Beatification of Sandra Sabattini, the “saint next door”
AND’ the first holy fiancĂ©e in the history of the Church. And the then boy of Sandra Sabattini, a young disciple of Don Benzi who died at 22 in a car accident, is Guido Rossi from San Marino. Sandra’s life was full and normal and she must have been there extraordinary ordinariness of its existence to attract many people: quota places inside the Cathedral Basilica, where the celebration took place chaired by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Congregation for the Cause of Saints. In the churchyard and in the courtyard of the Diocese placed outside, for those who still wanted to be there.
Yet when Sandra died, the May 2, 1984, after being hit by a car, outside of the closest friends, who today recited the prayers of the faithful, of the Pope John XVIII community, no one knew anything about her. Is exactly the humanity of the life of a medical student who wanted to become a missionary, who followed the poor to their homes, who took to the streets for the rights of the disabled, to attract the attention of all the national press and media.
In procession he was carried Sandra’s only mortal remnant, whose grave just over 10 years after the accident came found mysteriously empty. It is about a hair that her fiancĂ© Guido had kept in a candy box that Sandra herself decorated. To bring it Stefano Vitali, former president of the Province of Rimini, who healed, without any scientific explanation, from a malignant tumor through Sandra’s intercession to which Don Benzi had entrusted it.