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VATICAN (Catholic News Agency via CBCP News) – Pope Francis said Sunday that the life of Blessed Carlo Acutis provides a testimony for young people that true happiness is found when one puts God first.
“Yesterday in Assisi Carlo Acutis, a fifteen-year-old boy in love with the Eucharist, was beatified. He did not settle into a comfortable inaction, but rather understood the needs of his time because in the weakest he saw the face of Christ, “said Pope Francis in his Angelus address on October 11.
“His testimony shows the young people of today that true happiness is found by putting God first and serving him in our brothers, especially the little ones. Let’s give applause for the new young Blessed ”, said the Pope to the pilgrims gathered in Saint Peter’s Square.
Blessed Carlo Acutis, a Catholic teenager with computer programming skills and a great devotion to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, became in the first millennium to be declared ‘Blessed’ on October 10.
READ: Beatification of Carlo Acutis: the first millennial to be declared blessed
At the age of 15, Acutis was diagnosed with leukemia in 2006. He offered his sufferings for Pope Benedict XVI and for the Church, saying “I offer all the suffering that I will have to suffer for the Lord, for the Pope and for the Church. “
Pope Francis first presented Acutis as an example for young people in the postsodal apostolic exhortation on young people, Christus Vivit. The Pope wrote that Acutis’ provided a model of how young people can use the Internet and technology to spread the Gospel.
“It is true that the digital world can expose you to the risk of self-absorption, isolation and empty pleasure. But do not forget that even there there are young people who show creativity and even genius. That was the case with Venerable Carlo Acutis, ”the Pope wrote in 2018.
“Carlo was well aware that the entire apparatus of communication, advertising and social media can be used to put us to sleep, to make us addicted to consumerism and buying the latest on the market, obsessed with our free time, trapped in negativity. However, he knew how to use the new communication technology to transmit the Gospel, communicate values and beauty ”.
In his Angelus message, Pope Francis said that the Church today is called to reach out to the geographic and existential peripheries of humanity where people can find themselves on the hopeless margins.
The Pope urged people “not to rest in comfortable and routine ways of evangelization and witness to charity, but to open the doors of our hearts and our communities to all because the Gospel is not reserved for a select few.”
“Even the marginalized, even those who are rejected and despised by society, are considered by God worthy of his love,” he added.
The Lord “prepares his banquet for all: righteous and sinners, good and bad, intelligent and uneducated,” the Pope said, referring to chapter 22 of the Gospel of Matthew.
“The habit of mercy, which God offers us unceasingly, is a free gift of his love … And it needs to be received with amazement and joy,” said Francisco.
After praying the Angelus, the Pope prayed for the victims of the violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan, expressing his gratitude for the ceasefire reached.
Pope Francis also encouraged all laity, especially women, to exercise Christian leadership by virtue of their baptism.
“We must promote the integration of women in places where important decisions are made,” she said.
“Let us pray that, by virtue of baptism, the lay faithful, especially women, participate more in the institutions of responsibility in the Church, without falling into clericalisms that nullify the lay charism and also ruin the face of Holy Mother Church” .
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