Young holiness

The beatification of Carlo Acutis was very surprising. The sixteen year old young man who testifies to us the possibility of living holiness in normality.
He was a sporty, lively boy and had many friends; every day he participated in Holy Mass and Eucharistic adoration, together with the recitation of the rosary. This devotion did not arise from within the family, but it managed to be contagious towards it. He lived in a wealthy family, but he showed a lot of humility, and a special attention to those he met, both friends and needy people to whom he used to donate food or part of the weekly allowance. He was busy in the oratory and at the soup kitchen at Caritas.
Like many of his peers, he was a “digital” kid, passionate and connoisseur of the net. In his short life he tried to make the internet a new vehicle for evangelization; In fact, a virtual exhibition on Eucharistic miracles, conceived and created by him at the age of 14, is exemplary.

In the classical high school he attended, the Jesuit Roberto Gazzinga remembers him this way: «He was so good and gifted as to be recognized as such by everyone, but without arousing envy, jealousy, resentment».
The beatification took place in Assisi, concluded thanks to the recognition by the Church of a miracle, which took place in 2013. It is the healing of a Brazilian child suffering from a rare anatomical anomaly of the pancreas. The child's parents and the entire parish community prayed, expressly asking for Charles's intercession.

«All are born as originals, but many die as photocopies» is a quote from the English philosopher Edward Young, whom Carlo Acutis loved very much. Perhaps with his life he witnessed just this: in a time in which we tend to homologate and shape ourselves on the proposals that seem easier to reach or more rewarding, the most important thing is to discover one's originality and spend it in everyday life. This tastes extraordinary.


Valentina Turinetto
NP November 2020