5 Saints who can be great influencers for today’s youth
What if young people looked to the saints as their examples, instead of social media influencers?
Here are 5 saints that can influence our today’s youths positively.
- Saint John Bosco
Speaking of followers, St. John Bosco had many, for he is the greatest influencer of “life understood as a feast, and faith as happiness.”
Who doesn’t share the feelings of St. John Bosco regarding the people we love? “My greatest satisfaction is to see you happy,” he used to say.
- Dominic Savio. in spite of his young age, is also an influencer of finding great joy in small things. He emphatically declared: “I’d rather die than sin!” This may sound a bit dramatic, but we can teach our children to apply his attitude to everyday situations: “I would rather share my toy than fight with my brother,” for example, or “I would rather be good to others than seek my own desires.”
I very much like to remember the first time that Dominic met Don Bosco and said to him, “Help me to be a saint!” What could be cooler than an influencer asking another influencer to help him become a saint?
St. Dominic Savio always sought to be the best version of himself. No doubt a desire for happiness was present in this child’s life from a very young age, and it went hand-in-hand with his search for sanctity. May our young people not bury that same desire!
- Pier Giorgio Frassati
In the city of Turin, a few years after Don Bosco’s death, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati was born. He was clearly one of those influencers in our midst. He was a young, joyful saint of our times, an engineer, a sportsman, and a lover of nature. He teaches us even today that holiness goes with happiness, and that it’s possible to find them in both the little ordinary things and the sublimity of a mountain peak.
- Tarcisius. He was engraved in my memory. Because of his great love and veneration of the Holy Eucharist, when he was caught by Romans while he was transporting the Eucharist, he was stoned to death rather than surrender what he was carrying and allow the Blessed Sacrament to be subjected to desecration.
Reading his life, I began to understand that the Eucharist had to be something very special for a child like me to give his life to protect it. At that time, I also began to understand the importance of savoring, learning about, and contemplating the lives of the saints.
- Philip Neri. He always sought happiness, and who after his conversion could not but try to give to others something of what he himself had received. I’m not referring not only to his inheritance—but that applies too, because he decided to leave his wealth behind. That’s something worthy of a real influencer!
This saint didn’t renounce everything for likes, but for Paradise. He captivated the hearts and minds of children and adults alike by bringing a message of joy and self-giving to others.
