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A member of the Millennial generation, Carlo Acutis, 15, will be beatified in Assisi on Saturday. A short biography recounts how his passion for the Eucharist and his knowledge of the Internet have left us a tangible connection with him.
By Angela Mengis Palleck
He was only 15 years old when he died in a hospital in Monza, Italy, in 2006, offering all his sufferings for the Church and for the Pope.
Carlo Acutis, will be beatified on Saturday in Assisi. He was a normal, handsome and popular boy. A natural joker who enjoyed making his classmates and teachers laugh.
He loved to play soccer, video games and had a sweet tooth. Carlo couldn’t say “no” to Nutella or ice cream. The weight gain made him understand the need for self-control. It was one of the many struggles Carlo had to overcome: learning to master the art of self-control, to master the virtue of temperance, starting with the simple things. He used to say, “What is the use of winning 1000 battles if you cannot conquer your own passions?”
“Be original and not photocopies”
Carlo’s motto reflects the life of a normal teenager who strived to be the best version of himself, living the ordinary in an extraordinary way. He used his early savings to buy a sleeping bag for a homeless man he often saw on the way to mass. He could have bought another video game for his game console collection. He loved to play video games. Instead, he chose to be generous. This was not an isolated case. His funeral was packed with many of the city’s poor residents that Carlo had helped, proving that the generosity he had given the homeless man on his way to Mass had also been offered to many other people.
When she was given a journal, she decided to use it to track her progress: “good grades” if she behaved well and “bad grades” if she didn’t meet her expectations. Here’s how your progress followed. In that same notebook he noted: “Sadness is looking at oneself, happiness is looking at God. Conversion is nothing more than a movement of the eyes ”.
Natural joker
He was a “natural joker,” as his mother, Antonia Salzano, once remarked in an interview. His classmates laughed at his comments, as did the teachers. Realizing that he could annoy and upset others, he also made an effort to change in that regard. Making life pleasant for those around him through small acts was a constant in his life. He didn’t like the cleaning staff picking up after him, even if they got paid for it. So he set the alarm a few minutes earlier to tidy up his room and make the bed. Raejsh, a Hindu who cleaned in Carlo’s house, was impressed that someone “so handsome, young and rich” decided to lead a simple life. “He captivated me with his deep faith, charity and purity,” he said. Through the example of Carlo, Raejsh decided to get baptized into the Catholic Church.
Cleaning
Purity was very important in Carlo’s life. “Each one reflects the light of God,” was something he used to say. It hurt him that his classmates did not live up to Christian morals. He encouraged them to do so, trying to help them understand that the human body is a gift from God and that sexuality had to be lived as God intended. “The dignity of each human being was so great that Carlo saw sexuality as something very special, since it was collaborating with God’s creation,” his mother recalled.
Our new Beato also enjoyed putting on his diving goggles and playing “fetch trash from the bottom of the sea”. When he took the dogs out for a walk, he always picked up the trash he found. It was his way of improving his corner of the world.
Passion for the Eucharist
Carlo’s true passion was the Eucharist: “his way to heaven”. This led to the conversion of his mother. A woman who had only gone “three times to mass in her life” was finally conquered by the child’s affection for Jesus. She enrolled in a theology course so she could answer all of her young son’s questions.
At the age of 11, Carlo began researching the Eucharistic miracles that have occurred in history. He used all of his computer skills and knowledge to create a website that traced that story. It consists of 160 panels and can be downloaded by clicking here and they have also traveled more than 10,000 parishes in the world.
Carlo couldn’t understand why the stadiums were full of people and the churches were empty. He repeatedly said: “They have to see, they have to understand.”
Early death
In the summer of 2006, Carlo asked his mother, “Do you think I should be a priest?” She replied, “You will see for yourself, God will reveal it to you.” At the beginning of that school year he was not feeling well. It looked like a normal flu. But when he did not improve, his parents took him to the hospital. “I’m not leaving here,” he said when he entered the building.
Soon after, he was diagnosed with one of the worst types of leukemia: acute myeloid leukemia (AML or M3). His reaction was surprising:
“I offer to the Lord the sufferings that I will have to go through through the Pope and through the Church, so as not to have to be in Purgatory and to be able to go directly to heaven.”
He died shortly after.
“He is a priest from heaven,” says his mother.
Used with permission
