Blessed ARTEMIDES ZATTI (1880-1951)
With Don Bosco no matter what!
The vocation of a Salesian Brother
The Zatti’s were a humble family of country people who decided to leave their homeland, Boretto in Italy, in search of a better future and to escape the blight. Emigrating to Argentina, when Artemides was 15 years of age, was a necessary consequence of the family’s poverty. The Zattis were a very religious family, close to the church, who as a family prayed together and went to the sacraments regularly. Artemides spent his childhood in the parish, serving mass, and for the rest of the time working in the fields. Someone who knew him said: “He was a youngster always compassionate, cheerful and a good worker, humble, quiet and very affectionate, always obedient and respectful towards his parents.” Through the hard and tiring work in the fields he immediately learned to face up to the fatigue and the responsibilities which would always accompany him in the years of his apostolate. Artemides diligently took part in the liturgy and lived a life of great charity in the service of the sick. They were the two supporting pillars of his whole life.
On these foundations Artemides built up a natural and sincere Salesian vocation. His serious spiritual approach, his sincere process of discernment and his desire to serve God and his neighbour led him to embrace the mission of Don Bosco. His vocation followed from his reading the life of Don Bosco, after having become friends with a “magnetic” Salesian, as was the parish priest Fr Cavalli who accompanied him throughout his life. During the years of formation he showed himself to be well-disciplined, humble in daily duties and in manual work as well as in his studies. To the sick, so loved and tenderly cared for by him, the efforts made by this young man as he struggled to reach the goal of the religious and priestly life, facing up to the labours and the difficult and bitter struggles life had for him were both moving and edifying, Soon, Zatti was struck down by tuberculosis, contracted from a young priest he was looking after precisely because he was very sick. Given the circumstances of his illness the Superiors suggested to him that he should make his profession as a Salesian brother. From this lay Salesian we hear again the famous remark of Cagliero who, faced with the doubts of some of his companions whether to become “monks” or not, exclaimed with significant spontaneity: “Monk or no monk, I’m staying with Don Bosco”. Zatti too did not need to think very long before deciding that priest of not, he intended to stay with Don Bosco. And there he stayed living to the full the singular vocation of the “Brother.”
He consecrated his whole life to the sick, in thanksgiving to Mary Help of Christians for his being cured. He obtained the necessary preparation with the qualifications of pharmacist and nurse. For practical purposes, in charge of the hospital, he oversaw its transfer to another site; widened the circle of its patients and on his inseparable bicycle visited all the sick in the city, especially the poor – throughout Patagonia he will be remembered as el amigo de los pobres – without ever charging fees but always generously repaid. He knew the problems of being in debt, but Providence never let him down. He handled a great deal of money but his personal life was extremely poor: travelling to Italy he had to borrow some clothes, a hat and a bag. Loved and highly thought of by the sick who sometimes preferred him to the doctors; loved and highly thought of by the doctors who had the utmost confidence in him, and who were captivated by the ascendency which his holiness gave him: “When I am with Zatti, I cannot but believe in God,” a doctor who called himself an atheist exclaimed one day. The secret of this ascendency? Here it is: for him every sick person was Jesus Himself. Absolutely! One day the Superiors recommended that no more than 30 sick patients were to be admitted. He was heard to murmur: “And if the 31st were to be Jesus Himself?” As far as he was concerned there could be no doubt: he treated each one with the same tenderness with which one would treat Jesus Himself, he offered his own bed in cases of emergency, and put someone who had died there in times of need. Often the Sister in charge of the linen would be asked: “Have you something to wear for a Jesus who is 12 years of age?” Tirelessly he calmly continued to carry out his mission among the sick until the end of his life, without allowing himself any rest.
The attractive figure of Artemides Zatti is an invitation to put before the young the fascination of consecrated life, the radical decision to follow Christ obedient, poor and chaste, the primacy of God and of the Spirit, fraternal life in community, devoting oneself totally to the mission. Young people are sensitive to proposals which require a demanding commitment, but they need witnesses and guides who know how to accompany them in discovering and welcoming such a gift. The vocation of the Salesian Brother is part of the characteristic feature which Don Bosco wanted to give to the Salesian Congregation. Certainly it is a vocation which it is not easy to discern and to accept; it emerges more easily where lay apostolic vocations are presented to the young and where a joyful and enthusiastic witness to religious consecration like that of Artemides Zatti is offered them.
