Saints and the Eucharist

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.”