We do not have photographs of the vast majority of the Church’s saints and blesseds. Portraits and sculptures suffice for most of them, and those of whom we do have photographs are usually shown in prayer, smiling on a mountaintop, or feeding the poor.
Blessed Carlo Acutis may be the only person ever raised to the altars who was photographed in a Spider-Man costume.
Born in 1991 in London to Italian parents, Carlo grew up during the age of the internet, a bona fide millennial. He played video games, was a fan of Pokémon and Transformers, and taught himself computer coding.
Courtney Mares is the author of Blessed Carlo Acutis: A Saint in Sneakers (Ignatius Press, 2023). Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency and EWTN News.
Mares recently spoke with Catholic World Report about this “saint in sneakers”, his passion for the Holy Eucharist, and the holy example he is for young people today.
Catholic World Report: How did your book come about?
Courtney Mares: As a journalist covering the Vatican, I often write about new sainthood causes. I first encountered Carlo’s story about five years ago and remember being fascinated by the fact that there was a computer-coding teenager born in the 1990s who was on the path to being declared a Catholic saint.
After attending his beatification in Assisi, Italy in 2020, it became clear to me that Blessed Carlo had “gone viral” with many people around the globe eager to learn more about his life, so I traveled to Carlo’s hometown of Milan and interviewed some of the people closest to him. The book is filled with testimonies from Carlo’s classmates, friends, and family members as to how he brought them closer to God.
CWR: Was there anything in particular that you learned about Carlo while writing this book that had a profound impact on you?
Mares: I was very touched by an interview I did with Rajesh Mohur, a man who converted from Hinduism to Catholicism because of Carlo’s witness. Rajesh worked for the Acutis family as an au pair when Carlo was an elementary school student. As part of his job, he helped bring Carlo to school and also to daily Mass, where Rajesh would sit in the back of the church and observe Carlo praying in front of the Tabernacle with reverence and devotion. Carlo also had many conversations with Rajesh about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and taught him how to pray the Rosary. During our meeting, Rajesh told me that one of the things that most impressed him before he became Christian was the witness of Carlo’s care and concern for the poor—how he interacted with the homeless man who would sit at the entrance of the church and would bring tupperwares filled with food out to people living on the streets.
While writing the book, I also interviewed a young American woman who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and found inspiration from Carlo’s life in her battle with cancer, which led her to make a pilgrimage to his tomb in Assisi. Writing about Carlo’s offering of his suffering led me to read John Paul II’s amazing apostolic letter, “Salvifici Doloris,” on the meaning of human suffering, which helped me personally to transform the way that I process and pray through my own difficulties.
CWR: There is a popular image of Carlo as always smiling, always positive, always happy. Is this a fair portrait of him? Or did he struggle with frustration, anger, and doubt, especially when he was sick?
Mares: Many people remember Carlo as very friendly and affectionate, always ready with a kind greeting and a smile for a stranger. But this does not mean that he did not have difficulties. The remarkable thing about Carlo is how serenely he responded to his cancer diagnosis. Carlo died at a very young age, at only fifteen years old, but he was ready to go. He had lived his life for God and understood that death was not a moment to be dreaded, but a moment to surrender all to Jesus.
Pain and suffering is something that eventually touches all of our lives and it can be very difficult to make sense of it. Carlo offered up his suffering from cancer to God because he believed in the power of redemptive suffering—that our suffering and personal sacrifices have value when they are united to Christ’s salvific suffering on the cross.
CWR: Carlo had a profound love for the Holy Eucharist. How did this manifest itself?
Mares: If you were to ask Carlo, I’m sure that he would point to the Eucharist as the source of his personal sanctity. He attended daily Mass as a student in elementary school and high school. One of his most famous phrases is “The Eucharist is my Highway to Heaven.” He also said: “People who place themselves before the sun get a tan, while people who place themselves before the Eucharist become saints.”
Carlo’s spiritual director has attested that Carlo was personally convinced that the scientific evidence from Eucharistic miracles would help people to realize that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist and come back to Mass.
One of Carlo’s favorite Eucharistic miracles was one that took place in the Italian town of Lanciano in which a monk was full of doubts as to whether the consecrated host was actually the Body of Christ. One morning while offering the Mass, the host he was holding changed into flesh. Now the reason why Carlo was so interested in this particular miracle was because of the scientific analysis that has been conducted on the transformed host. One study found that the sample from the transformed host was cardiac tissue and that the blood belonged to the AB group, the same blood type documented on the Shroud of Turin.
We see this also in a Eucharistic miracle that occurred in Buenos Aires in 1996 at the time when Pope Francis was the archbishop of Buenos Aires and a scientific study done in New York in 1999 found that a sample from the transformed host not only heart muscle from the wall of the left ventricle but that white blood cells were present in large numbers, meaning that the heart had been under severe stress and was alive and pumping when the tissue sample was taken.
CWR: Some folks say that we shouldn’t look up to someone who played video games and used the Internet, because these are distractions when we should be thinking about God. How would you respond to that? What does Carlo’s life have to say about this?
Mares: With technology changing at such a rapid pace today, I think that Christians are still grappling with the idea of how best to live out our faith in a world filled with smartphones, laptops, video games, and social media. Carlo’s life gives us a concrete example of how heroic virtue and sanctity can look like in the 21st century.
By rooting his life in prayer and the sacraments, Carlo was able to approach technology in a healthy way. I think that prayer was truly the great secret of his life. Prayer helped him to keep his priorities straight and see the world in its proper perspective.
Pope Francis has pointed to Carlo Acutis as a witness that young people today are called to something greater than endless scrolling on a smartphone. I think that one temptation that today’s technology presents to each of us is wasting time. With endless possibilities for entertainment and information, the internet as a whole presents the temptation to sloth and procrastination. The internet also presents a glut of information and rabbit holes ready to be jumped down that requires self-restraint and temperance to sift through all the distractions to find what is most important. Carlo gives us an example of how the Internet can also be used to research and learn more about Church teachings, history, and miracles, as well as a means to share the Gospel with others.
Blessed Carlo also made good use of his short time on Earth to use his time effectively and to seek first the Kingdom of God. He once told a friend: “Every minute that passes is one less minute that we have available to sanctify ourselves.”
CWR: What do you hope people will take away from the book? What should we learn from Blessed Carlo?
Mares: I think that Carlo’s story challenges us because he lived a life of “heroic virtue” while living a relatively normal life for a kid in the 1990s and early 2000s.
It can be easy for Christians today to simply tell ourselves, “If I was an early Christian in Rome and facing extreme persecution and had to die for my faith, I would be a martyr.” But Carlo, as someone who died in 2006, lived in a time not far removed from us and because of that, it takes away our excuses or rationalizations for not putting God first in the everyday circumstances of our lives.
For example, if we truly believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist and that this miracle occurs in every Mass, why don’t we make every effort that we can to pray in front of the Tabernacle and receive the Blessed Sacrament as often as we can? And to tell everyone that we know about it!
Carlo also challenges us by his example to be open to having conversations about Jesus with the people who are already in our everyday lives. It takes courage to speak the truth and to share the Gospel with classmates, friends, and family members.
And he challenges us to find ways to use all of the incredible technology that we have at our disposal not only for our own entertainment, but to do something to help build up the Kingdom of God.
CWR: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Mares: Carlo was the first Millenial to be beatified by the Catholic Church, but I hope that he is just the first of many in an entire new generation of saints!
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It was inspiring to watch young people view his body in Assisi. They would stop, stare intently, and just hopefully say a prayer for his intercession.
I am sure that he occupies the same seat in heaven as Domenico Savio and Laura Vicuna
What can we learn from the fact that nearly every Eucharistic miracle in which the veil is removed, what is seen is heart muscle tissue? The **Sacred Heart** of Jesus becomes visible. The heart is the single largest generator of electromagnetic energy (i.e., light) in the body.[1]
In Betania Venezuela, the host in the Monstrance began to visibly pulsate for about 20-30 seconds. The phenomenon was digitally recorded. In the video, the electromagnetic energy generated by the pulsating heart is visible on the recording. This miracle was approved by the local bishop.
The biological heart communicates with the entire body through four means. They are:[2]
1. Neurologically (using the nervous system);
2. Biochemically (e.g., hormones);
3. Energetically (e.g., electromagnetic energy); and,
4. Biophysically (e.g., pulse and sound waves).
These biological means of communication affect the function of every single cell in the body. Through miracles involving several saints, it can be concluded that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit produces dramatic physical and functional effects on the biological heart. Saints Neri and Galgani are examples. https://www.stossbooks.com/page-incorruptibility-of-saints–how-and-why.html
From research in the literature, we learn that the heart possesses its own complex non-cranial brain (an unofficial term) complete with a network of neurons, proteins, neurotransmitters, and other components necessary for it to function as such. This heart brain is self-organizing and processes information independently of the cranial brain.[3]
In a cross-section of the tissue from the Lanciano miracle, the Vagus nerve was present. The vagus nerve extends from the brain to the heart (it extends to several other parts of the body, as well — including the voice box. Note the importance and power of the voice in Scripture).[4] Of the approximately 200,000 fibers in the mid-cervical section of the right and left vagus nerve,[5] approximately ninety percent (180,000) are afferent, i.e., send information from the heart to the brain; approximately ten percent (20,000) are efferent, i.e., receiving information from the brain.
No other part of the body has that high a ratio of afferent to efferent nerve fibers.[6] This and other research has shown the heart is more often telling the cranial brain how to function and how to perceive — not the inverse. Recent discoveries indicate the vagus nerve produces profound effects on the function of the body.
This is only a small sampling of the effects produced by the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist.
[1] Hart RA, Gandhi OP, “Comparison of cardiac-induced endogenous fields and power frequency induced exogenous fields in an anatomical model of the human body,” Phys Med Biol 1998;43:3083–99.
[2] Russek LG, Schwartz GE. “Energy cardiology: a dynamical energy systems approach for integrating conventional and alternative medicine.” Advances: J Mind-Body Health, 1996; 12: 4–24.
[3] J. A. Armour et al., “Peripheral autonomic neuronal interactions in cardiac regulation,” Neurocardiology, J.A. Armour and J. L. Ardell, Editors (Oxford University Press: New York, 1994). p. 219-244.
[4] Cameron, O.G., Visceral Sensory Neuroscience: Interception, (New York: Oxford University Press: 2002).
[5] Hoffman, H. H. and Schnitzlein, H. N. (1961), “The numbers of nerve fibers in the Vagus nerve of man.” Anat. Rec., 139:429–435. doi: 10.1002/ar.1091390312.
[6] Cameron, O.G., Visceral Sensory Neuroscience: Interception.
Blessed Carlo Acutis is not incorrupt, so not sure how the link about incorruptible saints is relevant to him. He has been covered in a wax coating that was molded to his original form, but his body is undergoing normal decay and is not incorrupt.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/46045/tomb-of-carlo-acutis-is-opened-for-veneration-ahead-of-beatification
Actually, Acutis is, so far, partially incorruptible. However, the link is to an article that, while talking about incorruptibility, also details the **power of the indwelling of the Holy Sprint’s overflow** to profoundly impact the human biological heart. In turn, this greatly impacts the structured biological water within the body. This gel state of biological water possesses the ability, together with “light” can stop metabolism and cellular decay.
I stand corrected. His body was fully integral, but not incorrupt. My link is responsive to the Eucharistic miracles that reveal the human Sacred Heart of Jesus which, in turn, has a profound physical impact on the body of communicants … even after death. Thus the article on incorruptibles.
Oh my God. The more we try to prove our point of view to others is directly related to the lack of credibility of this specific point we are trying to prove.
If is scientific facts, these must be scientifically proven. And, if is spiritual statements these must be supported by God’s word (the bible).
Other than that we decieve others by deceiving ourselves. God bless.
“To function efficiently, cells require polyunsaturated live ‘electron-rich’ lipids, present in abundance in crude linseed oil.
“Let’s examine the benefits accruing to the heart from electrically-charged lipids. . . . The vital life-sustaining pumping action of the heart itself depends on the electrical charge created by the lipids.” From HOW TO FIGHT CANCER AND WIN, by William L. Fischer. (Pages 133,134.)
Missing in these discussions of the Eucharist is inevitably the omission of the cup of wine that is the New Covenant in Christ’s blood that is poured out for us. (See Lk. 22.2O.) How is that? The New Covenant comprises the same covenant promises as the Eternal Covenant. These include peace, security, prosperity, good health, productive and mild weather — The Garden of Eden effect. I see in this the basis for Divine Providence, and the theology necessary to solve the problems facing those poor who want to leave their countries to find a “better life.” The Vatican, and most other modern Church institutions, seem to lack an understanding of this equation.
The author is right to stress the element of sanctification in the theology of salvation. The road that leads to the Garden of Eden involves seeking to draw closer to God — to know God, thus “Theology.”
Learn more concerning the New Covenant at Jer. 31.31-34, and n Hebrews, chapters 8 and 1O.
Could the devotees of the Eucharist express more about the cup of wine?
Explaining the meanings of the red and white light that emanated from his pierced heart, Jesus said, “The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls.” [Kowalska, Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul, Marian Press, Kindle Edition (Locations 226-228).] The Israelites were told to not drink the blood of animals because it was their life (Gen. 9:4; Lev. 17:11, 14; Deut. 12:23), implying negative effects on Israelite’s body and/or soul. Conversely, we are instructed to drink the blood of Jesus precisely because it is his life (Jn. 6:54). Incidentally, all hormones are delivered to their target cells via the bloodstream.
Cells (including blood cells) are machines driven by energy. From a chemical point of view, over 99% of the matter of which a cell is composed is water. So, it would seem logical to surmise that water must play some part in the process of supplying that energy. According to Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the phenomenon of bio-energy is, simply put, structured bio-water working with the structural elements of the cell to make possible electron excitation (EEE). Without this interaction and resultant EEE, the ‘production’ of this long-living light energy would be highly improbable. [Vladimir L. Voeikov, “Biological Significance of Active Oxygen-Dependent Processes in Aqueous Systems,” Water and the Cell, ed. Gerald H. Pollack, Ivan L. Cameron, Denys N. Wheatly (The Netherlands: Springer, 2006), 286.]
Bioenergetics and bio-regulation involve the interaction of photons with the electrons that are part of the atoms which make up all matter existing within the living organism. Water is a vital part of that interaction. This may seem counterintuitive, but water is essential for the regular combustion flow in living cells. Even more startling is that water itself can be “burnt” via the splitting of water molecules. [Ibid., 287, 289-292.] Obviously, this would result in the emission of photons. Water burning has to do with the transformation of ordinary H2O (the water molecule) being changed into H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide gas) through various means within the body and then being split — separating the hydrogen atom(s) from the oxygen atom(s).
The concept of splitting water in order to produce energy (essential for life) is not something new to scientists. They have been trying to discover a way to split the water molecule in a commercially viable way for some time. By doing so, they can use the hydrogen for energy (essentially, hydrogen powers the sun). It’s a good thing our body isn’t concerned with the commercial viability of producing energy via water splitting? The share of oxygen in the blood stream that contributes to this water splitting process is very high. According to recent research, white blood cells (both neutrophils and eosinophils) are actively respiring (combusting) and convert all of the oxygen they consume into light. Consequently, blood is a major producer of photons in the ultra-weak range. [Ibid., 291.] Being in the ultra-weak range, these photons are unable to be seen by the human eye (even when the frequency is in the visible range). We should not, however, make the mistake of believing this EMR is too weak to affect the function of the body.
Unlike most other proteins, the biological sciences tell us that hormones are carried to their target cells via the bloodstream[Hormone Foundation, “The Endocrine System: Diseases, Types of Hormones & More,” Endo101. http://www.hormone.org/Endo101/: The Hormone Foundation, accessed May 29, 2008.]. Informed by God, Hildegard tells us that after Adam’s sin, man’s blood carried within itself: 1) sweet, but deadly, poison, i.e., hormones;[Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, trans. Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York: Paulist Press, 1990), 113.] 2) shameful and turbulent acts, thus increasing the body’s appetite for those very crimes carried in the blood, i.e., slavery to sin;[Ibid., 417.] and, 3) impure filth which changed Adam’s blood into a liquid of pollution.[Ibid., 257-258.]
Hmm, here’s a thought: does the fact that our blood emits EMR (the audible sound of which can be digitally recorded) have any implications for the deeper meaning of the Scripture passage in which God tells Cain that his brother’s blood cries out from the ground (Gen 4:10); or the ones where God tells us that the life of every creature is in its blood (Lev. 17:11, 14)? Does the generated light from man’s blood (the same blood that courses through his heart) cry out to the uncreated source of that light, i.e., God?
Does the presence of EMR resulting from cellular structured water have an impact on the function of the products of our salt of DNA? According to Voeikov, splitting the water molecule is a prerequisite for the emergence of EMR. Furthermore, the resultant photon emissions from within living cells affects: 1) the activity of proteins produced by DNA; 2) the functioning of cell tissues; 3) the movement and orientation of cell populations; 4) the intensity of the immune response as a result of respiratory bursts within the human blood stream; and 5) the architecture of cell tissue. It is the opinion of some researchers that water splitting is a necessary component for the generation of electron excitation (EEE) that ‘feeds’ our bio-photonic field. [Ibid., 293.]
Here’s another point of speculation: does the multiple times in Scripture where water is split, e.g., Moses splitting the Red Sea (Ex. 14:21) and Elijah & Elisha splitting the river Jordan (2 Kgs. 2:8, 14), point to these scientific discoveries? Remember, both Elijah and Elisha accomplished this phenomenon using the same mantle made from sheepskin…flesh. Hmm: if ultra-weak light produces such a significant impact on the body, I can’t help but wonder what kind of impact Jesus’ light has on it. I hear that whole Transfiguration event was pretty bright. I wonder what kind of light produced the Shroud of Turin image. I wonder what his EMR does to our body when we receive Him in the Eucharist.
Because in the Eucharist, the whole living Christ is present: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. It is not general Catholic practice to discuss the cup of wine (or the bread, for that matter) since after consecration, there is no cup of wine (or bread) due to transubstantiation. The tiniest particle contains the Eucharist in its entirety and it is the source and summit of Christian life. But if interested in a Eucharistic miracle involving both flesh and blood, Lanciano is a wonderful one to read about. St. Catherine of Siena also has plenty of writings contemplating the sanctifying power of Our Lord’s precious Blood.
I have always been astonished about how many times our hearts beat. I am 85 years old and calculated my heart has beat about 2.7 Billion times. There is nothing on earth like a human heart. Only God could have created such an organ, made for union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Jesus