Sick for eight days, St. Carlo Acutis asks to be anointed
Doctors had found the most aggressive kind of leukaemia, and the fifteen-year-old was sure he would soon die.
MONZA, October 10, 2006 AD — Saint Carlo Acutis was a fifteen-year-old schoolboy from Milan. On Monday, October 2, he fell ill with what looked like a bad flu. Eight days later he was in hospital in Monza, asking to be anointed and to receive Holy Communion.
On Sunday, October 8, he suddenly got much worse. He was taken to the De Marchi clinic in Milan. As he went in, St. Carlo said: “I’m not getting out of here.” That same day, the doctors there found out what was wrong. It was M3 leukaemia, the most aggressive form of the disease.
He was still getting worse the next day, Monday, October 9. So he was moved out of Milan to San Gerardo Hospital in Monza. San Gerardo had a special centre for this kind of leukaemia.
On his second day at San Gerardo, St. Carlo asked to be anointed and to receive Communion. He was certain that he would soon die and meet God. Since his First Communion at the age of seven, he had gone to Mass every day. The Church gives the Anointing of the Sick to anyone whose life is in danger from illness. A priest anointed St. Carlo there at San Gerardo.
At Monza, St. Carlo stayed calm and kept his good humour. Some of the nurses and doctors looking after him were moved by how he accepted his illness and the suffering it brought.
About this story
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Read more
- · Associazione Amici di Carlo Acutis, Carlo's timeline
- · Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Carlo Acutis (1991–2006) (Italian)
Image. Ospedale San Gerardo (Monza) - Entrance, Giorgio Pallavicini, 2022, Wikimedia Commons — see the original.
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Sources for this story
Listed by paragraph.
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- attested Associazione Amici di Carlo Acutis, Carlo's timeline, p. 2006 ¶17
- attested Angela Mengis Palleck (Vatican News), Carlo Acutis: Millennial generation has a Blessed, I AGREE ¶29
- attested Angela Mengis Palleck (Vatican News), Carlo Acutis: Millennial generation has a Blessed, I AGREE ¶28
- documented Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Carlo Acutis (1991 - 2006): profile, iter of the cause and documents, VITA E OPERE ¶11
- attested Associazione Amici di Carlo Acutis, Carlo's timeline, p. 2006 ¶16
- Paragraph 3
- Paragraph 4
- attested Associazione Amici di Carlo Acutis, Carlo's timeline, p. 2006 ¶19
- documented Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Carlo Acutis (1991 - 2006): profile, iter of the cause and documents, DECRETO SULLE VIRTU' ¶9
- attested Junno Arocho Esteves (OSV News), His lifelong dream was to be a saint, Blessed Carlo Acutis' mother says, ¶58
- attested Diocese of Westminster, Carlo Acutis beatified in Assisi (baptised at Fulham Road), ¶46
- documented Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Carlo Acutis (1991 - 2006): profile, iter of the cause and documents, VITA E OPERE ¶8
- documented Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1514 (the Anointing of the Sick)
- documented Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Carlo Acutis (1991 - 2006): profile, iter of the cause and documents, VITA E OPERE ¶11
- Paragraph 5
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