Last week, 26 young people from three Vincentian Schools, St. Paul’s Raheny, St. Mary’s Holy Faith Glasnevin and Holy Faith School Clontarf gathered in St. Peter’s church in Phibsborough, home of the Vincentian Family for a meeting to send them out to World Youth Day in Lisbon.

Fr. Eamon Devlin CM, St. Peter’s Parish Priest,introduced the meeting by speaking about St. Peter’s church and said that so far there is in the church a saint representing each century, since the foundation of the Vincentian Charism in 1617. He said that there was space for another saint and perhaps that saint would come from one of the young people present.

He spoke about Carlos Acutis, a young boy who like them was interested in football, the computer and found a way of meeting God in the Eucharistic presence both in reality and on line as he shared his faith with his friends. Having seen the need for a new way to transmit the faith to a younger generation Carlos Acutis applied himself to creating a website dedicated to cataloging each reported Eucharistic miracle in the world.

Following the Catholic Church’s recognition of a miracle in 2020, attributed to Acutis, Carlos Acutis was declared blessed. He is a great model for young people. Sr. Claire told the story of the Vincentian Family in Ireland using pictures from the 9 branches of the VF here and then introduced them to the VF office where they learned about the green and red scapulars, another gift to the Vincentian Family.

They proceeded then to meet as a group with Sr. Eibhlis who presented each of them with a pilgrim bag for their journey, reminding them that like Mary, they are bringing Jesus and going to receive Jesus at the International young Vincentian meeting and the World Youth day in Lisbon.

We wish them every blessing as they go.

Source: https://www.vincentianfamily.ie/