“What kind of God is there in heaven?” sings Roberto Vecchioni in the song of the same name, released in 2002.
More than twenty years after that song and that question, he was invited on November 21 to the second Lectio Petri in St. Peter’s Basilica, on the theme “God shows no partiality.” L’Avvenire (Mimmo Muolo, November 22, 2023) and Corriere della Sera (Chiara Maffioletti, November 23, 2023) interviewed him.
In this article, we revisit excerpts from these interviews to offer you a reflection on faith, by a man who has always dialogued with God throughout his life, experiencing Him as a presence that is distant and, at the same time, close; arguing with Him, getting angry with Him, often not understanding, but responding with hope and never losing the thread that binds him to heaven.
His relationship with faith
Asked about his relationship with faith, Roberto Vecchioni replies: “I am a believer, but my faith was built slowly. And along this journey I gradually realized that everything that happens has a hidden reason, including suffering. I think that everything that happens to us in life should not be regarded as an end in itself, but as a sign. Suffering, too, is a sign. It is not the opposite purpose, evil prevailing. It is a sign. Something to accept and interpret.”
A journey through songs about faith: from “La stazione di Zima” to “Le rose blu”
And the fact that faith has always accompanied his journey can also be understood from his artistic work: through several songs devoted to God and his relationship with Him, he effectively sketches out a journey of faith: “The most famous is ‘La stazione di Zima’ […], in which I tell of an encounter with God on a train. But I have written quite a few, somewhat angry at first, but these seven or eight songs are a kind of journey, a maturation, in trying to understand what kind of God is in heaven, if the terrible things we see every day keep happening. […] I think we can encounter God even in the small things of every day. Until we get to ‘Le rose blu,’ which is the song I love most and is a dialogue with God on the day I learned that my son had multiple sclerosis. Not to ask Him for something, but simply to tell Him. […] The best prayer is to speak with God and tell Him: ‘Are You aware of this?’ Just tell Him. He’ll take care of it, then.”
Faith and suffering
One of the most significant passages in the interview with Corriere della Sera perhaps concerns the growth of faith. Asked what had strengthened his faith, Vecchioni replies: “Suffering. Trying to explain to myself rationally or emotionally why evil exists. And so, slowly, understanding that there is a meaning, obscure but present.” On this subject, delicately, they also touched on the bereavement Vecchioni experienced this year: the loss of his son: “It was the greatest pain of my life. The greatest. But instead of catapulting me into hell, it projected me toward hope.”
These words seem to echo the song “Ho conosciuto il dolore” (2013): “I have known pain and it seemed ridiculous to me, when I elbow it, when I say to its face: ‘Who are you trying to scare?’ […] Then I stopped it in a bar, where people did not even know it; I stopped it to tell it: ‘You can do nothing to me!’”
Faith and young people
Vecchioni taught Latin and Greek for many years, and when asked how one can talk to young people about faith, among other things he said: “I believe that we must teach our young people to rediscover the soul. After a century of sterile existentialism, we need a breath of spiritual oxygen.”
But what kind of other god is there in my heart?
We opened this article by quoting the song “What kind of God is there in heaven?” and we will close it with the final words of that same song, which sound somewhat like an answer and testify to a living faith that allows itself to be questioned but remains strong: “But who is the other god I have in my heart? What kind of other god is there in my heart? The one I feel when He comes, The one I wait for, though I don’t know how. The one who never leaves me, never loses me. And whom I never lose.”
If you wish, share your experience and reflection on faith with us!
