Father Dolindo – Naples. Where you can hear “Jesus, you take care of it”

The road to Naples

On 14–21 September 2024 we set off for southern Italy.
By plane to Bari, and then in a hired car – through Apulia, small Italian towns, cobbled streets and the hot air of the south.

Our first destination was Naples.
A city that fascinates and frightens at the same time.

We did not yet know that, under the terms of the hire company, we should not have driven there at all – Naples is treated as a special case and is often excluded from insurance policies. But when you are travelling to a saint, you do not always read the small print.

We arrived late in the evening.

And that was when we saw Naples as it really is.

The Naples of Father Dolindo

Narrow streets.
Old tenement houses.
Balconies with washing hanging from them.
Shouts, conversations, trade, the smell of smoke and the chaos of the south.

Our flat was in the very heart of old Naples.

A small window.
Wooden shutters.
Damp, the smell of cleaning products and, breaking through beneath them, mould.

After fifteen minutes we already knew that we would not sleep peacefully that night.

And yet it was only in the morning that we discovered something remarkable.

Father Dolindo had lived almost around the corner.

The church where he rests is hidden among ordinary buildings.
No great squares.
No monumental entrances.

As if Naples itself wanted to say:

here saints are born in poverty.

The church and the tomb of Father Dolindo

When we stepped inside, we saw a church typical of southern Italy.

Sunlight.
Gold.
No spectacular effects at all around this future Saint.

We quickly found the tomb of Father Dolindo.

In front of the tomb, on an ordinary little chair, a man was sitting and praying in silence.

I went up to the tomb, I touched it, I prayed – I really was there.

I had Father to myself. The church was empty, only a few cleaners and us.

I prayed, leaving with Father Dolindo everything that was hurting in my heart.

When I stood up to go and take photographs of the side aisle, the man rose and came towards me.

He raised his hand and blessed me.

It took me by surprise.

I did not know him.

I only smiled inwardly and said to myself:

„Oh, Father Dolindo himself has come out to bless me.”

An unexpected meeting

A moment later I went with my daughter to a small shop beside the church.

And there we learned something more.

That man was a priest.

And he was from Poland.

From Łódź.

He had come with a pilgrimage and had gone in to pray for a while before the rest of the group arrived.

Just another one of God’s coincidences.

Who was Father Dolindo

Father Dolindo Ruotolo was born in Naples in 1882.

His childhood was extremely difficult.

His father considered him a weak child, of little ability and not worth educating.
The household was marked by poverty and severity.

And yet it was this boy who later became a priest who wrote books, preached and led people to God.

His spirituality was extraordinary.

In his reflections he combined theology with the exact sciences – physics, astronomy and logic.
That is why his writings still fascinate people with analytical minds.

He is best known, however, for a single prayer.

A simple one.

And at the same time the hardest of all.

„Jesus, you take care of it.”

A saint from the poor streets of Naples

Father Dolindo spent his whole life among the poor.

He shared his food.
He helped those in need.
He admonished, but he also loved.

When you look at the old roofs and crumbling tenements around his church, you get the impression that time stopped there a hundred years ago.

The same dust.
The same walls.

And the same Naples, which can be beautiful and brutal at once.

Father Dolindo…

As we were leaving the church, I had only one thought.

Will I ever come back here?

Father Dolindo, pray for us.

Pray for our families.

Pray for all the matters we hand over to God.

And pray also for Dzika Figa, that it may grow for the glory of the Lord.

Amen.