IFTTT Autopost 
Matteo Farina was born on September 19, 1990 in Avellino, Italy and grew up in Brindisi. He was the second of two children of a bank clerk father, and a housewife mother. Throughout his life, he was very close to his sister Erika.
Like his father, Matteo developed a love of music. In fact, he was able to play several musical instruments, and as a teenager, he and some of his friends started a band called “No Name.” His friends would often call him “the moralizer,” for he frequently talked about religious things and sought to keep peace where he found conflict.
Matteo also loved chemistry and thought that when it was time to go to university, he might major in environmental engineering. In school, he was also enchanted with information technology.
Though Matteo loved music, technology, and science, his primary love was his religious faith and spirituality. He was especially attracted to saints and persons in the process of becoming saints who were closer to his age. For example, he loved the writings of the French Discalced Carmelite, Therese of Lisieux, also known as “The Little Flower,” who died when she was only 24. Likewise, he was attracted to the life of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, champion of Catholic social action and patron of World Youth Day, who also died at the age of 24. Likewise, he was intrigued by St. Gemma Galgani, an Italian mystic who died at the age of 25.
But Matteo loved two other saints who were not so young when they died: St. Francis of Assisi and St. Pio of Pietrelcina, more commonly known throughout the world as “Padre Pio.” In fact, when he was nine, Matteo had a dream in which Padre Pio visited him and told him the secret of evangelizing. This “secret” was to make others happy or, more accurately, to bring joy. According to Matteo, Padre Pio told him, “If you managed to understand that who is without sin is happy, then you have to teach it to others, so that we can go all together happily in the heavenly kingdom.” Matteo wanted to do that by infiltrating young people’s lives like a virus and infecting them with an incurable illness: Love. That is what he saw as his vocation.
Matteo described his mission in this way: “My God, I have two hands, let one of them to be always clasped to you in order to hold you closer in every trial. And let the other hand fall throughout the world if this is your will…as I know you by others, so let others know you through me. I want to be a mirror, the clearest possible, and if this is your will, I want to reflect your light in the heart of every man. Thanks for life. Thanks for faith. Thanks for love. I’m yours.”
Matteo read the Scriptures every day and prayed a rosary, confessed each week, and went to Mass. He also had a passion for foreign missions and used his savings to send for the poor in the African nation of Mozambique.
When he was 13, however, he began experiencing headaches and vision problems. A brain biopsy showed he had brain cancer. For the next six years, Matteo was treated for the cancer. During this time, he remained cheerful and positive in his outlook. In 2007, he started dating a young woman named Serena whom he described as “the most beautiful gift the Lord could give.” They were together until his death at the age of 18.
Matteo died on April 24, 2009. He was declared Venerable in May of 2020.
