October 25,2020 - "Blessed Carlo Acutis"

If he were alive right now, Blessed Carlo Acutis would be twenty-nine years old.  But Carlo died when he was just fifteen years old.  Carlo was the oldest son of Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano, who were not particularly religious.  Although born in London, his family moved to Milan when he was about four months old.  He was a normal boy who was a natural jokester who enjoyed making his classmates and teachers laugh.  At the same time he defended disabled peers at school when bullies mocked them.  Outside of school he did voluntary work with the homeless and destitute. 
 
His parents and others around him noticed his skill and passion with computers and the internet.  Carlo developed a website that catalogued all of the reported Eucharistic miracles in the world.  He began to work on the catalog when he was eleven and completed it in just three years.  Carlo admired the initiatives of Blessed James Alberione to use the media to evangelize and to proclaim the Gospel.  He wanted to do the same thing with the website that he had created.  He also liked films and comic editing and used a PlayStation.  On his website he wrote:  “the more Eucharist we receive, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on this earth we will have a foretaste of heaven.”
 
He also loved playing soccer and video games.  He also had a sweet tooth.  He found it difficult to say no to ice cream and Nutella.  When he started to put on some weight, he stood that he needed to practice self-control and temperance.  He learned to do this by starting with the simple things.  On one occasion he remarked, “What’s the use of winning 1,000 battles if you can’t beat your own passions.”  When he was given a diary, he used it to track his progress.  He gave himself “good marks” if he behaved well and “bad marks” if he did not meet his expectations.  In his diary he wrote down the following:  “Sadness is looking at oneself, happiness is looking at God.  Conversion is nothing but a movement of the eyes.”
 
At the beginning of the school year in 2006, Carlo did not feel well.  It seemed like a normal flu, but when he didn’t get better, his parents took him to a hospital.  Shortly afterward he was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia—one of the worst types that you could get.  When Carlo heard the diagnosis, he offered his suffering both for Pope Benedict XVI and for the Universal Church.  Or as he put it, “I offer to the Lord the sufferings I will have to undergo for the Pope and for the Church, so as not to have to be in Purgatory and to be able to go directly to heaven.”  The doctors treating him toward the end of his life asked him if he was in great pain.  He responded that there were people who were suffering a lot more than he was.  He died on October 12, 2006.  He was buried in Assisi in accordance with his wishes. Carlo’s funeral was packed with many poor residents that he had helped.

The call for Carlo to be beatified began not long after his death.  On November 14, 2019, the Vatican’s Medical Council of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints expressed a positive opinion about a miracle in Brazil attributed to Carlo’s intercession.  A Brazilian mother had taken her son who was born with a pancreatic problem that made eating difficult to a prayer service.  Beforehand the mother had prayed a novena asking Carlo’s intercession for her son.  During the service her son simply asked that he should not “throw up as much.”  Immediately after the service the son told his mother that he felt healed.  He asked for solid food when he came home.  To that point in time her son could only tolerate an all-liquid diet.  After a detailed investigation, Pope Francis confirmed the authenticity of the miracle in February 2020, which led to his beatification.
 
Blessed Carlo Acutis, pray for us!
 
Until next week,
 
Fr. John