Guglielmo Marconi gave the world the way of speaking to each other at unexpected and unthinkable distances. The paradox of his existence is that he was a man of few words, to whom he preferred facts.
As the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of his birth begin – a topic which Avvenire has covered extensively in recent days – much has been written and much will be written. Here I would like to make a minimal contribution by focusing on a particular trait of his existence, starting from an extremely precious expression of his in this time of technological accelerations and mechanical anxieties: “I believe in the power of prayer as a Christian and as a scientist”.
Marconi was an avowed believer, but this does not immediately make him a better scientist, just as being a great scientist does not make him a better believer according to a law of apologetic proportionality in which I have little faith. However, our Nobel Prize can be a shining witness for those seeking promising paths.
During the speech given at the first congress of the Italian Radio Industry in Bologna in May 1934 he said: «I am proud to be Christian. I believe not only as a Christian, but also as a scientist. Like a wireless device, in prayer the human spirit is able to send invisible waves into eternity, waves that reach their goal before God.”
Among his writings we also find these words: «I believe it would be a great tragedy if men lost their faith in prayer. Without the help of prayer perhaps they would have failed where they succeeded. This allowed me to achieve what I did, God made me a simple instrument of his will, for the revelation of his divine power.” The man who gave us a new way of sharing words was a man dedicated to a Word, the only one that saves, the only one that shortens that infinite distance that no technique can ever bridge: the absolute otherness between human and divine that a Word, made flesh, has definitively annulled.
Praying and acting, apparently wasting time to cancel time. Was the invention of the radio the fruit of the Holy Spirit? It would be an unprovable statement, historically and theologically. But it is instead possible to say that the human being becomes capable of giving names to things fully when he makes an alliance with the Spirit who leads him to its fulfillment. The social and anthropological metamorphoses we are experiencing, daughters of the web, digital and computing power, are all grandchildren of Marconi’s discoveries and inventions. How can we orient what we live towards the beautiful, the true, the right? Marconi shows believers a fruitful path.
Prayer is a good response, not from cowards but from people who know that the future requires words that are not immediate, that cannot be worn out, that must be dense. Stopping time in prayer means finding in the Eternal what we need in history. Prayer slows down the beating of our heart and makes it harmonious with the only heart that is truly capable of a love that heals and orients, satisfies and defines. Prayer defeats pride that is allergic to limits that are custody and teaches us to overcome limits that are sin. Prayer transforms assertion into dialogue, silence into the womb, theory into seed.
«Science – Marconi continued – alone is unable to explain many things, and above all the greatest of mysteries: the mystery of our existence». That mystery is revealed by a Word that we can listen to, that existence becomes active in a silence that seals an alliance.
