vera Grita “calls us to enter into deep harmony with a witness of smallness visited and inhabited, loved and precious, without allowing ourselves to be deceived by the discretion with which Vera knew how to hide much of herself because she learned to become a saint first before God’s gaze than before the gaze of men. Hers was an extraordinary response (beautiful, rich, convincing) to ordinary conditions of life.”

Maria Rita Scrimieri, coordinator of the Work of Living Tabernacles Study Center, compared some passages lived by St. Francis de Sales in his mystical experience and those of Vera Grita: people touched by grace and called to a special mission in the Church.

At noon, Bishop Calogero Marino of Savona-Noli presided over the Mass of Palm Sunday.

In the afternoon, the opening session of the diocesan inquiry presided over by Bp. Marino took place. The members of the tribunal were sworn in: Msgr. Vittorio Lupi, episcopal delegate; Fr. Abraham Kavalakatt, promoter of justice; Dr. Barbara Rosa Clot, notary public; and the postulator, Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni, SDB.

In his speech, Bp. Marino said: “Today is the day of the Passion of Jesus; it is the beginning of the Great Week. And Vera Grita experienced the passion in her flesh and in her life. This paschal dimension of Vera Grita’s personal story becomes a sign for our Church as well. And then she was an educator, a teacher; and God knows how much need there is today for educators capable of accompanying children and youths to maturity, even in the encounter with the Lord.... The Eucharist was the fire, the fulcrum, the heart of Vera’s experience. And truly the Church of Savona, which is celebrating the Synod, should rediscover the Eucharistic fraternity as the beating heart of Christian life.... There is a book entitled Qualcuno a cui guardare - Someone to Look to. Certainly, someone to look to is Jesus; but someone to look to is the saints. I hope that many will be able to look to Vera as a concrete, visible, and practicable sign of today’s evangelical discipleship.”

Antonio Boccia, the world coordinator of Salesian Cooperators, then spoke, expressing his joy and emotion at this new cause of a Salesian Cooperator, who joined the Association on October 24, 1967. “Vera’s heart and life was the Eucharist that she lived daily. The Eucharist was everything to her. Just as Jesus had given his life out of love, she gave her life for those she met in her work with a smile, gentleness, and kindness, so much so that she aroused awe and admiration in her colleagues at the school. She had a special concern for the less gifted students or those who suffered from their family situations…. The Holy Spirit continued to make the Salesian charism breathe through her life.”

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