Pope Francis urged people on Sunday to share two recent examples of everyday holiness. It was in the two incidents that people gathered together to help a suffering child and a dying young man.
“We are used to seeing and reading in the media so many bad things, bad news, accidents, murders… so many things. But today I would like to mention two beautiful things,” the Pope said at his weekly Angelus on 6 February.
He pointed to the recent news story of Rayan, a five-year-old boy who was stuck in a well in Morocco for four days. Rescue workers finally reached the boy on the evening of 5 February. They pulled him out to the cheers, but Rayan had died from the well itself.
Thousands of people had gathered at the scene as emergency personnel worked night and day to save Rayan in a treacherous rescue operation, the BBC reported. The hashtag #SaveRayan was trending on Twitter in some countries.
“In Morocco, how all the people gathered together to save Rayan. It was all the people there, working to save a child,” Pope Francis noted. “They put everything they had into it. Unfortunately, he did not make it.”
“Thank you to these people for this testimony,” the Holy Father said.
Another story Francis highlighted on Sunday was that of a young man who had migrated to Italy from his home in Ghana. This story “will not appear in the newspaper,” the Pope claimed.
While doing the jobs, he was affected by cancer and he knew that he is going to die. Then he wanted to meet his father who was in Ghana. The medical team and other supporting agencies sent him on a plane by giving him morphine. He reached his home and could die from his father’s arms.
The Holy Father said these two examples to say about the mercy and goodness of people. They are the saint next door and we should have shown this kind of kindness towards the needy. This is the only way to sainthood, reminded the Pope.