Two New Saints for the Church

Today in Rome, Pope Leo XIV will declare that the Church has two new saints - St Pier Giorgio and St Carlo Acutis. It's been a long wait for those who love Pier Giorgio - 100 years!! Somewhat less for Carlo - 19 years. But, these two young men have much in common, more than just being young and Italian.

Both these two young saints show us holiness to an extraordinary degree but, because of who they were and the lives they led, they inspire us to greatness. 

St Pier Giorgio's favourite saying "Verso L'Alto", which is English means "To the Heights" is what both of them want to do for us, namely, to lead us to the heights of heaven.

St Pier Giorgio and St Carlo, pray for us.

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Music by Samuel F. Johannson and by Tomomi Kato from Pixabay

Transcript

Speaker 00: 0:23

Hello on this most important Sunday. Now why do I say that? Well, later on our time in Australia, 6pm tonight actually, but at 10am Rome time, the canonisation Mass for Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis will take place. Pier Giorgio is the older of the two and it is a hundred years this year since he died in his hometown of Torino or Turin in Italy. He was born in 1901, died in 1925 at the age of 24. And St. Pier Giorgio came from a prestigious and wealthy family. His mother Adelaide was a well-known painter and his father Alfredo was a politician, Senator for the Italian kingdom and also was made the Italian ambassador to Berlin. He also managed and owned the influential Italian newspaper La Stampa, which is still going today, although it has passed out of the Frassati family possession. Carlo Acutis was born at the other end of the 20th century, 90 years after Pier Giorgio, on the 3rd of May 1991. He was born in London, but he is Italian. His parents were there working in London when he was born. And Carlo became known for his deep devotion to God and his ability to inspire others, even at a young age. Despite his parents not practising the faith, Carlo's faith began to grow. As a child he would pray before the cross, say his daily rosary and attend Mass and Eucharistic adoration, where his reverence for the Eucharist deepened. But there's more that unites these two amazing young saints than simply being both young and Italian. I first met Pier Giorgio Frassati, met in inverted commas, in 2008 when his body came to Sydney for World Youth Day. And I was amazed, first of all, at the photographs and pictures of him. He seemed not only a handsome young man, but bright and cheerful, always smiling. The reason why his body came to Sydney is that his body is incorrupt. When his coffin was exhumed from the ground in the cemetery in Polone, 60 years after his death in 1985, as is always required when a cause for canonization is well underway, And it's done so that there can be verification that it is the body of the one who could be a saint. When the lid was taken off the coffin, his sister, his only sibling, Luciana, remarked that he looked exactly the same as he had done on the day of his death 60 years earlier. She also remarked humorously that his eyebrows were still as bushy as ever. And she rolled up one of the trouser legs of the suit he was wearing and she said that his muscles looked as if he had just come off the mountains climbing, which was one of his favourite activities. When I met Pier Giorgio at that time, I fell in love with him straight away because he is such an engaging young man and so holy. And he did the same to his contemporaries, which I'll come to in a little while. I first met Carlo probably in around about 2013 or 2014 when his cause for beatification began and was well underway. And what impressed me about him, seeing the photographs of him, was again, like Pier Giorgio, how cheerful he seemed. And of course, as it is said, he is the first saint of this millennium that has grown up in this millennium, in this third millennium. So let me tell you now what they have in common. Well, first of all, they both had a great devotion and love for the Blessed Sacrament and for Holy Mass. When Pier Giorgio was at school around about the age of 12, he asked permission if he could receive Holy Communion every day, which was very different from the practice at that time. Pier Giorgio says that he never saw his mother receive Holy Communion, and his father did not go to Mass, although they were Catholic, but they were like many Catholics of their time. He pressed and insisted, and his mother gave the permission. And so Pier Giorgio would go to Mass every day and receive Holy Communion. And he urged his friends to approach Holy Communion frequently because he said, there you will draw strength to fight inner struggles. Carlo asked when he was seven years old, before the usual age of receiving Holy Communion, if he could make his first Holy Communion. And then he too received Holy Communion every day, making this wonderful and simple prayer, which I think we could all use. Jesus, come right in and make yourself at home. And Carlo called the Eucharist his highway to heaven. So both of these two new saints didn't settle just for Mass on Sunday. They went to daily Mass. And Pier Giorgio's example brought his friends to daily Mass, and the example of Carlo brought his parents back to the faith and attendance at Mass. linked closely with Mass and Holy Communion is regular confession, as we all know. And Pier Giorgio went to confession regularly, and his confessor admitted after he had died in the depositions for his cause for canonization that Pier Giorgio never lost the grace of baptism. In other words, he never committed a mortal sin. And Carlo, even though he was only a boy, he also chose a priest to be his spiritual director, the same priest his mother did. And he would travel regularly the couple of hours from Milan to Bologna for monthly spiritual direction. And he would go to confession every week. Now, I don't think you'll be surprised, but the next thing that they share in common is a love for Eucharistic adoration. Carlo likened being in the Eucharistic presence of the Lord like going into the sun to get a sun tan. He wrote, if we go in front of Jesus in the Eucharist, we become saints. Pier Giorgio went to adoration frequently, and sometimes he would do it all night. and he would coax his friends to come with him. Pier Giorgio was a very good athlete, not only a skier, a mountain climber, a cross-country skier, but he was fairly good at other pursuits too. And often he would have a bet with his friends when they played billiards in the evening, and he would say that if they won, he would pay the money that was the bet. But if he won, they would have to come along with him to Eucharistic Adoration. And he usually won. And they went with him. Mostly his friends would fall asleep because he was coming into the night time. And probably they should have been in bed. but he remained awake. And once he was seen in such deep contemplation before the Blessed Sacrament that he didn't feel candle wax falling onto his hands. And they both had immense devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pier Giorgio would say the rosary every day. Once during the month of May, he decided to make a gift to our Blessed Mother of as many rosaries as he could say in the month of May. And in that particular month he said 120 of them. So that's about three or four a day. And once one of his friends saw him walking down the street and carrying his rosary beads in his hand. And his acquaintance said to him, had he become fanatical about religion? And Pier Giorgio replied that, no, he'd merely remained Catholic. Carlo also had a love for the rosary. He called Our Lady the only woman in his life, and the rosary each day was the most precious appointment that he kept with her. And Carlo would ask his parents to take him to various shrines of Our Lady around Europe, to Pompeii, Lourdes and Fatima. Now surprisingly, although they were living in different times, different ends of the 20th century and Carlo into the 21st, they both had an exceptional understanding of charity, love of the poor and the disadvantaged. And they showed this, both of them, from an early age. Pier Giorgio often spoke that when he was in his late teens and early twenties as he would go to the slums of Turin to do his work for the St. Vincent de Paul Society visiting the poor families who worked in the factories of Turin. He would say that he saw a special light around the poor and his motive for going to see them was that Jesus came to him every day in Holy Communion, and he in turn visited Jesus present in the poor. At his funeral, his parents were surprised to see hundreds of the poor present at his funeral. The streets around the church, the parish church called La Consolata, sorry, not La Consolata, La Crocetta, just across the road from their family home. It was packed with people, and they couldn't get through. So they had to go out the front of the door of the house, carrying his coffin, and go around behind the church, and then come back and enter from the street at the other end. It's said that by the time Pier Giorgio was 21, he was supporting over 120 families in the slums of Turin from his own money. Carlo perhaps didn't live long enough to do something like that but he was always naturally friendly and he made friends with janitors, migrants and domestic workers around the area where the family lived in Milano. From his own savings he would purchase sleeping bags for the homeless and he organised fundraising efforts for the poor. And he was especially friendly to the beggars around his parish church. The other thing that brings them together and they share in common is their death. Both of them died very young, Carlo at the age of 15 and Pier Giorgio at the age of 24. Pier Giorgio contracted poliomyelitis, a viral disease, which most likely he caught from the slums of Torino. And his death came quickly, within a week. It was a painful death because it was a gradual paralysis of the body. until the paralysis affected the internal organs and the heart. He was in great pain and the pain progressed over the week. But only in the last two to three days did his family know that there was anything seriously wrong with him. They were somewhat preoccupied with the declining health of his grandmother and her death before him, three days before him. But Pier Giorgio wouldn't say anything. He suffered cheerfully and in silence. Carlo died on October 12, 2006, Pier Giorgio on July 4, 1925. Carlo had contracted leukaemia, the symptoms of which were only visible in the last days of his life. He also endured his sufferings, which were many hemorrhages and also a swelling of his glands d istorted his features but He endured it with his usual cheerfulness and quietness and made no fuss. And he died with a smile on his face. The world will look upon these two young men, I will call them, and they will be moved by the fact that they died young. And they would say that it was two lives unfulfilled or even wasted. But we look at it differently, don't we? We see in them two examples of holiness. And we see the fact that their holiness shone out. One of the things I find interesting about both of them is that they didn't think that they were special. They didn't see themselves as holy. In fact, Pier Giorgio, in the early days of the week that he was dying, said to a religious sister who came to see him, who had been like a teacher when he and his sister were young in their homeschooling, and Pier Giorgio said to her, Do you think I'll get to heaven? And the sister assured him he would. Carlo did not also presume on his own sanctity. He also was wondering about whether he could make it to heaven. And we know that because his mother wrote that he came to know San Francisco Marto, one of the three Fatima children, and when he heard that Our Lady said that Francisco would get to heaven but he had to say many rosaries, he remarked that if Francisco was so kind and simple but had to say so many rosaries to get to heaven, He said, how could I ever earn it, since in comparison I am less saintly? It's interesting too, isn't it, that although it's a hundred years since Pier Giorgio died, and 19 years since Carlo died, we still remember them. And many people who lived three times longer than Pier Giorgio we have forgotten about. But the witness of the lives of these two young saints resonates so powerfully with us. And they are great examples and mentors for young people, most particularly for young men. Inside both of them, was a fertile terrain that was ready to welcome divine grace and the urges of the Holy Spirit. All of us have that, but these two young men had it to an exceptional level, and they made it to heaven, even though they weren't sure they would. So let us pray to these two young saints. Let us ask that they inspire us with all the virtues that they had through the grace of God and their cooperation with it. And the last thing I'll say is Pier Giorgio said to his friends, they were his university friends, said to them that the first one of us to get to heaven has to pull the others up, using that mountain climbing imagery. So let us pray that Pier Giorgio and Carlo would pull us up to heaven. Saint Pier Giorgio and Saint Carlo, pray for us.