June 2, 2024 - "Blessed Carlo Acutis"

Pope Francis has recognized the second miracle needed for the canonization of the church’s first millennial saint:  Blessed Carlo Acutis.  On May 23, 2024, Pope Francis met with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for Saints’ Causes.  During the course of their meeting, Pope Francis signed decrees advancing the sainthood causes of Blessed Carlo Acutis and several other individuals.  The same day the Vatican announced that the Holy Father had signed the decrees and that he would convene a set a date for the canonization of Blessed Carlo and Blesseds Giuseppe Allamano, Marie-Léonie Paradis, Elena Guerra, and eight Franciscan friars and three Maronite laymen who were martyred in Damascus, Syria in 1860.  Blessed Marie-Léonie Paradis was a Canadian religious sister who was stationed in New York and Indiana from 1862-74.
 
Blessed Carlo was born and baptized in London to Italian parents in 1991, but the family moved back to Milan, Italy, while he was still an infant.  After Blessed Carlo started high school, he began to design websites for his local parish and his Jesuit-run high school.  He also used his computer skills to create an online data base of Eucharistic miracles around the world. He also volunteered at a church-run soup kitchen, assisted children struggling with their homework, played the saxophone, soccer, and videogames.
 
“To always be close to Jesus, that’s my life plan,” he wrote when he was seven years old. He was devoted to Our Lady, praying the rosary, and to the Eucharist.  On one occasion Blessed Carlo wrote the following, “The Eucharist is the highway to heaven.” When people sit in the sun, they become tan, “but when they sit before Eucharistic Jesus, they become saints.”
 
When Blessed Carlo was only 15, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia and died on October 12, 2006.  Before he died, he said, “I’m happy to die because I’ve lived my life without wasting even a minute of it doing things that wouldn’t have pleased God.”
 
He expressed a desire to be buried in the city of St. Francis.  His remains were moved to the Shrine of the Renunciation at the Church of St. Mary Major in Assisi—a church entrusted to the Capuchin Franciscan friars—in 2019. He was buried wearing Nike sneakers, black jeans, and an athletic warmup jacket—clothes he was used to wearing every day.
 
The two miracles attributed to the intercession of Blessed Carlo involved miraculous recoveries for a young boy in Brazil in 2013 and a young woman in Florence in 2022.
 
The miracle recognized by Pope Francis on May 23 involved a young woman who was born in Costa Rica in 2001 and moved to Florence in 2018 to further her education. The woman fell off her bicycle on July 2, 2022 and suffered a severe head injury.  Even after emergency surgery removing part of her skull to reduce intracranial pressure, doctors warned her family that she could die at any moment.
 
An associate of the mother of the young woman began praying to Blessed Carlo on July 2, 2022.  The young woman’s mother went to Assisi and prayed at Blessed Carlo’s tomb on July 8, 2022—the same day the young woman began to breathe on her own again.  The young woman slowly regained her mobility, and a CT scan showed the hemorrhage was gone.  After a period of rehabilitation therapy and a complete recovery, she and her mother visited his tomb on September 2, 2022.
 
Pope Francis has urged young people to learn about Blessed Carlo--who did many good things despite his short life. On January 29, 2024, Pope Francis said the following about Blessed Carlo to a group of young Italians:
 
“Above all, he was impassioned by Jesus; and since he was very good at getting around on the internet, he used it in service of the Gospel, spreading love for prayer, the witness of faith and charity toward others.”
 
“Prayer, witness, and charity” were the hallmarks of Blessed Carlo’s life. Pope Francis told those listening to him that day that they should be a key part of the life of every Christian.
 
Until next week,
Fr. John