A recent train collision near Turin, Italy, saw five rail workers lose their lives. One of the deceased, 34-year-old Michael Zanera, was a devout Catholic and the last thing he shared on social media was a picture of what he described as a Crucifix that had formed while he was welding.
The men had been working late at night welding train tracks. As they were busy going about their job an oncoming train headed straight towards them at 100 mph, killing most of the team of workers and throwing their bodies hundreds of meters into the air.
Before their deaths Zanera posted a reel on TikTok showing the cross shining brightly. Accompanying the clip the young rail worker wrote: “God definitely wants to tell me something. It’s the first time it’s happened to me while welding the rail.”
According to the Daily Mail, Zanera had also shared that he’d “been calling [to God] every day lately because it’s not a good time for me.”
Seeing that cross glowing in the dark must have been a huge comfort to the young Italian at a time when he was needing God’s support. And it shows not only how God is omnipresent, but he was reaching out to Zanera as he went about his work to let him know He was hearing his calls. And in this case, was calling him home.
While this story brings some consolation from such a tragedy, Zanera’s ability to find God in his moments of difficulty shows the power of faith, and the need to always reach out to Him, in good and bad times.
After the terrible accident, the mayor of Brandizzo, Paolo Bodoni, shared that there would be an investigation into the tragedy.
