We have just celebrated Labor Day (May 1), and from the stage of Rome’s Concertone, attention was drawn to the scourge of workplace deaths, which is still present today and continues to claim victims: Lorenzo Parelli, who died while completing a school-to-work internship, is one name that represents them all.
There is a saint whom the Church celebrates on May 5, under whose protection all these deceased workers can gather, because he died in 1836, at just 19 years of age, from bone cancer, most likely caused by the terrible working conditions to which his uncle subjected him in his blacksmith’s workshop.
For this reason, Saint Nunzio Sulprizio is considered the patron saint of people with disabilities and workplace victims.
«Suffer for the love of God and with joy»
Nunzio Sulprizio encountered suffering very early in life and knew how to turn it into an instrument of love: «Suffer for the love of God and with joy», he would say.
Born in Abruzzo, he was orphaned by both his mother and father at the age of 6. He was then sent by his maternal grandmother to Pescosansonesco. For Nunzio, his grandmother was a true teacher of life and faith: from her he learned love for the Most Holy Eucharist, for priests, and for the Blessed Virgin Mary. Little Nunzio would converse with Jesus present in the tabernacle of his parish church, where he would remain in adoration for long hours, speaking with him, and then, once back home, he would pray the Holy Rosary with his grandmother. After his grandmother’s death, however, he was entrusted to an uncle who forced him to work in his blacksmith’s shop, exploiting him without considering that he was only a child: heavy loads, long distances to cover on foot in all weather, yet Nunzio did not complain; he thought of Jesus and began offering his labor to him.
In this situation, however, he soon fell ill: a wound on his foot became infected, and the boy remained for a long time at the Hospital of the Incurables, where he received Jesus in the Eucharist for the first time. Here he offered all his suffering to the Lord and helped the other patients; he fasted, prayed, and gave his meal to those who were lonelier and poorer than he was, even performing genuine miracles, as happened in the case of a man named Nicola La Rosa. This man had been admitted to the hospital with throat cancer and was suffering terribly.
On the eve of the poor man’s departure - he was being discharged from the hospital so that he could die at home - Nunzio approached him and said: «Do not be afraid. Now I will dress your wound, and you will see that you will soon feel better». Nunzio then removed Nicola’s bandages and prayed with him, after which he dressed the wound. The next day, when examining him, the doctors realized that the throat cancer had disappeared! Another uncle, having learned of his situation, entrusted him to Colonel Felice Wochinger, who took him under his care and, once he left the hospital, welcomed him into his home. A beautiful relationship developed between the two, like that between father and son. On the afternoon of May 5, 1836, Nunzio asked the colonel to allow him to receive the sacraments and welcomed the Eucharist, saying: «Come, my Father, my Lord, my Spouse, my Love». Two hours later he exclaimed: «Look how beautiful Our Lady is!» and gently fell asleep in Christ.
From suffering, a path of light
Pope Pius IX declared Nunzio venerable on July 9, 1859. On December 1, 1963, Pope Paul VI enrolled him among the blessed, as a model for young workers and for all young people. His shrine in Pescosansonesco, which preserves some of his relics, is a destination for numerous pilgrimages. One wall is covered with crutches belonging to young people who abandoned them thanks to Nunzio’s intercession.
The miracle that led to the canonization of this humble worker from Abruzzo concerns a young man from Taranto who was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident.
He had fallen into a coma and then entered a vegetative state: he always carried an image of Blessed Nunzio Sulprizio in his wallet, and his parents requested one of his relics from the parish of San Domenico Soriano in Naples, which preserves his remains, together with the shrine in Pescosansonesco. The relic was placed in the intensive care unit, and the boy’s father moistened his son’s forehead with water from the spring at Riparossa, where Nunzio had washed his gangrene-stricken leg as a boy. The young man recovered from his vegetative state and, fairly quickly, underwent rehabilitation without suffering permanent damage.
Nunzio reminds us of the dignity of work and the precious good of suffering offered out of love… it is a mystery capable of spreading light! Let us learn from him humility and the ability to offer without reserve, and let us entrust ourselves to him with confidence.
