Over the next few days three Camillian brothers will be ordained as deacons. They are Alfredo Tortorella, who will be ordained a deacon on 23 March in the parish of ‘Santa Maria delle Grazie’ of Melito in Napoli, and Umberto D’Angelo and Germano Santone, who will become deacons on 29 March during the course of a ceremony in the ‘Salus Infirmorum’ Chapel of the St. Camillus Hospital of Rome.

Alfredo Tortorella

We asked them about the spirit with which they are preparing for their ordination as deacons and what this important moment represents for the journey of their Camillian vocations.

‘Great emotion but also great tranquillity because I am answering the call of God to the full’, was how Alfredo Tortorella, aged thirty-five, from Melito in Naples, described the feelings with which he is preparing to receive the sacrament of being a deacon from the hands of the Auxiliary Bishop of Naples, Monsignor Lucio Lemmo. ‘The stage of the deaconate’, he went on, ‘is for Camillians a ‘call within a call’ as regards traditional service to the sick. The word ‘deacon’, in fact, means ‘servant’ and we are this twice over, because we are at the service of sick people and of the whole Order’.

Alfredo’s ordination will take place in the same parish of Melito in Naples as he received his baptism. An important sign for a Camillian who heard the call of the Lord after a ‘first life’ spent fully ‘in the world’, with a job in a hospital and an engagement. Then, suddenly, he had the feeling that something had changed and also the desire to pass time with those Camillians he had already met in the health-care world. At the end of the year 2007 his vocational experience began in the community of Acireale and this was followed by his postulate and novitiate in Veneto. In 2009 he made his first vows. From 2009 to 2013 Alfredo underwent years of study and training until his present experience at the Monaldi Hospital of Naples, the city where last November he made his perpetual vows. At this hospital he visits the patients every day, bringing them the comfort that is needed. Now as a deacon his mission will be even stronger: ‘a deacon is a man of blessings’, he stressed, ‘and in this phrase I read a message of God for us, called as we are to bless the suffering’.

Umberto D’Angelo

Umberto D’Angelo, who will be thirty-seven in August, comes from Bucchianico, the town where St. Camillus was born. He, too, moved from a calm professional life to a profound and inexplicable disquiet which was translated into an intense Camillian vocation. ‘I worked as a geologist and I was engaged to be married’, he observed, ‘but at the age of twenty-seven I heard the call of the Lord. Given that I was already active in my parish and that I already knew St. Camillus and the Camillians well, it was natural for me to draw near to them’. In October 2006 Umberto entered the house of formation in Rome. After two years of studies he moved to Mottinello and in 2009 made his simple vows which were followed, on 1 December last, by his perpetual vows.

‘The deaconate’, added Umberto, ‘is an important stage because it prepares me for the priesthood, but obviously it does not change my way of being near to other people, always within the dimension of service. Like St. Camillus, I, too, want to be at the bedside of sick people, the last of the least. This approach always helps me to keep my feet on the ground: whereas when I was young I thought I could do everything on my own, now I have understood the value of obedience and of service’.

Being twenty-seven years old, Gemano Santone is the youngest of the three. He, too, comes from Bucchianico, and like Umberto he will be ordained at the hands of Monsignor Lorenzo Leuzzi, the bishop entrusted with religious assistance in the hospitals of Rome.

‘I lived in the shadow of the sanctuary of Bucchianico’, he tells us, ‘and as a child many people prophesied that I would become a priest. But it was only during my last year in school that my vocation became strongly felt, and to such an extent that I consulted certain priests who helped me to choose in a serious and serene way. Thus after taking my school diploma, on 14 July 2005 – specifically the day of the liturgical solemnity of St. Camillus – I entered the studentate of Rome as a postulant’. Germano spent the first two years of his novitiate in the ‘Villaggio Eugenio Litta’ of Grottaferrata, an institute for the rehabilitation of disabled people. At the same time he continued with his studies in Rome, although he continued to maintain strong ties with Bucchianico. ‘From there I carried with me the Camillian values that I

Germano Santone

breathed in when I was a child’, he told us. ‘St Camillus’, he went on, ‘still has a great deal to say to everyone, especially young people such as ourselves: after he had reached rock bottom in his life, tasting also its worst sides, only by encountering Jesus did he understand the true meaning of his mission. The whole of the Camillian charism, which meets everyone without distinctions, bending down to touch human miseries with a hand, derives from his witness.

We send our best wishes to these three young men, hoping that they will have deaconates (and priesthoods in the near future) that are rich in fruits and lived in a positive spirit at the side of those in need. The spirit with which they draw near to this sacrament is confirmed by Psalm 99, which, indeed, they have chosen for the poster of their deaconates: ‘Serve the Lord in joy’.

      These ordinations constitute a great gift for the Camillian world during the jubilee year when we are celebrating the four hundredth centenary of the death of St. Camillus.

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