In his homily, Fr Cameroni took up some passages from a letter written by Fr Gabriello Zucconi to Vera on 5 September 1969. This text in the form of a prayer that has the flavour of the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis, well expresses what Vera and her spiritual father experienced in the last months of her life and illness, offering and immolation for the Servant of God. “Let [Vera] be your perfect Bride: the way you want her. Adorn her gently with every grace and beauty for the feast of eternal marriage with you, Immaculate and most perfect Lamb of God... She gives you your life. Poorly and humbly, I intend to help her in the total offering of herself to God, your Father and ours. To her who offers herself to you, give her your whole life, with every grace and perfection. Vera of Jesus be happy in you. Always bless her. And with her, bless everyone she knows and carries in her heart... everyone. Jesus, you are “with” us. Teach us, most gentle and patient Master, to carry you less unworthily. Guard and defend and save yourself in us, with us, on us.”
Subsequently, Maria Rita Scrimieri, President of the Vera Grita Foundation and Fr Gabriello Zucconi – Work of the Living Tabernacles, spoke about the final year of Vera’s life spent for the most part at Santa Corona, facing difficulties, surgeries and suffering, supported by faith and receiving strength and courage from participation in the Mass and the living presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, who communicated to her his love of predilection for all suffering people while ensuring his closeness to each one.
The spirit of the Magnificat, repeatedly sung and proclaimed in the liturgy of the day, characterised this memorial, enveloping and warming hearts in the song of praise and thanksgiving to the Most Holy Trinity. The entire Eucharistic Family of the Work of the Living Tabernacles was remembered together with the sick and suffering children in the world.
This event concluded the initiatives that the Vera Grita Foundation and Fr Gabriello Zucconi – Work of the Living Tabernacles, together with the Diocese of Savona-Noli and the Parish of Mary Help of Christians, organised for the centenary of the birth of the Servant of God Vera Grita, a Salesian Cooperator, which took place in Rome on 28 January 1923.
