It almost feels like a Christmas tale… but it’s Halloween!

“Is the world beautiful because it’s diverse?” No, that’s not the case: “The world is beautiful because it exists!”

There is what? Celtic/Irish/American fashion has so pervaded our daily lives that we often don’t notice. It permeates every moment and every detail. And fashion becomes obvious, a “culture” that can’t be ignored. If you don’t… you’re different. And then even parents rush to fill this gap and chase the gap that has been created with great strides.

Halloween is the eve of All Saints’ Day, but even here, in this western part of the world, it has become a phenomenon that has captivated children: trick or treat, pumpkins, horror stories, movies, ghosts, the dead. Darkness and fear. Boys and girls (but not only) dress up, donning masks, usually scary ones, like vampires, witches, and werewolves. And so this program also becomes an opportunity to “invest” in costumes, in parties that serve to match the “common sentiment.” It’s there for all to see.

I came across another story.

In the outskirts of Madrid, there’s a family, half Spanish and half Italian. They have three children: two girls and a boy. His wife lived in Italy for 27 years and, through her family of origin, had the opportunity to meet Enzo Piccinini. Every year, returning “home” for the holidays, she and her husband go to a “tourist-packed” place, the Cittanova Cemetery (Modena), to recite a decade of the Rosary and, in recent years, also to introduce their children to Enzo, whose gravestone features a photograph of him wearing a white doctor’s coat.

Their third child was named Enzo: a tribute to him and… partly because of his passion for Ferrari cars.

The school where these children attend, a school we would call private, celebrates the eve of All Saints’ Day and asks students to dress in such a way that each one recalls a saint they are fond of.

The eldest, Filomena, “dressed up” as Saint Clare, the middle girl as Our Lady of Loreto (since her name is Loreto), and the third, Enzo, showed up to school in a white coat.

When asked by teacher Cristina, he replied, “I am Enzo Piccinini. I am Enzo Piccinini.” And so it went all morning.

The teacher, intrigued, wanted to speak with the mother upon returning the child to get an explanation. The mother explained who Enzo Piccinini was, why the children were so fond of him, and the process of working toward his cause of beatification.

The teacher, not content, went home and searched for information about him online, stumbling upon the Foundation’s website, which offers everything it describes.

The next morning, the teacher and the mother met again, and the mother asked for a souvenir from him, with the prayer printed on the back, because she wanted to “use” it with others to pray for a friend of theirs who was in serious health conditions. This was done.

The teacher was also promised the third book published in Italy (“Amico carissimo” by Pier Paolo Bellini and Chiara Piccinini, ed. BUR saggi, 2024), hoping that the Spanish translator would be able to quickly complete “his work.”

The world is beautiful because it exists! Yes, because in this world, not in the afterlife, there is a teacher who lets herself be inspired by a two-and-a-half-year-old child and who also becomes rich in the friendship Enzo gave us. This is how she met him, today! In 2025, twenty-six years after his Dies Natalis!!!

di Alma López (Spagna)