A Saint for Our Times
The call to Holiness is steep. When Christ said, “Take up your Cross and follow me”[1], He exhorted us to follow His teachings and take on every pain that followed. Tell the truth, there was already going to be pain in our lives, but He gave us a way to make them more than mere suffering. That more than mere suffering, it’s not just a way to deal with the suffering—it’s the Way to Heaven.
But He didn’t just say these things. Think of His Passion; He was scourged to near death, bore a cross up a mountain, hung from nails with arms outstretched, and commended Himself to God after He had forgiven His captors: “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”[2] Take into account that He is God the Son and it becomes all the more dazzling that He humbled Himself like this for our sake. And I’m over here still cursing out someone I don’t know on the highway five minutes after he cut me off (something he probably didn’t even mean to do). I’m short on Charity, I won’t deny it, but is there no greater commandment than to love thy neighbor? Look at the love He poured out for us. That’s the pinnacle of the love He exhorts us to live out.
Thousands of men and women have done this and been attested to in the canon of Saints. Looking at their lives, a staggering number underwent brutal persecution at the hands of tyrants and radical opposition, winning glory for God in martyrdom. Some were even crucified as He was. The thought can be that Saints are only made at the edge of the sword, the business end of a gun, a crucible. While this isn’t true, one can feel inadequate as a believer looking at the mosaic of these witnesses. I know I tend to.
It's an easy thought that the times of holiness are long past us, especially in places like America where the democratization of society puts everyone on a level playing field, it’s unlikely that a pagan king is going to martyr you and your family for doing the Sign of the Cross in public. How, one might ask, can I be holy when things are so normal? When extraordinary acts of Faith seem to have been phased out? It seems less like we’ll win our place among the Blessed in a dramatic conflict which culminates in martyrdom and more as if the road to Heaven has been obscured in blue-light screens, traffic jams, and everything else that comes with the 21st century. One struggles to think of any Saints who grew up as we have; one may even wonder if there are any ways to become Saints in our times.
Enter Bl. Carlo Acutis, who is on deck to be canonized April 2025.
On his road to holiness, he contracted leukemia—a suffering which he offered up no less, “I offer to the Lord the sufferings that I will have to undergo for the Pope and for the Church, so as not to have to be in Purgatory and be able to go directly to heaven.” But everything that came before, it was the stuff of an ordinary 21st century life, though one lived extraordinarily.
Early Life
Who is Carlo Acutis? Carlo was born in London in 1991. Three months later his family moved to Milan, and he later attended a Jesuit high school. He’s known to have been a smiling young man who readily told jokes; he had an interest in video games, coding, and computer science; his friends knew him at school and his parish. This was a young man who walked through the same contemporary world as ours and still followed Christ unto Sainthood. Along with everything else, he attended the sacraments regularly, studied the mysteries of Faith, and showed charity to everyone he met; he stood up to bullies, gave earnest friendship to his peers, and worked to be a good student.
Devotion to the Holy Eucharist
Chief among his devotions was a profound love for the Eucharist. How could it not be? God is present to us in the Holy Sacrament. There was no metaphor when Jesus said, “This is my body.”[3] Christ gave Himself to us in the Holy Eucharist for reception and adoration, and He is held aloft at every mass celebrated. Carlo saw this and took it to heart. He’s quoted as having said, “The Eucharist is my highway to heaven” and “by standing before the Eucharistic Christ, we become holy.”[4] Carlo’s testament reminds us to take Our Lord seriously in what He said and what He asked of us: “Do this in remembrance of Me.”
Trust in God
Carlo’s path to holiness did not begin with leukemia. He was asked to follow Christ, to say “yes” in whatever way he could. The charitable life he led offered a testimony which inspired friends and family; it led his parents from living secularly to practicing fervently, led a Hindu priest to baptism, and now leads us to ponder whether it’s true that Holiness is something bygone.
Surrender to God's Will
He said yes unto death. While God alone knows the hearts of men, and while we cannot be certain of what exactly it was that brought Carlo to Heaven already, we can know this: Carlo loved Christ and shared this love whenever he could. He held fast to the Eucharist, even made a website categorizing Eucharistic miracles in an effort of evangelization (http://www.miracolieucaristici.org/). He was a young man who knew his interests and let God whisper into them so that God would be present to him even his hobbies and leisure. Every day he let himself be led to Christ in the little ways. It seems this habitual devotion gave him the courage to offer his sufferings up for the Lord and His servants and be borne up to Heaven after letting go of this life in favor of the next.
Carlo’s Intercession
Fruits have already sprung from his life and intercession. Stunning medical miracles have been attributed to his intercession, paving the way to his canonization. A young boy recovered from a lifelong illness that prevented him from eating solid foods; this followed his encounter with a relic of Carlo’s and a prayer. A young woman suffered a head injury that likely was going to take her life; her mother prayed at Carlo’s tomb and the young woman recovered.
How Can We Live Like Carlo?
Many of us are unlikely to be called to a show of faith with the risk of life and limb, though don’t be mistaken, many of the faithful are still called to this. Pray for our brothers and sisters who live in war-torn countries and minister to the vulnerable amidst their own vulnerability; pray for those who are called to be witnesses in martyrdom. We all think we would say “Yes, I serve God” with a gun to our heads, but we cannot know until the cold metal presses into our foreheads. Many of our ways will look more ordinary for the most part; offering up a prayer for those who frustrate us in mundane ways, being mindful of how we use technology, caring to ask how we can help someone else even when we’re tired. These are ordinary ways to be led to Heaven in little moments, but with Christ they are made extraordinary and will reverberate for Eternity with Him.
A Saint for Our Times
Thank God for Carlo Acutis, a Saint for our times, one who has shown us that Way to Heaven is clear as ever, if only we take up our Cross. We need only to hear the Lord’s voice in our lives, see where He leads, to entrust our every moment to Him, especially the ordinary ones. Carlo Acutis, pray for us!
[1] Matthew 16:24-26.
[2] Luke 23:34.
[3] Luke 22:19.
[4] Alyssa Murphy, “17 Inspiring Quotes from Carlo Actuis,” National Catholic Register, ETWN News, https://www.ncregister.com/blog/17-inspiring-quotes-from-carlo-acutis
