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Horizons of Holiness SAINTS WAIT IN LINE "Today we have a great need of saints." This incisive appeal was made to the Catholic people by the bishops gathered for the Extraordinary Synod of 1983. "Holy men and women," the final statement of the synod members goes on to state, "have always been the source of renewal during the most difficult times of the Church's history." Echoing this pressing invitation, the Salesian rector Major, Egidio Viganò, addressed an important letter to the Salesians, and through them, to the entire Salesian Family. This letter of pointed to holiness as the first and most basic demand for those who celebrated the centenary (1988) of the death of Saint John Bosco. Holiness is a living witness of his children, but, Don Viganò observed, Don Bosco was also the genial creator of an authentic school of holiness. The generation of Salesians that followed his death, guided by his first disciples, witnessed a true blossoming of sanctity, often lived in the same communities and in mutual imitation of heroic virtues. Within the space of a few Salesian houses (Valdocco, San Benigno, Foglizzo and Valsalice), saints grew to take their place within the Salesian Family, with blessed Michael Rua, Blessed Louis Versiglia, Blessed Philip Rinaldi, the Venerable Servants of God Andrew Beltrami, August Czartoyki, Louis Variara, Vincent Cimatti, and Blessed Louis Orione... Among the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, after Saint Mary Mazzarello and Blessed Maddalena C. Morano, they found expressions of holiness in Ven. Teresa Valse Pantellini and other exceptional figures. Don Egidio Viganò stresses the point that this animating presence of Salesian saints gave rise to that apostolic passion, that strength to expand and that missionary daring which, after Don Bosco, continued to sustain the Salesian Movement in the life of the Church. A characteristic fruit of this holiness is found in the lives of Blessed Laura Vicuña and the Ven. Zefferino Namuncura, young people who responded to the apostolic commitment of the missionaries that crossed the Patagonian wilderness of Latin America. In the same respect, Blessed Callisto Caravario, was a student of Msgr. V. Cimatti, and learned from him the values that lead him to embrace a Salesian religious vocation as a missionary, a priest, and a martyr in China. In little more than 100 years after the death of Don Bosco, the Salesian list of "candidates for the altars" is rather substantial. Their lives and virtues are all the object of direct examination and study by the Vatican Congregation of the Saints. If it takes a long time for them to reach the steps of recognition necessary before their cases can be brought forward for beatification, it is only because of the great number of candidates for beatification (over 1000!) whose cases are now being reviewed by the same Vatican Congregation. Even the saints have to wait in line!
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