Homily of Pope Leo XIV at the Canonization Mass of Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis

Next, the homily of Pope Leo XIV at the Canonization Mass of Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis, held this Sunday, September 7 in the Plaza de San Pedro del Vaticano.

Dear brothers and sisters:

In the first reading we have heard a question: “(Lord,) And who would have known your will if you would not have given wisdom and sent from the top your Holy Spirit?” (Sab 9,17). We have heard it after two young blessed, Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis, were proclaimed Santos, and that is providential. In the book of wisdom, this question is attributed precisely to a young man like them: King Solomon. When David died, his father, he realized that he had many things: power, wealth, health, youth, beauty, the kingdom. But this great abundance of media had made a question arise in his heart: “What should I do so that nothing is lost?”

And he had understood that the only way to find an answer was to ask God for an even greater gift: his wisdom, to be able to know their projects and adhere to them faithfully. He realized, in effect, that thus all things would find his place in the great design of the Lord. Yes, because the greatest risk of life is to miss it outside God’s project.

Jesus also, in the Gospel, tells us about a project to adhere to the end. He says: “He who does not charge with his cross and follows me, cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14,27); And he adds: “Any of you who does not give up everything you have, cannot be my disciple” (v. 33). That is, we call us to launch without hesitation of the adventure he proposes, with the intelligence and strength that come from his spirit and that we can host to the extent that we strip ourselves of ourselves, of things and the ideas to which we are attached, to put ourselves to listen to his word.

Many young people, over the centuries, had to face this decisive moment of life. Let’s think of San Francisco de Asís: as Solomon, he was also young and rich, and he was thirsty for glory and fame. That is why he left for war, hoping to be named “Knight” and covering up. But Jesus appeared to him on the way and made him reflect on what he was doing. I returned in itself, he directed a simple question to God: “Lord, what do you want me to do?” Beautiful from his father.

And how many other saints and holy could we remember! Sometimes we represent them as great characters, forgetting that for them it all started when, still young people, they responded “yes” to God and gave themselves fully, without keeping anything for themselves. In this regard, San Agustín says that, in the “tortuos and very hard -to -tortuous knot” of his life, a voice, deeply, he said: “I only want you.” And, in that way, God gave him a new direction, a new path, a new logic, where nothing of his existence was lost.

In this context, we contemplate today to San Pier Giorgio Frassati and San Carlo Acutis: a young man of the early twentieth century and a teenager of our day, both in love with Jesus and willing to give everything for him.

Pier Giorgio found the Lord through school and ecclesial groups – the Catholic Action, the conferences of San Vicente de Paúl, the FUCI (Italian Catholic University Federation), the third order of Santo Domingo – and gave testimony of it through its joy of living and being a Christian in prayer, in friendship and charity. To the point that, by force of seeing him to travel the streets of Turin with carts full of help for the poor, his friends called him “Transporta Felsati.” Also today, Pier Giorgio’s life represents a light for lay spirituality. For him faith was not a private devotion; Promoted by the force of the Gospel and belonging to ecclesial associations, he generously pledged in society, gave his contribution in political life, he worried ardent at the service of the poor.

Carlo, on the other hand, found Jesus in his family, thanks to his parents, Andrés and Antonia – present here with his two brothers, Francesca and Michele – and then at school, also he, and especially in the sacraments, held in the parish community. In this way, he grew naturally in his days as a child and adolescent prayer, sport, study and charity.

Both, Pier Giorgio and Carlo, cultivated the love of God and the brothers through simple means, within everyone’s reach: the Holy Daily Mass, prayer, and especially Eucharistic Adoration. Carlo said: “When we get in front of the sun, we tan. When we get before Jesus in the Eucharist, we become saints,” and also: “Sadness is to look at oneself, happiness is to direct the gaze towards God. Conversion is nothing other than diverting the look from below to the top.

A simple eye movement is enough. “Another essential thing for them was the frequent confession. Carlo wrote:” The only thing we should really fear is sin “; and marveled because” they are their words – “men care a lot about the beauty of the body itself and do not worry, instead, for the beauty of their own soul.” Both, in addition, had a great devotion to the saints and by the Virgin Mary, He said: “Around the poor and the sick I see a light that we do not have.”

Even when the disease afflicted them and this was deteriorating their young lives, not even that stopped them or prevented them from loving themselves to God, blessing it and asking for them and for everyone. One day Pier Giorgio said: “The day of my death will be the most beautiful day of my life”; (4) and in his last photo, which portrays him while climbing a mountain of Val Di Lanzo, with his face aimed at the goal, he had written: “Towards the top.” (5) On the other hand, to Carlo, being even younger, he liked to say that heaven always awaits us, and that loving tomorrow is to give our best fruit today.

Dear friends, the saints Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis are an invitation for all of us, especially for young people, not to waste life, but to guide it high and make it a masterpiece. They encourage us with their words: “No me, but God,” Carlo said. And Pier Giorgio: “If you have God as the center of all your actions, then you will reach the end.” This is the formula, simple but safe, of its holiness. And it is also the testimony that we are called to imitate to enjoy life to the fullest and go to meet the Lord at the feast of heaven.