Road to grow to be an actual modern-day saint as 15-year-old leukaemia sufferer canonised
Everyone gets called a saint from time to time, but most of us aren’t actually one.
Being a saint is in fact a formal thing, and although the term is bandied around all the time it is almost always a misuse. Today (May 24) Pope Francis declared Carlo Acutis, a 15-year-old boy referred to as ‘God’s Influencer,’ who died of leukaemia in 2006, the first saint of the millennial generation.
So what is being a saint and what do you have to do to become one?
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Well, the first thing you need to do is die, because the granting of sainthood is the formal recognition from the Roman Catholic Church that that the saint has made it to heaven. This is part of a process called canonisation first started in 1234, and once it has been completed worshippers are able to pray to them.
(Image: Catholic Press Photo)
Carrying on your mission to become a saint, once you have died you had better have hoped you lived a virtuous and heroic life, closely following the word of God and the teachings of the church. During your life you will also need to have performed miracles and failing that you will need to either be martyred or perform miracles after you have died.
The Roman Catholic Church says that only God can perform a miracle, which tends to centre around people being healed of ills inexplicably, but that saints in heaven with God will work to help people who pray for them.
Once you have died, performed miracles and lived a life clearly according to the teachings of the church, you will need to wait five years, the standard procedure in the canonisation process.
(Image: Tim Graham/Getty Images)
You can skip this if the Pope says so – as was the case with Mother Theresa who was entered into the process just two years after her death.
These are fundamental tenets of becoming a saint, but there is a formal process that takes place to make things official. Read on to find out the steps.
Being proven a servant of God
This is done by a request being sent to a tribunal at the Vatican, explaining how you lived your life in a manner of holiness, pureness and devotion. Hit these criteria and you’re officially regarded as a servant of God.
Being recognised as heroically virtuous
(Image: Carloacutis.com)
The tribunal report then gets sent to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints at the Vatican. This congregation is filled with senior religious figures, who study the person’s life and work to make sure everything lines up with the teachings of the church, exhibiting the seven virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope and charity
Checked for miracles and beautification
If you were martyred, then you can be referred to as Blessed, a locally recognised sainthood, and that is that. If not then you must be verified as having performed a miracle after death.
You must have also exhibited the performance of a miracle during your life, doing things like being able to float on water or appear in two places at the same time. Posthumous miracles may include having a sweet-smelling corpse or one that does not decay.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Getting canonised
One more posthumous miracle needs to be performed, and then a formal papal decree canonises you, confirming you are now with God. Once the Pope makes a declaration of this, you have now become a saint and people can pray to you, churches can be named after you are added to a catalogue of all the saints recognised by the church.
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