Blessed Carlo Acutis comes home for special Eucharistic Festival at Westminster Cathedral

Westminster Cathedral is hosting a Eucharistic Festival on Saturday 14 September. The seat of the Catholic Faith in London, and the Mother church of Catholics in England and Wales, is hosting the festival to coincide with the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

“The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, is an important day for the Church in England and Wales, for it’s the date of the Eucharistic Festival, ‘Adoremus 2024’, which is being held at Oscott, the seminary just outside Birmingham. We would all love to go and be part of it, but because of the size of the venue, numbers are very restricted,” explains Fr Alan Robinson on Westminster Cathedral’s website.

“The Cardinal has therefore asked that we have a Eucharistic Festival at Westminster cathedral on the afternoon of the same day, so we can all take part in this important moment.”

The festival at the cathedral will commence with the regular 12.30 p.m. Mass and will be followed by Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, the Rosary, and then a talk and blessing with the relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis.

“Bishop Nicholas Hudson will tell us of the beautiful example of Bl Carlo Acutis; a life totally focussed on his Eucharistic Lord, his ‘highway to Heaven’,” says Fr Robinson. “And at the end of his talk, he will bless us with a relic of the soon to be saint and friend of so many, young and old, around the world.” 

The use of a relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis for the cathedral’s Eucharistic Festival is particularly fitting, arguably, for two reasons.

Firstly, London is the city of Acutis’s birth. He was born there on 3 May 1991 to Italian parents, who then moved the family to Milan when Acutis was still a baby. Secondly, as he grew up, he became especially devoted to the Eucharist before his early death in 2006 from leukemia at the age of 15 years old.

Acutis has gained popularity as the “computer geek” saint, and will become the first so-called millennial to be made a saint, notes Vatican News.

The Eucharistic Festival will end with a procession around the cathedral and Benediction at 4.15 p.m.  

“One of the great joys of the Eucharist, is that wherever we might be, we are all gathered together and united with him, who calls us to himself from the altar of the church,” says Fr Robinson.

“Whether during the celebration of the Mass, or during Exposition and Benediction; whether we are in Birmingham, Liverpool Southwark, East Anglia, Portsmouth, the smallest chapel or the most magnificent cathedral like Westminster, we are all gathered together by our Eucharistic Lord.

“And not only with our brothers and sisters here on earth, but also with the whole company of heaven; all those who have gone before us and now see God face to face.

“In our Eucharistic Lord, those in heaven and those on earth are united, as we all come to kneel at the feet of him, who died for us and gives us on earth His life in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

“In Jesus, Our Lord and Our God, we are united with him and each other. Isn’t that a wonderful truth, and worth reminding ourselves of, each time we meet with Him on the altar of the church?”

RELATED: Stained glass window dedicated to Blessed Carlo Acutis creating a stir in English parish

Photo: Westminster Cathedral, London, England, UK, 26 February 2012. (Photo credit should read BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images.)

The post Blessed Carlo Acutis comes home for special Eucharistic Festival at Westminster Cathedral appeared first on Catholic Herald.