The day much anticipated is finally here. The canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis which was temporarily suspended owing to the demise of Pope Francis is now slated to happen on 7th September, 2025 along with Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. His Holiness Pope Leo XIV would have the privilege of seeing it to fruition. Paving the way for the canonization was the healing of Valeria Valverde, a young Costa Rican woman who suffered a severe head injury in a 2022 bicycle accident. Post an emergency surgery, her mother prayed at Carlo Acutis’s tomb in Assisi, and Valeria began improving, recuperating completely against all medical odds, as confirmed by a CAT scan.
The recognition of Carlo Acutis as a saint is sure to be a milepost in the Church’s history as by his life he has proved that even in this day and age of technology, pursuing holiness is possible. The soon to be millennial saint whose brief yet poignant life had been cut short by a rare form of leukemia brought on a new perspective on life in Christ in a world of distractions. He has shown to the world that technology with its all pervasive influence when rightly used could prove to be a powerful tool for evangelization.
The charismatic life of Carlo Acutis
Born on 3rd May 1991 to wealthy parents Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano, Carlo lived at a time when the internet bloomed into a more widely used technology. This British born Italian programmer demonstrated a special love for God right from his formative years. His precocious hunger for Christ will continue to be a subject of interest to all particularly because his parents weren’t religious prior to his birth. His mum recollects having been to mass only for her first Communion, Confirmation and her wedding. So where did his faith come from? It was one of his nannies, a devout Catholic who had a deep devotion for the Blessed Sacrament. Her influence played a key role in sparking Carlo’s interest in matters relating to God. The unslakable yearning for God that blossomed in Carlo made him delve deep into the life of Christ, the saints and the Eucharistic presence of our Lord. Gradually the little boy grew to love God more and more and would urge his parents to take him for mass and even ask them to stop by whenever they passed a Church to say ‘hello’ to Jesus. His parents couldn’t ignore this burning curiosity and so gave it their all to help Carlo in his determine attempt to know more about God. The direct result was that his parents embraced the fullness of the Catholic faith. Although they were the first converts, they were not the only ones. A Hindu immigrant by the name Rajesh and the family’s hired assistant was impacted by the conversations they had in which Carlo spoke with impassioned eloquence about the Bible which he regarded as his compass and Jesus. They also had discussions on the life of Saints and the Sacraments. To Rajesh he said, “Virtues are acquired mainly through intense Sacramental life, and the Eucharist is certainly its apex; through the Sacraments, the Lord makes us whole in His image.” Eventually Rajesh asked to be baptized. He also received his Holy Communion and his Confirmation which Rajesh felt had further enhanced his zeal for the Eucharist.
Like every other boy of his age, Carlo Acutis had his share of hobbies which he actively pursued. He loved soccer, was a self-taught computer programmer who exhibited astounding proficiency in coding and animation. He loved gaming too but nonetheless saw the need to discipline himself by restricting his screen time to one hour per week.
His kindness and acts of charity
One of his nannies observed Carlo to be too kind and soft-spoken and was beginning to worry that he never berated bullying children nor set boundaries. But Carlo replied, “The Lord would not be pleased if I were to respond with violence.” When he was 4 years old his grandfather passed away. The following day Carlo asked his grandmother if he could go for mass. On being asked why, he said that his grandfather told him in his dream that he needed help as he was in purgatory. His tender heart could never refuse help to any soul in need. Carlo always showed great care to the poor, the disabled and the isolated. He loved animals too and owned four dogs.
A jobless man once recalled that every day he would receive a coin from him besides some kind words. There was another occasion when Carlo and his mother helped a destitute woman who was on the verge of perishing. They promptly hospitalized her and saved her life. His generosity had no bounds. Carlo would also use his personal money to buy sleeping bags for the poor. Whatever he had, whether a bike, clothing, or a new pair of shoes, he would give it away to the poor and at his funeral among the many who were in attendance were the beneficiaries of his hidden acts of charity.
On the subject of purity and temperance
Carlo believed that everybody had a dignity to be respected. He treated purity with immense earnestness and said that even love between a girl and boy must be experienced as a gift of God, within the design of His holiness and something that is to be lived in His presence. He asserted that as we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we have to treat our souls and bodies in high regard rather than submit to sinful pleasures that could trivialize love. He reprimanded his friends who bragged about viewing pornographic sites and called them dangerous for the soul.
To achieve temperance, Carlo gave up his favorite treats Nutella and Coca Cola regularly. He had huge admiration for cloistered nuns and often sought their prayers to help him overcome his weaknesses.
His tryst with the Eucharist and reverence for the Holy Mass
At the age of 7, Carlo Acutis received his first Holy Communion and from then on decided he would be with Jesus always and became a daily communicant. In those precious moments with Christ in the Holy Eucharist, he sought to abide in God’s love which he believed would help him love like Christ in his relationship with others. His mum later recollected his Eucharistic motto which served as his life’s goal, “To be always united with God, this is my life program.”
The participation in the Eucharistic celebration signified a lot to him as he believed that during mass he was besides Jesus at the foot of the cross with Mary and St John. During mass he would offer his heart with all its struggles with a belief that he would be healed, moulded and strengthened by the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Carlo would say, “when we are in communion with God, we are in love that’s catching. As we are loved by Him, we can, in this way, love the world.”
Carlo’s love of Mary
All saints have a particular fondness for our Lady and Blessed Carlo Acutis was no exception. Of the Virgin Mary he said, “She is the only woman in my life.” His steadfast love for the Mother of God found expression in his regular visits to Our Lady of Pompei where he consecrated himself several times to Our Lady of the Rosary. In this shrine, he received the grace from God through Mary of converting a woman who hadn’t received the Sacraments for 30 years. He prayed the rosary daily and called it “the shortest ladder to climb to heaven” and the most powerful weapon after the Eucharist to resist the devil. He also made pilgrimages to the other two Major Marian shrines of Lourdes and Fatima.
The core of his faith and creation of the Website
Carlo’s strong conviction that the Eucharist was his highway to heaven propelled him to attend mass daily and spend time in adoration before or after mass. He would go for confession weekly once. He stressed the importance of Sunday mass to those who were indifferent to it and made them resume the practice of attending mass every Sundays.
Fascinated by the Eucharistic miracles that occurred over the centuries, Carlo decided he would use the whole force of his intellect to make known to the world the real presence of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist. Thus the idea of creating a website to document Eucharistic miracles was conceived. It took close to 3 years to accomplish this task. He began documenting Church approved Eucharistic miracles backed by scientific evidence and historical documents. Besides, he catalogued Marian apparitions too. He would personally visit these sites, gather relevant information, capture photographs and add exhaustive accounts of the miracles to the website. This site www.miracolieucaristici.org still exists and has been translated into several languages. One particular miracle recorded in the website that moved Carlo was the miracle of Lanciano. Since 750, this village in Abruzzo had venerated a host which had miraculously transformed into flesh and blood. In 1970, the flesh was analysed by experts and it turned out that the flesh was the myocardial tissue and the blood which appeared fresh belonged to AB group. This further deepened his devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Acutis family consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Couple of days before his death, the website was published on the feast day of his favourite St. Francis of Assisi. One striking statement by Carlo recorded in his website was “the more often we receive the Eucharist, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on this earth we will have a foretaste of heaven.”
The Death of Carlo
When he was 15 years of age, Carlo was down with flu for a while. Later the diagnosis revealed he had acute promyelocytic leukemia, a severe form of blood cancer. He bore all the excruciating pain with composure and devotion offering his sufferings to the Lord, for the Church and the Pope. As his condition worsened, it caused cerebral hemorrhage and he slipped into coma. The previous day, on 10th October, 2006, Fr. Sandro Villa administered the anointing of the sick and on 12th October, 2006 he had gone to rest with our Lord whom he loved so dearly. Of Carlo Acutis, Fr Villa said, “In a small room, at the end of the corridor, I found myself in front of a boy. His pale but serene face surprised me — unthinkable in a seriously ill person, especially an adolescent.”
Dr. Andrea Biondi and Dr. Mòmcilo Jankovic, the treating doctors shared their memory of Carlo saying: “Carlo was like a meteor with a quick passage through our ward; leukemia took him away before we could get to know him even a little. However, his sweet eyes remain engrained [in our memories]. His gaze was full of attention … of courage, of love, of strong empathy.”
“His faith in God, which he had wanted and still wanted to pass on to others, to his neighbor, shone through him … His gentle eyes … taught us a lot: life, whether short or long must be lived intensely for oneself, but also and above all for others.”
