St. Carlo Acutis offers his life for the Pope and the Church

MILAN, Italy, October 2, 2006 AD — Saint Carlo Acutis, a fifteen-year-old schoolboy, fell ill in Milan on Monday, October 2, 2006 AD, at the beginning of the school year, and his family took it for flu. It was M3 leukaemia, the most aggressive form of the disease, and he died of it ten days later. Before he was taken to hospital, he had offered his life to the Lord.

St. Carlo grew up in Milan and had just begun his second year at the Istituto Leone XIII, the classical high school run by the Jesuits. For six days, until the following Sunday, his illness was taken for flu.

St. Carlo made his First Communion at seven and went to Mass every day from then on, with the permission of his spiritual director, Don Ilio Carrai. When schoolwork kept him from Mass, he made a spiritual communion. In a spiritual communion, a person who cannot receive the Eucharist that day expresses the desire for it. He often said, “the Eucharist is my highway to heaven.”

With his first savings he bought a sleeping bag for a homeless man he often passed on his way to Mass. His family was very well off, but he was not attached to what he owned, and he set aside money from his weekly allowance to help the poor, the homeless and immigrants.

At eleven he began researching the Eucharistic miracles that have happened through history. He taught himself to write computer programs, and he built a website that catalogued the miracles.

St. Carlo liked making his classmates and teachers laugh. At the Istituto Leone XIII, the other students, the teachers and the rest of the staff got on well with him. He was the only one in his class to join the Comunità di Vita Cristiana (Christian Life Community), a group that met outside school. The schoolwork was demanding, but he chose to give part of his time to children preparing for Confirmation, and taught them catechism at Santa Maria Segreta, his family’s parish. He spent the whole summer of 2006 AD designing a website for the school’s volunteering project.

That summer St. Carlo asked his mother, Antonia Salzano: “Do you think I should become a priest?” His mother answered: “You will see it by yourself, God will reveal it to you.”

School started again in the autumn. On Monday, October 2, St. Carlo felt unwell. It looked like a bad flu, and he did not get better. A few days before his parents took him to hospital, he offered his life to the Lord for the Pope and for the Church, and so that he would go to Paradise.

On Sunday, October 8, he became much worse, and his parents took him to hospital, to the De Marchi clinic in Milan. As he went in, St. Carlo said: “I’m not getting out of here.” Doctors at the clinic diagnosed M3 fulminant leukaemia. He was transferred the next day to San Gerardo Hospital in Monza, and he died there on October 12.

During the illness St. Carlo repeated: “I want to offer my suffering to the Lord for the Pope and for the Church. I don’t want to go to Purgatory; I want to go straight to heaven.”