Simply Upwards

 Both Pier Giorgio and Carlo cultivated their love for God and for their brothers and sisters through simple acts, available to everyone: daily Mass, prayer, and especially Eucharistic Adoration.  Carlo used to say: “In front of the sun, you get a tan. In front of the Eucharist, you become a saint!”  And again: “Sadness is looking at yourself; happiness is looking at God.  Conversion is nothing more than shifting your gaze from below to above; a simple movement of the eyes is enough.”  Another essential practice for them was frequent Confession.  Carlo wrote: “The only thing we really have to fear is sin;” and he marveled because — in his own words — “people are so concerned with the beauty of their bodies and do not care about the beauty of their souls.” Finally, both had a great devotion to the saints and to the Virgin Mary, and they practiced charity generously.  Pier Giorgio said: “Around the poor and the sick, I see a light that we do not have” (Nicola Gori, Al prezzo della vita: L’Osservatore romano, 11 February 2021).  He called charity “the foundation of our religion” and, like Carlo, he practiced it above all through small, concrete gestures, often hidden, living what Pope Francis called “a holiness found in our next-door neighbors” (Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, 7).

Even when illness struck them and cut short their young lives, not even this stopped them nor prevented them from loving, offering themselves to God, blessing him and praying to him for themselves and for everyone.  One day Pier Giorgio said: “The day of my death will be the most beautiful day of my life” (Irene Funghi, I giovani assieme a Frassati: un compagno nei nostri cammini tortuosi: Avvenire, 2 agosto 2025).  In his last photo, which shows him climbing a mountain in the Val di Lanzo, with his face turned towards his goal, he wrote: “Upwards” (Ibid).  Moreover, Carlo, who was even younger than Pier Giorgio, loved to say that heaven has always been waiting for us, and that to love tomorrow is to give the best of our fruit today.

Dear friends, Saints Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis are an invitation to all of us, especially young people, not to squander our lives, but to direct them upwards and make them masterpieces.  They encourage us with their words: “Not I, but God,” as Carlo used to say. And Pier Giorgio: “If you have God at the center of all your actions, then you will reach the end.”  This is the simple but winning formula of their holiness.  It is also the type of witness we are called to follow, in order to enjoy life to the full and meet the Lord in the feast of heaven.

https://thedeaconsbench.com/pope-leos-homily-for-two-new-saints/