When you walk into a Catholic Church, you’re bound to see a lot of gray hair. Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s something beautiful about that. These are often men and women who have been dedicated to their faith for decades and decades, for their entire lives. But that said, it would be nice to have a little more youth in the pews. To see young men and women sitting there, excited to live a life of faith. Too often, they’re not. And why is that? Well, many think that this God thing is for old people: “And yeah, maybe I’ll get around to it later, but right now, I’ve got other more important stuff to do.”
I mean, you can even look at six of those who are being canonized in October and find a bunch of people in their 50s, their 60s, their 70s, their 80s. They were doing a lot of this good saintly stuff later on in life. So just for a quick second you might think about what those kids are saying and say, “Ugh, they’re right.” Until, that is, you take a look at the last member of the canonization group. His name: Nunzio Sulprizio. And while those others had many years, plenty of time to practice and live out their holiness, Nunzio died when he was only 19. And in those 19 years, he packed in a lot of good stuff.
Now, that’s not to say that Nunzio did a whole bunch of giant remarkable things. To be honest, he really didn’t. But like the “Little Way” of St. Thérèse or Mother Teresa’s call to “Do small things with great love,” Nunzio lived incredible holiness in the small, normal ways that he could.
The truth is: he had a tough go of it. His parents died when he was really young and then he lived with an abusive uncle and he got gangrene and bone cancer and he was kind of a mess. But through it all, Nunzio held onto his faith and kept turning to God. He endured some big suffering with tranquility and grace. At home, he worked to the bone without complaining. In the hospital, this sickly young man served the other patients. He was doing simple things but through simple things, he was sharing an amazing amount of love with others. And he was doing all of that as a very young man.
Nunzio’s sickness got the better of him in this world but never stopped him from being an example of holiness for it. And as he’s canonized a saint on October 14th, I think that example is just what our world needs to see. A reminder that no matter what age a person is, they can live out intense holiness. That this God thing isn’t just for those with gray hair but is for anyone and everyone bold enough to live with great love, just like Nunzio.
