A Life dedicated to God at the service of the poor with the Apostolic Zeal of Don Bosco
Artemide was born in Boretto (Reggio Emilia) on 12th October 1880, the third of 8 children, to father Luigi and mother Albina. A poor family but rich in faith and affection. Forced by poverty, the Zatti family, at the beginning of 1897 (Artemide was 17), emigrated to Argentina and settled in Bahía Blanca. There were to be other ‘migrations’ in Artemide's life: the one from Bahia Blanca to Viedma, sick with tuberculosis travelling on the ‘Galera’ when it seemed that all his dreams were to vanish; when he migrated from the San Josè hospital to the Sant'Isidro hospital on a wagon adorned with flowers and amidst songs.
In Bahia Blanca, the young Artemide attends the parish run by the Salesians where Fr. Carlo Cavalli was the parish priest. Artemide found in him the father and spiritual director who oriented him to Salesian life. At Viedma, he met Fr. Evasio Garrone who invited him to pray to Mary Help of Christians to obtain healing but also suggested to him to make a promise: "If She heals you, you will dedicate your whole life to these sick people". Artemis gladly made this promise and miraculously recovered. He made his first profession as a Salesian coadjutor on 11th January 1908 and his Perpetual Profession on 18th February 1911, convinced that 'one can serve God both as a priest and as a coadjutor: one thing can be as good for God as the other, as long as one does it with vocation and love'.
Throughout his life, the hospital would be the place where he would exercise, day after day, a charity rich with the compassion of the Good Samaritan. When he woke the sick in the wards, his characteristic greeting was: “Good morning. Long live Jesus, Joseph and Mary... Is everyone breathing?”.
He routinely went out to the town of Viedma in his white coat and medicine bag, with one hand on the handlebar and the other with the rosary. He did everything for free. A farmer who wanted to express his gratitude greeted him and said: “Thank you very much, Mr. Zatti, for everything. I take leave of you and ask you to convey my best regards to your wife, although I do not have the pleasure of knowing her...”. “Neither have I,” Zatti replied, laughing heartily.
Artemide Zatti loved the sick, seeing and serving Jesus himself in them. One day he said to the cloakroom attendant: “A change of clothes for Our Lord...”. Zatti seeked the best for his patients because “to Our Lord we must give the best”. A poor country boy needed a little dress for his first communion and Artemis asked: "A little dress for Our Lord".
He knew how to win everyone over and with his composure. He was able to resolve even the most delicate situations. One of the hospital doctors would testify: “When I saw Mr. Zatti, my disbelief would waver”. And another: “I have believed in God ever since I met Bro. Zatti”.
In the community it was he who rang the bell. He was the one who preceded all the confreres in the community meetings. As a good Salesian, he knew how to make cheerfulness a component of his holiness. Always cheerfully smiling. That was how all the photos portrayed him.
In 1950, he fell from a ladder and during this accident, the symptoms of cancer appeared which he lucidly diagnosed. He died on 15th March 1951, surrounded by the affection and gratitude of the people of Viedma and Patagones, who from then on began to invoke him as an intercessor with God. The chronicle of the Salesian college in Viedma recorded these prophetic words: “One less brother at home and one more saint in heaven”.
The miracle for canonisation
The recognised miracle concerns the miraculous recovery of Renato, a Filipino, who suffered a 'right cerebellar ischaemic stroke, complicated by a voluminous haemorrhagic lesion' in August 2016. Due to worsening symptoms and the appearance of difficulty in walking, he was admitted to hospital. In the following days, as there was no improvement and he was disoriented and confused in his speech, he was transferred to intensive care.
Brother Roberto, a Salesian coadjutor, became aware of the serious situation and on the very day of his hospitalisation began praying during community vespers, asking for healing through the intercession of Blessed Artemide Zatti.
Subsequently, a neurosurgical check-up suggested the need for an operation which was not possible due to the family's poverty. Consequently, the family decided to take him home so that he could spend the last days of his life with his family. The dying man received the anointing of the sick and wanted to say goodbye to his family and relatives around him.
Roberto invited the relatives to join in prayer, intensely invoking Blessed Artemide Zatti.
On 24th August 2016, against all expectations, Renato took off the tube and oxygen, called his relatives saying he was well and wanted to take a bath and asked for something to eat. He was a man who had been brought home to die and was healthy again after a few days!
This miracle confirms the charisma of Artemide Zatti, called 'the relative of the poor'. In fact, Artemide in his hospital in Viedma, Argentina, welcomed and assisted precisely those who could not afford the cost of medicines and hospitalisation.
The miracle did not only happen as a physical healing. The grace of God, in fact, while healing bodies touches the hearts and lives of people, renewing them in faith, in relationships, in witnessing a new life.
One day, one of the doctors at San José Hospital asked: "Bro. Zatti, are you happy?" "Very much. And you, doctor? You see, each person carries happiness within himself/herself, is content and satisfied with what he/she has, even if it is little or nothing: this is what the Lord wants from us. He will take care of the rest".
This is Bro. Zatti's wish and message to each one of us today. As he wrote in a letter to his father Luigi in 1908: “I will not stand there enumerating the graces I have received. Well, you know them. I only put one before your eyes. That is, we can all love and serve God in this world and then enjoy Him forever in the next. Oh! What happiness then, to be able to be all together, without fear of ever being separated again!... oh, yes, you must ask for this grace. And if sometimes we have to suffer something, be patient!... we will find our reward in heaven, if we have suffered for the love of our dear Jesus, and let us remember that the suffering is momentary and the enjoyment eternal”.
Fr. PierLuigi Cameroni,
Postulator General for the Cause of the Saints of the Salesian Family
