He wore Nike shoes, loved sports, and was tech-savvy. In many ways, Carlo Acutis was just a regular teenager.
But he was also exceptional. In fact, he is on his way to becoming the first millennial saint of the Catholic Church.
Carlo had a touch of genius in him. He began studying computer science textbooks when he was nine years old and taught himself computer programming and graphic design.
He was also unusually devout. Although his parents did not go to Mass at the time, he fell in love with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and encouraged his family to practice the Faith. He became a daily Mass goer and exemplified the love of Christ to everyone he encountered, whether they were his schoolmates, family members, homeless people, or others.
Shortly before his death, he created a website that cataloged Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions in order to share them with others. Carlo’s mother said, “Carlo was the light answer to the dark side of the web.” She added that some admirers have called him an “influencer for God.”
On his site, he told people: “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.”
Carlo died at the age of fifteen from acute promyelocytic leukemia. He had offered his sufferings for the pope and the Church. His body, which was exhumed for veneration this month, was displayed at a church in Assisi, Italy.
Exactly 14 years to the day after his death in 2006, crowds gathered in Assisi on October 12, 2020, for Carlo’s beatification ceremony. Huge video screens were placed throughout the town’s piazzas, displaying the ceremony along with images of Carlo as a church official read a letter from Pope Francis that declared him “blessed.”
Blessed Carlo spent much of his short life working to spread information about Eucharistic miracles. Joan Carroll Cruz’s Eucharistic Miracles recounts 36 such major Eucharistic miracles in Church history. She tells of Hosts which turned to visible flesh, bled, and levitated, consecrated “wine” which turned into visible blood, and more! Continue the work of Blessed Carlo by spreading devotion to the beautiful reality of the Eucharist with this powerful book! Available today at The Catholic Company!
