We’ve already seen Jesus riding waves, but now Brazil is about to get its first surfing saint.

Guido Schäffer, aged 34, died while surfing the Barra da Tijuca beach in Rio de Janeiro after damaging his neck and drowning shortly after. He was just a couple of weeks away from being ordained as a priest.

“To become a saint, you need to have not one but two miracles…”

The Vatican have given the go-ahead for a Brazilian surfer to begin the process which could lead to him becoming a saint.

“His story has increasingly inspired other young people to follow the path of holiness without stopping to enjoy the things of youth,” the Archdiocese told the International Business Times.

Schäffer has since been nicknamed the Surfing Angel, after the Archdiocese of Rio wrote to the Vatican asking for permission to proceed with the beatification of the Brazilian.

This basically means that a court has been set up to look into the surfer’s life and work out whether he lived “with sufficient holiness and virtue to be named a ‘servant of God'”.

Becoming a saint isn’t an easy task. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with the Holy See, you can then be called “venerable”. But to become a saint, you need to have not one but two miracles. We reckon surfing Rio without getting beaten up is a miracle in itself!

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