“...Let Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament speak to your hearts. It is he who is the true answer of life that you seek. He stays here with us: He is God with us. Seek him without tiring, welcome him without reserve, love him without interruption: today, tomorrow, forever!”
“You put yourself in front of the sun you get a tan...but when you put yourself in front of Jesus in the Eucharist you become a saint.”
Despite what one might think of a young man who was a candidate for the honors of the altars, Carlo was an absolutely normal boy, like most of his peers, but with an absolutely special harmony thanks to his great friendship with Jesus.
In addition to the main duties of his status as a student and son, he managed to find time to teach catechism to children preparing for First Communion and Confirmation; to volunteer at the soup kitchen of the Capuchins and the Sisters of Mother Teresa; to help the poor living in his neighborhood; helping struggling children with their homework; doing apostolate work with the Internet; playing the saxophone; playing soccer; designing programs with the computer; having fun with video games; watching detective movies and making home movies with his dogs and cats.
“Always be united with Jesus, this is my life program,” he wrote when he was only seven years old. And he has been faithful to this program ever since until his departure for Heaven which took place between October 11 and 12, 2006 at the San Gerardo Hospital in Monza.
From an early age Carlo always showed a great attraction to “Heaven. “By a special circumstance, given his uncommon maturity in the things of Faith and his great love for the Sacrament of the Eucharist, Carlo was allowed to receive his First Communion when he was only seven years old. Since then, he has never missed his daily appointment with Holy Mass and some Eucharistic adoration either before or after Mass and the daily Rosary.
Carlo writes that when “you put yourself in front of the sun you get a tan… but when you put yourself in front of Jesus in the Eucharist you become a saint.”
For Carlo, “the Eucharist is his highway to Heaven,” and also the most powerful means of becoming a saint quickly.
Famous is his phrase, “Everyone is born an original but many die as photocopies.” In order not to die as a photocopy Carlo draws from the source of the Sacraments, which for Carlo are the most powerful means to grow in virtues, effective signs of God’s infinite mercy for us.
Thanks to the Eucharist Carlo heroically was strengthened in the virtue of fortitude, which gave him that courage common to all saints, to always go against the tide and oppose the false idols that the world constantly proposes to us.
The Eucharist also nourished in him a very strong desire to tune in constantly to the voice of the Lord, and to live always in His presence. In doing so, Carlo succeeded in bringing that way of life learned in the school of the Eucharist: being between school desks, in the pizzeria with friends or in the field for the soccer game, or using the computer, becomes living out the Gospel.
Carlo managed in an extraordinary way, while living an ordinary existence like that of so many, to dedicate his life, moment by moment, to the highest goal to which all men are called: eternal bliss with God.
Carlos, “the lover of God,” experienced this strong presence of the divine in his earthly life and tried in every way to generously pass it on to others as well, and to this day, he continues to intercede so that all may put God first in their lives and say as Carlos did, “Not I, but God“; “Not self-love, but the glory of God“; “Sadness is looking at oneself , happiness is looking at God.”
Please click on the year, to find out more…
he attends the local public kindergarten, Parco Pagani, in Milan.
He begins elementary school at San Carlo Institute, but three months later, due to practical reasons, he transfers to the Tommaseo Institute run by the Sisters of Saint Marcellina, where he completes his elementary and middle school years.
On 16 June, having just turned seven, he receives his First Communion at the Convent of the Romite Sisters of Saint Ambrose in Perego
On 24 May he receives the Sacrament of Confirmation in his parish church, Santa Maria Segreta.
September he begins high school at the Jesuit run Leo XIII Institute.
In January Carlo’s body is transferred from Ternengo Cemetery in Piedmont to a cemetery in Assisi as Carlo had requested.
On October 12th, the cause for Carlo’s Beatification and Canonization is officially opened and he becomes a Servant of God.
On May 13, the Holy See’s Nihil Obstat approves Carlo’s Cause for Beatification and Canonization.
On November 24th, in the presence of Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Diocesan level for the Cause for Beatification and Canonization of the Servant of God Carlo Acutis, ends at the Archbishopric of Milan.
On July 5th, Pope Francis declares Carlo Venerable.
On October 10th, Carlo is beatified in Assisi.
http://www.carloacutis.com/en/association/chiecarloacutis