The life of Blessed Carlo Acutis – an Italian boy who is expected to become the “first millennial saint” – reveals how humanity finds fulfilment in divine love, the Bishop of Shrewsbury has said.
The Rt Rev. Mark Davies reminded the congregation that all people are called to be saints like Blessed Carlo.
“Yet not a few young people are told diabolically today that a life so given for the love of Christ is a wasted life,” the Bishop said in a homily during a Mass in the first presence of the relic of the heart of Blessed Carlo.
“It is an objection made to those who come forward to offer their lives in the Priesthood or the Consecrated Life; and those called to the enduring love of marriage and family, told they are “losing their freedom,” the Bishop said.
“Yet, we know, a human life is only wasted and lost insofar as we fail to discover the Love for which we were made. As Pope Benedict declared, ‘Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man’. For humanity cannot live without love, Divine Love.
“This led Pope Francis to reflect the only real tragedy in a human life is that we fail to become a saint, to reach the perfection of love like the 15-year-old Carlo Acutis. Our lives are truly wasted if you and I fail to strive for this same goal in the time that has been given us.”
The Mass on Saturday was celebrated in the crowded Church of St Anthony in Wythenshaw, Manchester, on the second of four days of public prayer, veneration and devotion. Blessed Carlo, who was born in London to Italian parents, who died from leukaemia in 2006 at the age of 15. He is often referred to as “God’s influencer” because he dedicated himself to spreading devotion of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist through a website he designed himself. His relic (see notes), which is kept in an ornate reliquary, had attracted more than 2,000 pilgrims by Saturday, with large numbers also expected on Sunday and Monday. St Anthony’s Church is open to all people who have booked a time to prayer before the relic through an Eventbrite link on the website of the Diocese of Shrewsbury.
In his homily, Bishop Davies reflected explained how Blessed Carlo had discovered “the Heart of Jesus in the silence of the Eucharist; in the daily offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass; in commitment to personal prayer; in the frequent Confession of his sins as the path to holiness; and in love for Mary, the Mother of Christ and our Mother”.
“And this Love overflowed from his heart in a desire to share this same love, indeed, the great miracle of love, which is the Eucharist, with all his contemporaries, indeed with all the world via the internet,” said Bishop Davies.
“A love which overflowed in the ordinary duties and details of life in care of friends; in standing up to bullies; and in his practical concern for the poor. A love which expanded his heart, we might say, through those last days in the experience of pain and debility leading to the final day in October 2006 as he offered his suffering for the Pope and the Church, that is for us.”
Source: dioceseofshrewsbury.org
