Saint Carlo Acutis

Carlo grew up in an educated, well-off family that could give him the best schooling. Yet those advantages did not make him arrogant or spoiled. From early childhood, Carlo showed an unusual sensitivity to the poor and to the things of God.

He attended the primary school of the Marcelline Sisters, then went on to the Leone XIII high school run by the Jesuits in Milan. He was fascinated by computers, teaching himself from complicated university programming books when he was only eleven or twelve. He used that knowledge to help friends and teachers fix computer problems and to show them how to use software.

On June 16, 1998, at only seven, Carlo was allowed to make his First Communion at the convent of Bernaga. From that day on, the Eucharist was the living center of everything he did. On May 24, 2003, he received Confirmation in the parish of Santa Maria Segreta in Milan.

Those milestones did not stay on paper in a parish register. They went straight into the rhythm of every day: getting up early for Mass, kneeling for a few minutes of adoration before or after Mass, praying the Rosary, and at night examining his conscience to see what good he had done for others that day.

All that prayer did not turn him into an odd loner hiding from life. He was a lively teenager: he loved playing soccer, was crazy about PlayStation games — though he set himself a strict rule of playing only one hour a week so as not to get hooked — loved making funny videos with the family’s dogs and cats, and loved music. What Carlo managed was never to let his love of technology take control of his time.

He once said something that has made young people around the world stop and think:

“All people are born as originals, but many die as photocopies!”

He urged his friends not to chase blindly after the latest trends on social media, but to let the word of God shape the unique beauty of their own souls.

He used the pocket money his parents gave him to buy warm sleeping bags and food for the homeless huddled outside the train stations of Milan. He made friends with poor migrant workers from India and Africa in the neighborhood and looked in on them. His family’s housekeeper, a Hindu, was so moved by the boy’s kindness, simplicity and pure faith that she asked of her own accord to be baptized a Christian.

At school, Carlo was always the one who stood up for classmates with disabilities and those in difficult circumstances who were often teased and bullied. He invited friends whose parents were divorced to come and play at his house, to help ease their sadness.

The project demanded an enormous amount of work: he researched tirelessly, sorted the information on more than one hundred and thirty Eucharistic miracles from all over the world, designed the graphics himself and did translations. He worked at it quietly, as his own apostolate, for a whole year before he fell ill.

That virtual exhibition was later printed as physical display panels and taken to thousands of parishes on every continent, helping so many lukewarm souls find their faith in the Eucharist again. In the very week of his beatification in Assisi, two churches in that town put the exhibition on display again for tens of thousands of pilgrims to see.

The disease advanced at a terrifying speed. With death only days away, the fifteen-year-old kept an extraordinary peace. When the doctors and nurses, heartbroken, asked if he was in much pain, Carlo smiled and whispered:

“There are people who suffer much more than I do... I offer all this suffering to the Lord, for the Pope and for the Church, so that I don’t have to go to purgatory but can go straight to heaven!”

The image of a youthful saint in a polo shirt, jeans and sneakers who loved computers has given hope to young people around the world. Christian holiness is not something ancient and remote, belonging to centuries long gone. It can sprout and spread its fragrance right in the classroom, amid smartphones, the internet and the familiar relationships of every day.