Let's read some of
St. Joseph Moscati's thoughts

Translated by Marisa Salvatores

Central panel of the urn, made by Amedeo Garufi.

"Life is a moment; honour, triumph, richness and science full down, before the realization of the Genesis' cry that God hurled against a guilty man: you will die!'
But life doesn't have an end with death, it continues in a better world. Everyone has been promised, after the redemption of the world, the day when we will rejoin our beloved ones, and that will bring us again to supreme Love!"
[from a letter to the lawyer Mr.Mariconda, who had lost his sister. Feb.27 th, 1919]

"But Life was defined as Lightning in the Eternal. And our humanity, because of the grief it bears, and that fed Him who became a Man, surpasses the matter, and brings us to aspire to a happiness beyond the world.
Blessed those who follow this leaning of conscience and look to the hereafter where they will rejoin the earthly affections that are precociously broken".
[from a letter to Miss Carlotta Petravella, who had lost her mother. Jan.20 th, 1920]

"Remember that, following Medicine, you undertook upon yourself the responsibility of a teachings always in your memory, with love and pity for the abandoned, with faith and enthusiasm, deaf to praises and criticisms, to envy, inclined only to God."
[from a letter to Dr. Giuseppe Biondi, Sept. 4th , 1921.]

"Whatever happens, remember two things: God doesn't abandon anyone. The more you feel alone, neglected, scorned, unappreciated and the more you will be near to give up under the weight of a severe injustice, the more you will feel an endless, mysterious force that will sustain you, that will make you able to have good and vigorous intentions, and you will be astonished by its strength when serenity will return. This strength is God!"
[from a letter to Dr. Cosimo Zacchino. Oct.6 th, 1921.]

"Sick people are Jesus Christ's creatures. Many wicked people, criminals, swearers, find themselves in a hospital by God's mercy, he wants them to be saved! Nuns, doctors and nurses that work in a hospital have a mission: cooperating with this endless mercy, helping, forgiving and sacrificing themselves."
[slip of paper written by Moscati, dated Jan. 17th, 1922.]

"Even if you are away, you'll never give up cultivating and checking your knowledge every day. Progress means a continuous criticism of what we already know.The only firm and unshakable science is the one revealed by God, the science of the Hereafter! In everything you do aim for Heaven, to the eternity of life and soul, and you will act then very differently as simple human considerations would suggest to you, and your actions will be directed to Good.
[from a letter to Dr. Consoli, Moscati's disciple, who had to leave Neaples. July 22nd, 1922.]

Manuscript of: "Jesus my Love"

"Jesus my Love! Your Love makes me sublime; Your Love makes me holy, turns me not only to a single person but to all the creatures, to the endless beauty of all beings, created in Your own image and likeness!"
[Prayer written by Moscati, dated June 5th, 1922, found by his sister Nina.]

"Not science but charity has transformed the world in some periods, and only very few men became famous because of their science; but all men will be everlasting, as a symbol of the eternity of life, in which Death is only a stage, a metamorphosis to a higher place, if they will devote themselves to Good. The regret of knowing you away from here is ever green in my heart; and my only consolation is that you keep in you a part of myself; not for its value but for its spiritual content that I tried to maintain and to spread around me: sublime task, but so difficult for my poor strength."
[from a letter to Dr.Antonio Guerricchio, July 22th, 1922]

"Love truth; show yourself as you are, without pretence, without fears and cares. And if the truth means your persecution, accept it; if it means your torment, bear it. And if for the truth's sake you should sacrifice yourself and your life, be strong in your sacrifice."
[note written by G.Moscati on Oct. 17th, 1922.]

"Remember that living is a mission, a duty, a grief! Everyone of us must have his own battle station…Remember that you have to deal not only with the bodies but also with the moaning souls coming to you. How many suffering people you will more easily soothe by advising and going straight to their souls, instead of giving cool prescriptions to be given to the pharmacist! Be joyful because great will be your reward; but you will have to set a good example of your elevation to God."
[from a letter to Dr. Cosimo Zacchino. Ascension 1923]

"I have believed that all deserving young people, set off with hopes, sacrifices, anxieties of their families, on the path of the noblest Medicine, had the right to improve themselves, reading a book which was never put down in black and white, but which has hospital beds and laboratories as a cover, and men's painful bodies and scientific equipment as a content, a book that has to be read with an endless love and a great sacrifice for our neighbour. I think that teaching the young should be a debt of conscience, we should maintain the fruit of our experience as a jealously guarded secret but we should reveal it to them…
[from a letter to Prof. Francesco Pentimalli. Sept. 11th, 1923.]

"Young people should understand that the better way to keep themselves far from the utmost transmissible illness is to practise continence…By maintaining their spirits and their hearts far from turpitude, with hardships and sacrifices, they should swear to give their maturity and their sexual soundness to the one beloved Being."
[from J.Moscati preface to a G.De Giovanni's and Prof. Mario Mazzeo's book titled: L'Eugenica. 1925.]

St Therese of the Holy Child [Statue in the Lisieux cemetery]

"I've got here, on my table, among the first flowers of Spring, one of your daughter's portrait and I rest, while writing, and meditate upon the frailty of human things. Beauty, every enchantment of life has an end…Only eternal Love lasts, the one that is the reason of every good action, that survives us, that is hope and religion, because Love is God. Satan tried to foul even earthly love, but God purified it through Death. A splendid Death which is not an end, but a beginning of the Sublime and Divine, in the presence of which these flowers and Beauty are nothing! Your Angel ravished in her young years, like her beloved friend, the Blessed Therese, discovered in her last years, assists you and her mother from Heaven…"
[from a letter to the Notary De Magistris, whose daughter was dead. March 7th, 1924. G.Moscati was a devotee of the Blessed Therese of the Holy Child [St.Therese of Lisieux]. He speaks about Her in some letters and had a portrait of Her in his room. You can read an article by Giuseppe Samà s.j. about it: St Therese of Lisieux (The Little Flower) and St Joseph Moscati]

"This evening we have been reading your thesis. It has been a great success… All the examining board couldn't do anything but applaud… You will see that the one who doesn't abandon God, will always have a secure guide in his life, sure and straight. Passions, deviations will not prevail to move the one whose ideal is working and science INITIUM of which is TIMOR DOMINI".
[from a letter to Dr. Francesco Pansini. March 10th, 1926]

Bronze statue, made by Luigi Sopelsa

"Nothing is unwilling to accept that matter is animated with many and profound energies that evolve it in its activity and in its progressive complexity of its shapes, but at the same time you have to think that this principle of spirituality, this wonderful order, organized in matter till it reaches the highest peaks of its most elaborate organization, is nothing but the sign that a DEUS ABSCONDITUS regulates with supreme intelligence this magnificent structure on which life rises, that exsists thanks to laws sanctioned by the Wisdom of God that moves everything; so extraordinary as these laws control not only the huge Universe, but also the most delicate weft of the most microscopic element."
[Moscati's thought reported by Prof.Pietro Castellino after the Saint's death]

"The need of perpetuating the great figures of those who have passed away, in marble or bronze, and of celebrating their works, means that human thought and spirit are eternal.Under every cross and every piece of steel of this cemetery, besides shapeless heaps of bones and dust, there is the memory of a heart that lived of an endless love and suffered a great pain; there is the seat of a spirit that can't be extinguished."
[Moscati's words for the dedication of a bust to Giovanni Paladino, in Poggioreale cemetery.]

"Let's love without measure, that is without measure in love and grief…Let's place all our affection, not only in what God wants, but in the will of the same God who establishes them."
[from Miss Emma Picchillo's testimony.]

"Let's practise every day in charity.God is charity: the one who is in charity is in God and God is in him. We mustn't forget to offer our actions to God every day, doing everything for His love."
[from Miss Emma Picchillo's testimony.]

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