To the Band of Brothers: October 13, 2020
Good morning!
I have some great news. We have a new Blessed in the Church who is now one step closer to being canonized a saint. On Saturday, October 10, the Catholic Church celebrated the mass of beatification of Carlo Acutis in Assisi, Italy.
Now, I know there are thousands of saints out there, many of whose stories you know and others you don’t. What is so special about this saint is that he happens to be the first one who loved playing Super Mario Brothers and Pokémon on his Play Station.
You read it correctly. Blessed Carlo Acutis was an avid gamer, computer programmer, and soccer enthusiast. The young man was passionate about his faith. He had a very strong devotion to the Eucharist often saying, “it is my highway to heaven.” He designed a webpage that promulgated the many Eucharistic miracles around the world. It was he who motivated his parents to practice their Catholic faith and would often drag them to Church on Sundays. He died in 2006 of Leukemia when he was 15 years old.
We have devotions to saints who lived so long ago. Our only access to them is through the stories we read and the paintings that capture their images. In Blessed Carlo Acutis, we have a future saint who walked the earth just a few years ago. His image is not captured simply in paint but in photographs and film. He attended the Jesuit school in Milan, wore Nike shoes, and oftentimes hiked with his friends wearing a backpack and sunglasses.
He did all these things as a young man committed to living like a saint. Not to live holiness many years in the future after having sowed his wild oats, not after entering the seminary and being ordained a priest, and not as an oddball with few options in life who turns to God as a measure of safety. No, this young man knew there was no conflict with being young, energetic, and savvy with being holy.
What a powerful message for you guys. To love Jesus, to pray the rosary, to go to mass, to live morally, are not things for the future. These are things you are called to live now. This is the vocation of the Christian and it is ours to be lived now, not some time in the near or distant future. Blessed Carlo Acutis is a testament to the fact that being a saint is possible. His life challenges any excuses we can possibly give.
As soon as you can, take the opportunity to research his life. Check out YouTube videos, read some articles, and learn about the one they are referring to as “the patron saint of the Internet.” You will see how ordinary people like us can truly live pretty extraordinary lives.
Auspice Maria
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.