Hajja Salesjana January-March 2021

22 H AJJA S ALESJANA Top photo of Matteo Farina. (MatteoFarina.com) “Last May 2020, on the 6th of the month, Pope Francis advanced the sainthood causes of five men and women, including an Italian teenager who died of a brain tumor in 2009, declaring them “venerable.” Matteo Farina lived from 1990 to 2009. He grew up in a strong Christian family in the southern Italian town of Brindisi. He was very close to his sister, Erika. The parish where he received the sacraments was under the care of the Capuchin friars, from whom he gained a devotion to St. Francis and St. Padre Pio. The postulator of Farina’s cause for sainthood said that from a young age Farina had the desire to learn new things, always undertaking his activities with diligence, whether it was school or sports or his passion for music. Starting at eight years old, he would receive the sacrament of reconciliation often. He was also devoted to the Word of God. At nine years old, he read the entire Gospel of St. Matthew as a Lenten practice. Farina also prayed the rosary every day. When he was nine years old, he had a dream in which he heard St. Padre Pio tell him that if he understood that he “who is without sin, is happy,” he must then help others to understand this too “so that we can all go together happily to the kingdom of Heaven.” From that point onwards, Farina felt a strong desire to evangelize, especially among his peers, which he did politely and without any presumption whatsoever. He once wrote about this desire, saying “I hope to succeed in my mission to ‘infiltrate’ among young people, speaking to them about God (illuminated by God himself); I observe those around me, to enter among them as silent as a virus and infect them with an incurable disease, Love!” In September 2003, a month before his 13th birthday, Farina began to have symptoms of what would later be diagnosed as a brain tumor. As he was undergoing medical tests, he began to keep a journal. He called the experience of the bad headaches and pain “one Another young dazzling beacon of Christ’s Light … Matteo Farina by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA)