The Bishop of Noto, the Salesian Family of Sicily and the Secular Institute of “Volunteers with Don Bosco” (CDB) invite the holy people of God to the various events that will take place from 2 to 6 May 2024 on the occasion of the closure of the Inquiry diocesan of the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of the Servant of God Nino Baglieri.
May 5th is a date dear to Nino: on May 5th 1951 he was baptized (just 4 days after his birth) and on May 5th 1968 he celebrated his seventeenth birthday, at the seaside with friends, the day before he fell from the scaffolding on which he was working, remaining quadriplegic.
Now – 5 May 2024 – the process of the diocesan investigation ends. To use a plastic image, one could think of the path of a Cause of Saints as a large mosaic. The creation of a mosaic requires time and a bit of effort: putting together the many pieces is a great undertaking, but if everyone of the participants does their part (even the most apparently insignificant card has its own value) it is possible to complete the overall image.
The first steps took place, in this sense, just 5 years after Nino’s “Dies Natalis” – on 3 March 2012 with the presentation of the official request or “Supplex Libellus” -, while the diocesan inquiry was officially opened on 2 March 2014 in the Cathedral of Noto (Syracuse). Nino thus became “Servant of God”. In just over a decade the Tribunal Appointed by the Bishop and – to support it with specific tasks – the Theological Censors and the Historical Commission have worked hard.
The Historical Commission, in particular, has researched, collected, studied and presented the many documentary sources relating to the Cause: Nino’s personal documents (civil, religious, medical, etc.); Writings – published or otherwise – of the Servant of God (such as the Letters and the fundamental handwritten Notebooks-Diary); Significant writings on the Servant of God and above all Writings on the Servant of God (from books to articles, from accounts of thanks to many attestations of the good done by Nino and initiatives in honor of him). The Historical Commission delivered to the Court packages with over fifteen thousand pages of writings, as well as a Report that illustrates the work carried out, evaluates the sources and presents a first critical biography of the Servant of God.
The Court focused its attention on listening, under oath, to over 100 witnesses: family members, friends (including those of Nino as a teenager) and acquaintances. They accurately reported facts, events, words and experiences lived with Nino.
In the next few days the events in the pipeline are different and each intends to give a different message, but with the same aim: we are all called to holiness in the “here and now” of history.
It starts on May 2nd at 8.00 pm at the Garibaldi Theater with the musical “Sulle Ali dell’Amore” by the CGS (Salesian Youth Film Club) Life of Biancavilla: a different way of presenting Nino’s story.
On May 3, in the morning, the film about Nino Baglieri will be screened in the various educational institutions that have joined the initiative. In the afternoon at 4.00 pm, a journalistic seminar (open to all) will be held in the Sala Triberio of the Palazzo della Cultura which will deal with the theme: “The Cross and the Light, the case of the Servant of God Nino Baglieri”.
Saturday 4 May at 8.00 pm – starting from the Salesian Oratory in Via Don Bosco, 21 (Modica Alta) – meditations taken from Nino’s writings will be presented “on Nino’s places” (home, San Martino Hospital, place of his fall…) : animates the Postulator General of the Causes of Saints of the Salesian Family by Don Pierluigi Cameroni SDB.
On Sunday 5 May at 6.00 pm in the mother church of San Pietro (Modica Bassa) the solemn Eucharistic concelebration will be held presided over by the Bishop of Noto Msgr. Salvatore Rumeo, at the end of which there will be the “closing rite” of the diocesan investigation.
Finally on Monday 6 May, solemnity of Saint Dominic Savio and remembrance of the 56th year of the Cross of the Servant of God, at 6.30 pm at the “Mary Help of Christians” Parish, Don Pascual Chávez Villanueva SDB, former IX successor of Don Bosco as Rector Major of the Salesian Congregation, will preside over the Eucharistic concelebration at the end of which there will be a moment of fraternal agape typical of the Salesian tradition.
This is how the bishop expressed himself, Msgr. Rumeo when asked about the closure of the diocesan investigation: “The closure of the diocesan investigation for the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of Nino Baglieri constitutes an event of grace in the life of the Diocese of Noto, of the Salesian Family and of the City of Modica. The divine adventure of Nino Baglieri reminds all of us that holiness is possible and does not belong to past centuries: holiness is the way to reach the Heart of God. In the Christian life there are no other solutions. Embracing the Cross means staying with Jesus in the season of suffering to participate in his Light. And Nino is in the light of God.”
The world leader of the “CDB” expresses himself thus on the meaning of lay consecration today, a consecration also experienced by Nino: “Nino Baglieri was for us Volunteers With Don Bosco a special gift from heaven: he is the first of us brothers who shows us a path of holiness through humble, discreet, joyful testimony. Nino fully realized the vocation to Salesian consecrated secularity and teaches us that holiness is possible in every condition of life, even those marked by the encounter with the cross and suffering. Nino reminds us that we can all win in the One who gives us strength: the Cross that he loved so much, like a faithful husband, was the bridge through which he united his personal history as a man with the history of salvation; it was the altar on which he celebrated his sacrifice of praise to the Lord of life; it was the stairway to heaven. Animated by his example, we too, like Nino, can become capable of transforming all daily realities like good leaven, certain of finding in him a model and a powerful intercessor before God”.
With the conclusion of the Inquiry, many procedural papers of the Servant of God Nino Baglieri will leave Modica for Rome, where both the Dicastery of Saints (in the Vatican) and the Salesian General Postulation will work on the subsequent stages of the Cause, in view of the recognition of the “Venerability”: Nino, however, does not leave his city, still called to accompany his Cause by knowing him and making him known better and better, above all by presenting to him in prayer many situations of illness and pain, so that Nino can continue to help many and the Lord grant the grace of that miracle which opens the way to beatification.
Don Giovanni D’Andrea, Inspector of the Salesians of Sicily, identifies the closure of the diocesan inquiry as an arrival and a departure at the same time. These are his words, to define the path of “new beginning” that awaits after 5 May: “It begins with a charismatically significant date for the Congregation and the Salesian Family and for the earthly history of Nino Baglieri, 6 May in fact occurs the feast of S. Domenico Savio and also the anniversary of the disastrous fall of Nino Baglieri from the scaffolding which caused paralysis of body and soul. We know well how the grace of the Lord – after 10 years from that May 6, 1968, in which Nino found himself in the “desert of the spirit” – brought about the conversion whose fruit was a seed of hope for many people who entered into a relationship with Nino. From 6 May 2024 the commitment to spreading and making known the figure of Nino Baglieri increases and must increasingly be qualified with a highly youthful characterization and as a model of lay holiness. In doing this, we are all called to make our contribution. We are called to know the person of Nino better and more and more and his message of hope. We too, like Nino, want to wear ‘overalls and shoes’ and ‘run’ on the path of holiness which means realizing God’s Dream for each of us, a Dream that each of us is: being ‘happy in time and in eternity’, as Don Bosco wrote in his Letter from Rome, 10 May 1884″.
For its part, the Postulation – which deals with the Cause on behalf of the Plaintiffs and will sponsor it in the next few years in close contact with the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints – “is experiencing with joy and gratitude the conclusion of the diocesan phase of the Cause of the Servant of God Nino Baglieri: a ‘thank you!’ to those who contributed with sacrifice and dedication to reach this goal!”. “Nino’s testimony – hopes the Postulator General Don Pierluigi Cameroni SDB – will be a sign of hope for those who are in trial and pain, and for the new generations, so that they can learn to face life with faith and courage, without becoming discouraged and discouraged . Nino smiles at us and supports us so that, like him, we can make our ‘race’ towards the joy of heaven.”
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