"Positio" of Vera Grita Delivered in Rome

Positio super virtutibus of Vera Grita Delivered

Servant of God was a Salesian Cooperator

(ANS - Vatican City – October 31, 2025) - On Friday, October 17, the volume of the Positio super Vita, Virtutibus, et Fama Sanctitatis of the Servant of God Vera Grita, laywoman, Salesian Cooperator, was delivered at the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in the Vatican.

The positio had as rapporteur Fr. Szczepan Tadeusz Praskiewicz, OCD, as postulator Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni, SDB, and as collaborator Dr. Lodovica Maria Zanet. The structural elements of the positio – which presents in an articulate and in-depth manner all the documentary and testimonial evidence concerning the virtuous life of the Servant of God – are a brief presentation by the rapporteur; the Informatio super virtutibus, that is, the theological section in which the virtuous life of the Servant of God is demonstrated; the two Summariums with the testimonial and documentary evidence; the Biographia ex Documentis; the final sections and the iconographic apparatus.

After delivery, the positio will be examined by the theological consultors of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. It will then be studied by the cardinals and bishops of the dicastery. These articulated stages of study and evaluation will allow the Supreme Pontiff, in the event of a positive outcome, to declare Vera Grita a “Venerable Servant of God.” A miracle attributed to her intercession will then be needed to open the way for her beatification.

This news caused great joy in the Work of the Living Tabernacles Association, the Salesian Family, and the diocese of Savona, where the Servant of God lived and died.

Vera Grita, daughter of Hamlet and Maria Anna Zacco della Pirrera, was born in Rome on January 28, 1923, and was the second of four sisters. She lived and studied in Savona, where she graduated as a teacher. At the age of 21, during a sudden air raid on the city (1944), she was run over and trampled by the fleeing crowd, with serious consequences for her body that was forever marked by suffering. She went unnoticed in her brief earthly life, teaching in schools in the Ligurian hinterland (such as Rialto, Erli, Alpicella, Deserto di Varazze), where she earned the esteem and affection of all for her good and mild character.

In Savona, in the Salesian parish of Mary Help of Christians, she attended Mass and regularly received the sacrament of Penance. From 1963 her confessor was Salesian Fr. Giovanni Bocchi. A Salesian Cooperator since 1967, she realized her call in the total gift of self to the Lord, who in an extraordinary way gave himself to her, in the depths of her heart, with the “Voice,” the “Word,” to communicate to her the Work of the Living Tabernacles. She submitted all the writings to her spiritual director, Salesian Fr. Gabriello Zucconi, and kept in the silence of her heart the secret of that call, guided by the divine Master and the Virgin Mary.

Under the impulse of divine grace and accepting the mediation of spiritual guides, Vera Grita responded to God's gift by bearing witness in her life, marked by the fatigue of illness, to the encounter with the Risen One, and dedicating herself with heroic generosity to teaching and educating her students, contributing to the needs of her family, and bearing witness to a life of evangelical poverty. Focused on and steadfast in the God who loves and sustains, with great inner firmness she was made capable of bearing the trials and sufferings of life. On the basis of this inner solidity she bore witness to a Christian existence of patience and constancy in goodness.

She died on December 22, 1969, aged 46, in a small room of the Santa Corona hospital in Pietra Ligure, where she had spent the last 6 months of her life in a crescendo of suffering accepted and lived in union with Jesus Crucified. “Vera's soul,” wrote Fr. Borra, a Salesian, her first biographer, “with her messages and letters enters the ranks of those charismatic souls called to enrich the Church with flames of love for God and for Jesus in the Eucharist for the expansion of the Kingdom.”

In the message of November 12, 1967, Jesus asked Vera to live the virtues that in a certain way outline the spiritual nature that characterized her journey of holiness: “I want you humble, most humble. This virtue, dear to my Heart, you will obtain from my Mother, but do not cease to invoke it. I want you at the ‘service of all,’ ready to obey all, to serve all, for in this way you will serve me. I want you ‘merciful and prudent’ with everyone. I want you ‘good and generous.’ I want you ‘martyred’ for my Love, for my Glory. I want you ‘martyred’ for me. My Blood will purify you, and in your martyrdom, the Blood shed will still and always be mine. Then you will be consumed for me, and in me, the Sacrifice will be offered to my Father and consumed. Fear not, you have and will always have me.”