Monica Garcia Zatti has been a teacher in the Institute's Mathematics Department since 2009 and has probably passed by the school's lecture hall named after her saintly relative dozens of times. Her maternal grandfather was a first cousin of Artemide. "As a family we are experiencing all this with great excitement and pride, because he is an example of life and dedication. I have a small book about him that I always carry with me," the professor said, manifesting the devotion she feels for the new saint.
"Artemide has always been an important figure in our family. My grandfather used to tell us about his life and everything he gave up to devote himself to caring for the sick and needy. He always pointed us to his example and taught us that we should ask for his intercession whenever there was a health problem," she said.
As a child, Mónica lived in the town of Cabildo, a village 50 kilometers from Bahía Blanca. "With several cousins we lived in the same house. In the family we called him 'el tío,' the uncle, and I also have a cousin who became a nurse precisely because of the story of Artemide. She used to hitchhike to Bahía to study and always carried a holy card of Artemide with her so that he would take care of her."
When the news broke last April that Zatti would be proclaimed a saint, great excitement developed in their family. "We always knew what he had done, but we had no awareness of the dimension and importance of his figure, and what he meant to the lives of so many people. When I was teaching at 'La Inmaculada' Institute I learned about his beatification because another teacher told me about it, and since then we have received information from people in many countries who contacted us to tell us about their vocation and Artemide's intercession in their health."
Artemide Zatti's very special life story and vocation meant that his reputation as a holy nurse was known throughout the region and patients came to him from all over Patagonia. And he would visit his patients on his bicycle at all hours. In the simplicity of his life, his service, his deep life of faith, his sense of community and his good humor, his contemporaries saw a person who had found a way to be happy and who was very much like Jesus.
Monica is still moved when she tells her story and that of her family. "My mother, my uncle, my cousins, those who are here and those who are 'upstairs,' in Heaven, we are all celebrating this good news, which reinforces the example that Zatti has always been for us."
More information on the life of the Salesian coadjutor saint is available at: https://zatti.org
Inés Gea
Source: ARS Province
