The cause for the beatification of Sister Clare Crockett will be opened on January 12, 2025. This Northern Ireland-born nun, who died at the age of 33, joins a list of young people who, in recent years, have been leading the way to Heaven for new generations.
Names such as Clare, Chiara Corbella, Pedro Ballester, Carlo Acutis, Chiara Badano or Marcelo Câmara inspire thousands of young people around the world. It is not their youth that makes them saints, but it is an important and attention-grabbing factor.
There are many of us young Catholics who sometimes find ourselves rowing alone. It is hard to keep the faith in a society that despises the values we want to love, in an environment where hypocrisy reigns even within the temples. It is difficult to live purity, detachment and trust in Providence.
However, we have the opportunity to stop for a moment and let the current go on while we look up, even for a second. And there we glimpse the blessed, unabashed youth of those who have gone before us and achieved victory.
Blessed was his youth, because for people like Carlo Acutis or Pedro Ballester this was not an impediment, but one more reason to draw strength and move forward in their effort to live the Christian virtues in a heroic way.
It would be absurd to think that they had it easier than us and, in spite of everything, they had the courage to open the way, demonstrating that being Catholic today is possible, also for us young people, who on Saturday are with our non-believing friends at a party and on Sunday with our friends from the parish at Mass. And that is healthy, that is our environment.
Blessed and unabashed youth, with its touch of craziness, that makes you think that you too can do something good and great. Something like getting married young, because you know that God wants your marriage even more than you do. Something like living apostolic celibacy and preparing yourself, like St. John, to reach Calvary.
Blessed are those young people with brazen hearts who happily shout that they are giving themselves to God. Because they can say what they want, but at the Vigil of the last World Youth Day in Lisbon more than a million young people spent the night before Christ.
As he said St. John Paul II In 1985, the future belongs to us, the young people. Ours is "the responsibility for what will one day become actuality". Blessed and unashamed youth who want to make that near future an actuality full of hope in Christ.
