Zatti creates community
Sister Antonieta, Doctor Harosteguy, Brother Francisco: Don Zatti is not alone.
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Love with humor
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Being attentive to the needs of others
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Facing adversity
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Zatti and Ceferino
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Zatti creates community
A task as big as the one Zatti took on, running the San José hospital, could only be done with the collaboration of people who joined the project of caring for others. Fundamentally, working in a hospital implies being convinced of the importance of one’s own contribution and the commitment of the personal response that must be given every day.
Zatti knew he was not alone. For example, the nurses were volunteers. The hospital would not have enough money to pay each of them. So this task was more of a commitment based on faith and the exercise of charity.
Zatti counted on Brothers of the Congregation, who formed community with him and lived in obedience to their superiors, who encouraged them in the pastoral work of the hospital. They were aware of the immense help they provided with their presence to the city of Viedma and its surroundings.
Among them, it is worth mentioning the coadjutors Massini and Rébola -represented in the film by Zatti’s co-worker, Brother Francisco-, Fathers Pestarino, Pedemonte, Vespignani, Manachino and Garrone himself, his director and teacher. Also Father Carlos Perez -represented in the film by Father Carlos-, who would later become the first bishop of Comodoro Rivadavia (1957-1963) and later the second archbishop of Salta (1964-1984). Perez was provincial superior during the last months of Zatti’s life.
Among the lay people, we can mention Miss María Luisa Picarel, who later became a religious. Doctors Harosteguy, Ecay, Sussini and Mori. Among its outstanding nurses are Noelia Moreno, María Ervín, Clara L. de Ortíz, Clara Albrizio, Leopolda Benedettelli, Marcelina Sayhueque, Andrea Morales, Maria Danielis, Teodolina Acosta, Maria Peñiñori, Eulogia Coronel, Felisa Baté, Margarita Paz. Among the great male collaborators Telésforo Iturralde stands out.
Among the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians were Eugenia Galli, Ana Pánzica, Anunciada Tolomei, Severina Teghile, María Graña, María Méndez. And for only two years, the Servant of God Antonieta Bhom, represented in this film.
The key moments of the short film show Zatti together with some of the characters that represent the great Salesian Family of that time and in that context of the Congregation, in a strongly missionary environment.
• When Zatti notices the eviction and it is Father Carlos who informs him and promises to always be by his side.
• In the service to the poor, when he serves soup to Mrs. Lucia and her son Ignacio, he does it with Brother Francis.
• To Francisco he says, “Let’s hold up these walls,” referring to working to prevent the hospital from being demolished.
Regarding this line, there is a double interpretation. The first is to ask his companion and brother for help so that together they can seek a solution to the problem. The second has to do with the “Poverello” of Assisi, St. Francis.
As Pope Innocent III interpreted it very well, St. Francis would have the mission of sustaining the Church, understanding that he speaks of his life and his mission among men, and not the walls themselves. Zatti, on the other hand, does want to prevent a collapse.
He will want to do so until he realizes at the end of the short film that his life, marked by a boundless charity and surrounded by those who want to share and live the Gospel with him, is the only thing that counts. The walls no longer matter. There Zatti understands, before that dying but peaceful young man, that what counts is to be a witness of the Gospel in the Salesian mission.
Zatti not only seeks solutions to the problem of eviction (he asks for money in the bank, goes to the politicians, looks for alternatives): he never ceases to turn to personal and community prayer. He lives the Eucharist in community. He prays with his brothers. Zatti is not a “sniper” or a “lone wolf”. He knows about team. Community. Project. Brothers.
The entiree Salesian Family around Zatti sets out to do good to others in the nice gesture of riding a bicycle, as his inspirer and guide. They no longer need walls, nor many debates, nor analytical schemes, nor projected calculations. Only to ride together, on bicycles, full of joy, witnessing to the Gospel of the Risen One.