MANCHESTER, England (OSV News) ─ The example of Blessed Carlo Acutis -- an Italian boy who is expected to become the "first millennial saint" -- reveals how a commitment to the love of Christ results in a fulfilled rather than a wasted life, an English bishop said.
A relic of a section of pericardium, a protective sac which encompasses the heart, was taken to Manchester for veneration between Sept. 20-23, drawing at least 5,000 pilgrims in four days of prayer and an all-night vigil.
In a homily preached in the presence of a relic of the heart of Blessed Acutis, Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury lamented how young people were being misled into believing that lives of vocational commitment impoverished them.
"This young man 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," said Bishop Davies during a Sept. 21 Mass at St. Anthony's Church in Wythenshawe in Manchester.
"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.
It was "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," the bishop continued. "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."
"Yet not a few young people are told diabolically today that a life so given for the love of Christ is a wasted life," he said. "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.'
"Yet, we know, a human life is only wasted and lost insofar as we fail to discover the Love for which we were made."
Blessed Acutis was born in London in 1991 and moved to Italy with his parents when he was 3 months old.
He was known for his devotion to Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions, which he cataloged on a website he designed, earning him the nickname "God's influencer."
Carlo developed untreatable leukemia and died in Monza, Italy, in 2006 at age 15.
Bishop Davies quoted Pope Benedict XVI from "Deus Caritas Est," the 2005 encyclical and declared that "whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man."
"Humanity cannot live without love, divine love," said Bishop Davies. "This led Pope Francis to reflect that 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."
He added that "our lives are truly wasted if you and I fail to strive for this same goal in the time that has been given us."
Carlo was beatified in 2020 after the inexplicable healing of a Brazilian child was attributed to his intercession.
A second approved miracle prompted Pope Francis to approve the canonization of Blessed Acutis during the jubilee year of 2025. A date for the event has yet to be announced.
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Simon Caldwell writes for OSV News from Liverpool, England.
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