Pope Francis has issued decrees advancing the Causes of two teenagers who heroically lived the Christian virtues.
At a meeting with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, the Pope signed a decree recognising the heroic virtues of Alexia González-Barros, who offered her sufferings from a malignant tumour for the Church.
González was born in Madrid in 1971. Her parents were members of Opus Dei and passed on their faith to their five children.
Several years later, her life dramatically changed when doctors discovered a tumour that gradually paralysed her. Throughout her illness, she offered her sufferings for the Church and the pope and would often pray, “Jesus, I want to feel better, I want to be healed; but if you do not want that, I want what you want.”
She died on December 5, 1985, aged 14.
Pope Francis also recognised the heroic virtues of Carlo Acutis, a teenager who used his computer skills to catalogue Eucharistic miracles around the world before his death at the age of 15 due to leukaemia.
According to the website of his canonisation process, Acutis placed the Eucharist “at the centre of his life and called it ‘my highway to heaven.’”
Before his death in 2006, Acutis offered his sufferings for Pope Benedict XVI and for the Church.
Full story at The Catholic Herald.
It seems these are two lovely young people who deserve canonization. As I am getting older and more aches and pains come, I look at what Carlo and Alexis went through at such a young age and my problems cannot compare.
May they, through the mercy of God, rest in peace, stripped of all pain and sadness..