The solemn Eucharistic concelebration, right at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, was presided over by Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni, Postulator General for the Causes of Saints for the Salesian Family, who in his homily stressed how Msgr. Cognata was a true disciple of Christ, the Lamb immolated, embodying the apostolic passion of Da mihi animas cetera tolle, in the oblative dimension, offering his life for the conversion of his father who was affiliated with Freemasonry, suffering calumny and the unjust condemnation of being dismissed from the episcopal order, the dismissal from the diocese and from the sisters he founded. What comforted Monsignor Cognata most, in that beginning of his episcopate, was the benevolence bestowed on him by Pius XI, who received him with his family members and the representation of Bova, and made him a gift of a magnificent golden cross, which was to be his silent and hidden companion during the long years of humiliation and silence.
Present at the concelebration last April 23, at 11 a.m., were numerous Salesian Oblate Sisters of the Sacred Heart from the various missions spread throughout Italy and led by Mother General, Sister Graziella Benghini, who at the beginning of the celebration brought her greetings and joy at celebrating this anniversary precisely in such a significant place in the history of the founder and the congregation.
In the afternoon, at the Institute of the FMA in Via Marghera (Rome), the commemoration continued with a documented and impassioned report by Dr. Antonio Chilà, a journalist, on the dramatic situation the young bishop encountered upon entering the diocese of Bova and the work of renewal he immediately began that would culminate, six months later, with the founding of the Salesian Oblates of the Sacred Heart. His episcopate was characterized by a great pastoral zeal to oversee a social and religious situation marked by great poverty and abandonment.
The day concluded with a performance of the musical show "La Santità della dolcezza," by the "Charmonie Vocal Group" of Tivoli. Written and set to music by Rita Gentili, Sara and Silvia Narzisi, with orchestrations by Giovanni Proietti Modi, the show exalts the charisma, faith, and heroic bearing witness of Msgr. Giuseppe Cognata.
Well summarizing Bishop Cognata's greatness are the words of Msgr. Antonio Mistrorigo, bishop of Treviso, a friend and staunch supporter of the Salesian bishop's innocence: "I have always admired in him the serenity of one who has already passed on to live in God, forgetting everything else. I admired, besides the serenity, the joy that spontaneously came out of his spirit and always made his company happy. I admired his spiritual height, which made him think of the things up there and seek only the things up there. Great soul! Rare soul! Glory to your Salesian family and to the whole Church."
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