Carlo Acutis will become a saint in the Jubilee Year 2025, a Holy Year dedicated to hope!
And the entire existence of this boy is certainly a sign of hope!
His secret: Jesus at the center
“God has written a unique and unrepeatable story for each of us, but he has left us the freedom to write its ending.” These are Carlo’s words: he chooses Jesus as his model and companion to write his own story, which began on May 3, 1991.
His is the life of an ordinary boy who fully lives his 15 years through school, friends, soccer matches, and involvement in the parish youth center, but his secret is putting Jesus and the Eucharist before all of this and within all of this: Carlo calls the Eucharist his highway to heaven and basks in this sun; the unmissable appointments of his day are Mass and the Rosary. This profound inner life illuminates the rest of his life, made up of ordinary commitments and concern for others: he greets everyone he meets when he arrives at school and brings dinner and blankets to the homeless he knows are in the vicinity of his home.
The miracle for the canonization
Following the recognition of a miracle performed through the intercession of Blessed Carlo Acutis, on May 23, 2024, Pope Francis authorized the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree for the canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis.
The recipient of the miracle obtained through Carlo’s intercession is a 21-year-old woman from Costa Rica who is studying in Florence. On July 2, 2022, following an accident, she is hospitalized with severe head trauma and must undergo a craniotomy. Her chances of survival are slim. Six days later, her mother goes to Assisi to pray at Carlo’s tomb; that evening, she receives a phone call from the hospital: they inform her of her daughter’s sudden and inexplicable improvement.
The holiness kit
Carlo invents a very personal kit, called the “kit for becoming saints”, and he is not at all jealous of it. On the contrary, he is happy to talk about it with anyone. This kit consists of several points:
– a great desire for holiness;
– living the Mass and Communion every day;
– praying the Rosary every day;
– a daily portion of the Word of God;
– a little adoration;
– Confession every week;
– the willingness to give something up for others.
In this way, Carlo becomes an interpreter of a holiness of everyday life; he is a saint in a sweatshirt and tennis shoes, echoing the description given of him by Fabio Bolzetta, president of the Association of Italian Catholic Webmasters, in Avvenire (October 7, 2020), on the occasion of his beatification: “A boy in a sweatshirt and tennis shoes. This is how one of our contemporaries’ blessed rests. The image of Carlo Acutis, visible during the exhibition preceding the beatification ceremony, captivated those who paid their respects to him at the Sanctuary of the Spoliation. And his story projected the figure of a fifteen-year-old boy onto the firmament of holiness, seeming to precede the next generations of venerable people, blessed people, and everyday saints whom we should perhaps grow accustomed to.”
Carlo tells us all that we can and must be signs of hope, pilgrims of hope… He taught us the way; let us follow in his footsteps.
