Before canonizing today's two new saints, Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925) and Carlo Acutis (1991-2006), Pope Leo XIV described this day as "a wonderful feast for all fo Italy, for the whole Church, for the whole world."
Any canonization is a great event for the Church. What event in the Church's life is more insoiring than the celebration of the triumph of God's grace demonstrated in the lives of our brothers and sisters, now saints? As the Church prays in the first Preface of the Saints, God is praised in the company of his saints and (citing Saint Augustine) in crowing the saints' merits, God crowns his own gifts.
The "merits" of today's two new saints speak specifically to the situation of our time and especially to the concerns of younger generations. A century ago, in an Italy which was losing its way in a fascist fantasy of pretended roman greatness, Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati (in Pope Leo's words) "encountered the Lord through school and church groups - Catholic Action, theConferences of Saint Vincent [de Paul], the FUCI (Italian Catholic University Federation), the Dominican Third Order. - and he bore witness to God with his joy of living and of being a Christian in prayer, friendship and charity. ... For him, faith was not a private devotion, but it was driven by the power of the Gospel and his membership in ecclesial associations." Likewise, at the turn of this century, Saint Carlo Acutis "grew up naturally integrating prayer, sport, study and charity into his days as a child and young man." What life stories of sanctity could be more apt in our contemporary world of loneliness and lost sociability and false and deceptive models of leadership!
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