Saint Carlo Acutis created a masterpiece out of his short life by dedicating it to God.
During an open-air Mass on Sunday, September 7, in St. Peter’s Square before an estimated 80,000 people, Pope Leo XIV canonized 15-year-old Carlo Acutis as the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint. “The greatest risk in life is to waste it outside of God’s plan,” Leo said in his homily, saying Acutis had made a “masterpiece” of his life by dedicating it to God.
A Masterpiece for Christ
Acutis was born on May 3, 1991, in London. Soon after, the family moved back to Milan. During his childhood, Acutis’s devotion to his Catholic roots grew and flourished. He turned his exceptional skill with technology into a vessel for documenting the eucharistic miracles recognized by the church. He is credited with two miracles. His work earned him the moniker “God’s influencer.”
In a generation enamored with TikTok, Acutis believed that human relationships were more important than virtual ones. He limited himself to an hour of video games each week and instead spent hours each day praying before the Eucharist.
At a time when many of his contemporaries were walking away from the Mass, Acutis found something beautiful in it that attracted him, something divine that he experienced. For him, the Eucharist was an experience that enabled him to transcend this world and touch the world beyond. He famously said, “The Eucharist is my motorway to heaven,” and that “with each Communion we come closer to the goal of sanctity.”
Word on Fire
A Short but Profound Life
In October 2006, at just 15, Acutis was diagnosed with acute leukemia. He died within days of his diagnosis. He was buried in Assisi, where another beloved saint, St. Francis, is also entombed. Before his death, Acutis offered his sufferings for Pope Benedict XVI and for the Church. “I offer all of my suffering to the Lord for the pope and for the Church in order not to go to purgatory but to go straight to heaven.”
Millions have visited Santa Maria Maggiore church, where they can view Acutis’s body behind a glass-paneled case. A bronze life-size statue of him is also on display in the town.
A Deep Devotion
Acutis’s mother, Antonia Salzano, was present at his canonization Mass. His two teenage siblings, born after his death, also attended. His brother, Michele, did a reading.
Salzano explained that the family was not particularly religious. But Carlos showed a deep devotion to the Catholic faith from a young age. “He would go to mass and do the rosary each day,” she said. Adding that he was a child who “could not be indifferent to sorrow”.
“We lived in the center of Milan in a building surrounded by beggars. He wanted to help them, speak to them, bring them food and blankets.”
She added that Acutis was otherwise an average child, hanging out with friends or playing sports. “Carlo was an internet geek, but he had the temperance to use technology for good, and was not exploited by it,” she said. His mother claims it was around the time of his funeral that he started to work miracles, and last year, Pope Francis credited Acutis with two. The first involved the recovery of a boy in Brazil from a rare congenital disease affecting his pancreas; the second was the healing of a student in Florence with bleeding on the brain from a head trauma, and whose mother had prayed at Acutis’s tomb in Assisi (The Guardian).
A Role Model
In the millennial age and with society’s dependence on technology and social media, Acutis is a role model for young people and indeed for all of us on how to use technology without being manipulated or controlled by it.
He used modern technology to good effect without wasting time or becoming distracted. In 2004, he became a deputy catechist, accompanying candidates for First Communion and Confirmation. He used his exceptional skills to develop and update websites and platforms for his parish and school, opening up new avenues for sharing the Good News and counseling his peers about the importance of seeking God’s will and grace.
He saw that many young people, wanting to be different, really end up being like everyone else, running after whatever the powerful set before them with the mechanisms of consumerism and distraction. In this way, they do not bring forth the gifts the Lord has given them; they do not offer the world those unique personal talents that God has given to each of them. As a result, Carlo said, ‘Everyone is born as an original, but many people end up dying as photocopies.’ Don’t let that happen to you!
— Pope Francis, Christus Vivit 106
A Blessed of the Church
Since Acutis was declared a blessed of the Church on October 10, 2020, countless witnesses have come forward to testify to his intercession and to the amount of good that continues to pour from his short life.
Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino of Assisi said, “Carlo is a boy of our time. A boy of the internet age, and a model of holiness of the digital age, as Pope Francis presented him in his letter to young people around the world. The computer … has become a way of going through the streets of the world, like the first disciples of Jesus, to bring to hearts and homes the announcement of true peace, that which quenches the thirst for the infinite that inhabits the human heart.”
Saint Carlo Acutis is a wonderful example of what it means to live as God’s masterpiece — living a life of joyful faith takes nothing away from our desire to be free and happy.
PRAYER FOR THE CANONIZATION OF BLESSED CARLO ACUTIS
Oh God, Our Father,
Thank you for giving us, Carlo,
a life example for the young
And a message of love for everyone.
You made him become enamored with
Your Son Jesus, Making of the Eucharist
His “Highway to Heaven”.
You gave him Mary, as a most loving Mother,
And, with the Rosary, you made him
A poet of her tenderness. Receive his prayer for us.
Above all, gaze upon the poor,
Whom he loved and helped.
Grant for me too, by his intercession,
The grace that I need …
And make our joy fulfilled,
placing Carlo among the Saints
of your Church, so that his smile
May shine again for us in the glory of your name.
Amen
Pater, Ave, Gloria
(“Our Father”, “Hail Mary”, “Glory be to God”)
