Carlo Acutis gathers in Rome the generation of Pope Francis to say goodbye

The Plaza de San Pedro was filled with color on the morning of this Sunday, April 27 with a large tide of teenagers from all over the world to participate in the Jubileo de La Esperanza.

In the surroundings of the Basilica of San Pedro, where just one day the Pope Francis’s funeralaround 200,000 young people remembered the life and example of Acutis, the future millennial saint that would have been canonized today.

“Nothing happens by chance,” said a group of teenagers to ACI Press by maintaining that the course of events is the result of providence.

In Via della Conciliation, A few minutes before the Mass presided by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, former Secretary of State of the Holy See, was perceived in the air a certain nostalgia for the absence of the Holy Father, but also a deep joy and hope for living a moment that is already part of the story.

The postponement of the Canonization of Carlo Acutis did not remove the mood for the “generation of Francisco”, but quite the opposite. Everyone agrees that, in some way, it was Carlo himself who brought them hand in hand to Rome to give the last goodbye to the Pope who managed to convert their hearts.

For Rodrigo Fontcuberta and Ana Sainz, two Spaniards who arrived in Rome from Madrid, having given the last goodbye to Pope Francis is a pride and also a gift. “We had scheduled to come to Rome for the canonization of Carlo Acutis, the death of the Pope has been a coincidence and we have been able to be at his funeral.”

“Acutis is the saint of change of change” who knew how to communicate faith through social networks. “He is the saint who we have lived with San Juan Pablo II. We came for his canonization and it is as if we had lived it,” Rodrigo says in conversation with Aci Press.

“Pope Francis sends us his hug from heaven”

The crowd broke into an emotional applause when Cardinal Parolin recalled in his homily to Pope Francis on this Sunday of mercy and second day of the novelty, the period of nine days of mourning for his death in which nine masses are celebrated for the rest of his soul.

In addition, on April 27, the 25th anniversary is celebrated since Pope San Juan Paul II declared the Fiesta de Domingo de la Misericordia.

“The pastor that the Lord donated to his people, Pope Francis, ended his earthly life and has left us. The pain of his departure, the sense of sadness that overwhelms us, the embarrassment we perceive in the heart, the feeling of loss, all this we are living, as the apostles undermine by the death of Jesus,” said the purple.

Cardinal Parolin also stressed that, these days of darkness, the Lord “appears before us with the light of the resurrection, to illuminate our hearts”, something that Pope Francis has remembered since his choice and “repeated frequently.”

“The Easter joy, which supports us at the time of the test and sadness, is something that today can almost be played in this square; we see it printed especially in your faces, dear boys and adolescents who have arrived from everyone to celebrate the jubilee,” he said.

The purple, which is part of the group of cardinals who will vote in the next conclave, encouraged adolescents to discover in Jesus the reason to live with courage, being generous and faithful and understand “what really has value in life: the love that understands everything and that awaits everything.”

In this Sunday of Mercy, the Cardinal remarked that the Lord “reminded us that ‘mercy’ is the very name of God and, therefore, no one can put a limit to his merciful love.”

He also invited the memory of Pope Francis not to be “as a simple emotion of the moment”, but must “host his inheritance and make life.”

“Pope Francis was a luminous witness of a church that leans tenderly to whom he is injured and healthy with the balm of mercy,” he added.

Finally, he assured adolescents gathered in the emblematic square where the entire world poses his gaze that “Pope Francis sends us his hug from heaven.”