On the 16th of February, Br. Sergio, a member of the community at the Novitiate, died aged 84 in Gallarate, one of the infirmaries of the Society in Italy. It’s difficult to describe him in few words, even if he himself would have done so. He would have certainly said that few people “knew” him and he would have been right. To most appearances Sergio was, among other things, the cook at the Novitiate for three decades, with a farmer’s temperament and a strong Venetian accent, a man with simple devotion for his work. But there was much more. It’s curious that I had heard about Sergio even before entering the novitiate. That says a lot about this Venetian of few words. The reason is simple: many of the Jesuits that I have met have spent their novitiate with Sergio and remember him very well. Sometimes for his witty remarks, sometimes for his almost maniacal precision in the kitchen, sometimes for his vigorous replies. I had the opportunity to meet Sergio only in these last months of his life, when the weight of his years made itself felt, and he had become the “wise old man” of the Novitiate. But certainly not innocuous. In fact for me he did not go by unnoticed. His peasant ways and his bluntness, sometimes rough, sometimes legendary, affected me to the point that I spoke of him even in my first article in the Novitiate. He had the ability to bring you back down to earth. Now for Sergio too has arrived that “as-late-as-possible” reunion with Jesus, who had called him to the Society. I realise that we have lost something in the Novitiate, the whole province has lost something of the past thirty years. It also makes me think that Sergio was one of those people who bind us together in this Society, another bond. Another spiritual union. Sergio was not a man of great apostolates or speeches but certainly of frank words, that did not stray too far from the truth.