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It is very important for adolescents and young people to know this child who is now in Heaven; However, it is equally important that they can feel him close, that is, that they can see in him a possibility of holiness for them. This will not happen if those who speak of him in the Church reduce him to a holographic sacred card of a golden legend from the 16th century. If you take a 15-year-old who has overcome the fear of death and reduce it to the description of his devotions, how can he be meaningful to his peers today? How a 2020 teenager, whose soul is perpetually haunted by violence, pornography, parental absences, exposure to consumption, acceleration of the experience, can be found in the example of Carlo Acutis, if the latter only insists on the fact that she always prayed the rosary?
I was fortunate to be in Assisi on Monday, October 12, the day of the inauguration of the liturgical memory of Blessed Carlo Acutis, the day corresponding to his passage from this world to Heaven. With a handful of young people on Sunday afternoon we drank and left, to see, to meet, how much of this holy child is still here, while he, his person who has reached the full physiognomy of a child of God, stands before him. Father.
It is very important that adolescents and young people get to know this child who is now in Heaven; However, it is equally important that they can feel him close, that is, that they can see in him a possibility of holiness for them.This will not happen if those who speak of him in the Church reduce him to a holographic sacred card of a golden legend from the 16th century.
If you take a 15-year-old who has overcome the fear of death and reduce it to the description of his devotions, how can he be meaningful to his peers today? How a 2020 teenager, whose soul is perpetually haunted by violence, pornography, parental absences, exposure to consumption, acceleration of the experience, can be found in the example of Carlo Acutis, if the latter only insists on the fact that did you always pray the rosary?
We have to admit the Church cannot speak to the new generations. In reality, he does not understand the fundamental categories, those within which a common language must be found through which to proclaim the Gospel to them also today.
So my gosh
let’s talk about Carlo things that can affect them, these guys,
And it is that he was a fan of the web, and he used the internet as a tool to spread faith, and that when he died they did an exhaustive investigation on the chronology of his navigations, and they did not find the slightest trace of pornography: yeah guys, you can use the internet cleanly!
And let’s also say that he was from a wealthy family, and had traveled the world, and played sports, and was doing well in school … but that all this, which many would like for him, he did not consider anything special. compared to your inner journey, to your relationship with God.
Yeah guys there are even better things than the best you can imagine Compared to what they “say” it matters.
And that he was a handsome boy, and yet he felt a vocation to the priesthood, and even more so to holiness, that is, to joy: yeah guys you can become a priest without being a loser.
And that since he had accepted to commit himself fully to God, and to immerse himself in those deep waters of the Mystery, when death came he serenely welcomed it, and overcoming the fear of death now lives forever in God.
Yes, guys, you can stop being afraid.
These are some starting points from which perhaps we should start proposing the youngest who has become a saint as a model and sign of hope for them as well. Because, as I wrote at the beginning, on Monday I was in Assisi… but the young people present at the morning celebration were only those who brought me, in a sea of old men.
If we do not change our focus and vocabulary, we run the risk of speaking only to ourselves, excluding new generations from the joy of the Gospel, and then brilliant examples such as that of Blessed Charles Acutis would be wasted, and it would really be a shame.
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