By Jessica Easthope
There have been songs written about him and art exhibits dedicated to him, but soon you can experience Carlo Acutis’ legacy firsthand.
One of his relics will be coming to the Diocese of Brooklyn this Wednesday, July 14, and will be presented to Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio.
If canonized, Blessed Carlo Acutis will be the first ever millennial saint. Acutis died at the age of 15 in 2006 within a week of being diagnosed with leukemia.
His mother gave him the nickname “Cyber Apostle of the Eucharist” because Acutis combined his two passions – technology and the body of Christ – with a website he designed cataloguing every Eucharistic miracle. Before his evangelization efforts surrounding the Eucharist touched the world, they touched his own mother.
“I started to get closer to the Church. I started to go back to Mass. And this was actually because of Carlo. Carlo was for me a kind of little ‘Savior,’” Acutis’ mother Antonia Salzano said.
Relics belonging to Acutis are responsible for unofficial reports of his intercession as well as his first recognized miracle. A four-year-old Brazilian boy with a rare disorder kissed a piece of a t-shirt Acutis wore and was miraculously healed.
“It’s hard not to be inspired, it’s hard not to feel ‘okay how do I become a better Catholic because of this man,’ how can I get there?” said Michael Lichens, the editor of Catholic Exchange.
Hundreds of thousands viewed his beatification Mass live online last October and more than 41,000 people went to venerate his body when it was on display in Assisi, Italy. Now a relic is coming to the Diocese of Brooklyn’s more than 1.5 million Catholics.