On Saturday, December 10th, over 100 Salesians of the Italy Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta Circumscription, with the Provincial Fr. Enrico Stasi, shared a day of retreat dedicated to recall the testimony of Venerable Fr. Beltrami. Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni, General Postulator for the Causes of Saints of the Salesian Family, presented Fr. Beltrami as the emblematic expression of the oblational dimension of the Salesian charism, the incarnation of the exigencies of the motto “caetera tolle”. A testimony that for several reasons is gradually disappearing from the visibility of the Salesian world, but which recalls the roots of the Salesian spirit, made of sacrifice, industriousness and apostolic renunciations.
Born in Omegna (VB) on the 24th of June 1870, Andrea was given in the family a profound Christian formation, which he later developed in the Salesian institute of Lanzo, where he enrolled in October 1883. Here his vocation grew. In 1886 he received the religious habit by Don Bosco. During the two years he spent in Turin-Valsalice he got acquainted and matured a spiritual friendship with the Polish prince Augusto Czartoryski, now blessed, who had recently joined the Salesian Congregation.
Fr. Beltrami was called to assist Fr. Augusto, who suffered from tuberculosis. Also Fr. Beltrami will get the same disease, that at the time was well spread, and he lived his suffering with interior joy. He was ordained a priest by Msgr. Cagliero, and he totally devoted himself to contemplation and to the apostolate of writing. Gifted with an unshakeable will power and a passionate desire for sanctity, he consumed his life in pain and unceasing work. He used to say, “The mission entrusted to me by God is praying and suffering”. “Neither being healed nor dying”, was his motto. He died on December 30th, 1897: he was 27 years old. His body rests in the church of Omegna, his hometown.
Fr. Beltrami launches to the Salesian Family the hard message of redemptive suffering, or rather of a suffering that can become mysteriously joyful in proportion with the love with which it is accepted. “Believe me – he once wrote to his Director, Fr. Scappini – in all my pains, I am happy with a full and complete bliss, to the extent that I feel like smiling when people condole me and wish me full recovery!”
