Tasting the uncertain: from engineering to priesthood

I opened the door little by little. The first time was when I was about 9 years old, listening to the testimony of a young seminarian in our parish. I liked Jesus’ style, especially the way he established authentic relationships of friendship. Then ups and downs, chasing what I liked, until my vice-parish priest invited me to a service camp, when I was an animator of Catholic Action in my village, Fellette di Romano D’Ezzellino, in the province of Vicenza.

In Barbiana – Mugello

I had just graduated from the Professional Institute, I was a turner and miller ready to enter the corporate world. There, in Barbiana, I began to read Don Lorenzo Milani’s letters. On those hills for the first time I thought and decided to pursue my studies in engineering to find tools to be helpful to me and to others.

Important stages

Three experiences helped me grow: my stay at the “Don Nicola Mazza” boarding school, where I expanded the boundaries of my world, meeting young people from Brazil, Georgia and Africa, engaged in different studies; a work for adolescent girls from difficult families. The Elizabethan sisters worked there, the same ones who ran the kindergarten I attended as a child, and to whom I owe a lot. It was there that the dream sketched out at the time of Barbiana began to take shape: to make the Gospel a reality in daily life. It was an Elizabethan sister who directed me to a Jesuit, Fr. Luigi Saggin, to experience spiritual direction. It was a time of discernment, an important adjustment in many aspects of my life.

Understanding one’s path

I wanted to understand if becoming a priest was my vocation. I left Padua to start working in Lonigo continuing my spiritual direction with Fr. Franz Tata. I met people capable of true and unconditional friendship. One day when I went to the Youth Center in Padua for the umpteenth time, I found a photocopy of a letter from Fr. Arrupe in front of the Center’s chapel. Fr. General was harshly questioning the Society, its way of proceeding, words that gave me deep consolation.

Entrustment begins

On that November 17, 2002, when I entered the novitiate, I experienced the longest journey of my life. My mom and brother would stop at every gas station to see if I would change my mind. On that trip, I tried to be confident, to go out far, to try to question my patterns. That’s why I was stunned when, in Spain in Madrid, while I was finishing my Theology studies, the Provincial asked me to follow a project in Padua, completing a License in Liturgy, and then being sent to Albania.

These were two special years because this was the first time that studying was so resourceful to me! I met new people and disciplines. I began to become aware of a new vision of the world. My experience of mission also changed, as it became less rigid. I was supposed to arrive in Albania in 2014 to take the office of director of the school around 2017 but in 2014 I began my mission as director without knowing the language and without having ever worked in school administration. In 2019 I was asked by the Provincial to conduct the development of the Apostolic Plan.

The surprises continue day by day, especially during this time where COVID-19 and the changes of the Province administration have allowed me to work for a very short time for the Province plan and surprisingly I found myself quickly in Naples, as the Rector of the Capano Pontifical Interregional Seminary, with about a hundred seminarians. This was my first time in Campania and my first time in a seminary and, surprisingly, I felt consoled, and I went back to that lesson in rational mechanics that Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty taught me: “In the sphere of reality, occurrence is rather left to the gamble of chance». In my life I often realize that what is called chance, and the abundance of fruit it bears, has the taste of the gratuitous gift of grace that comes from God. I hope that in the seminary I will be able to pass on this experience of feeling and tasting.

…and it continues

Posillipo allowed me to experience a deep joy, comparable to that of Albania, and to work with young people and with the Church in southern Italy. I began to travel, often getting lost in places I had never visited before: plains, mountains, islands, cities and villages, among so many priests and families, among so many bishops, among so many realities, coming into contact with so much faith along with so many dreams, with so much poverty along with so much wealth. Accompanying young people in their discernment, sharing journeys of hope, all this while widening my outlook more and more, learning to be more patient, more welcoming, more generous. In short, it was in this country that my heart was reopened to a passion for the Church and for the Kingdom of God; it was here that I learned to dream of pedagogical itineraries that were more and more personalized, thanks also to the team of priests, psychologists, religious and lay people who always gave me new points of view.

When we received Fr. General’s email informing us about Fr. Roberto’s resignation and then was asked to participate in the Council, I promised myself that I would not leave Posillipo. I did not want another surprise, another move, I felt consolation in what I was experiencing, and I felt that we were on the right path. I experienced the Spiritual Exercises during the summer, and you know … Ignatius insists so much on the freedom of the heart. The surprises never end! The Exercises were precious to me along with many concrete witnesses of this freedom and radicality. I would like to remember two of them in particular: Lello Lanzilli and Mario Danieli, who, as long as they could, until a few weeks ago, testified to me the generosity that comes from the joy of serving the Lord: “Free for whom?” the “for whom” I submit to the One who can command me to leave a place that I love and that transforms me, believing and hoping to do God’s will in this way.