Holiness often takes unpredictable trajectories, almost unscrupulous. He is annid where he is not seen, he shines where, often, nobody realizes that there is. Let’s take Carlo Acutis, The Milanese teenager who died at 15 in 2006 from a fulminating leukemia and who will be canonized by Pope Leo XIV on 7 September ins together with Pier Giorgio Frassati.
Normality, simplicity, discretion, genius are the words most used by his peers who were fascinated, and also a little surprised, by this figure, defined as the “first Millennial saint” or, also, the “patron saint of the Internet”. To Leo XIII, the Institute of the Jesuit Fathers of Milan, attended by Acutis for a year, from September 2005 to September 2006, There is a manifesto with the face of Carlo and the sentence “One of us”. Never Slogan was more spot on. Because the boys really hear him one of them, capable of talking to their life experience, to make them question on the faith, to reflect on who the friends of God are, to make him understand what he means, in the knowledge and desperate, to fix his gaze, not on visible things, but on the invisible ones, according to the disconcerting words of Saint Paul.
Discover that there are teenagers such as Carlo, Jovial, Allegri, ironic who read their lives, and history, with the gaze illuminated by the Spirit of God. They act, without complaining. They welcome, without judging. They discuss, without wanting to prevaricate. They help, without flaunting. They joke, without desecrating. Saints without pedestals.
Outside the 4th class there is a simple simple plaque that recalls that this is the classroom where Carlo Acutis has attended lessons. His bench is in the penultimate row. Leonardo, Cristina and Filippo are three students from Leo XIII. In April – when the canonization ceremony was scheduled, then skipped for the death of Pope Francis – they went to Rome, together with several peers from the Jesuit schools from all over the world who found themselves in Milan.
Who is Carlo for these guys? “One who feels close and makes sure that we can get closer to him and faith, often told as something that has to do with the elderly or boring people“Says Leonardo,” San Francesco, for example, was a giant, he lived centuries ago, you don’t even think you could get closer to him. It is different with Carlo. The fact of sharing the same math teacher means that you can live a beautiful life, of faith, here too, today ».
Cristina was struck by one aspect: «Carlo’s humility is truly surprising. In a world where faith, when there is, is relegated to the private, almost hidden, Carlo was not ashamed to be a believer, Going to Mass every day but did all this with discretion, almost secretly ».
“Listening to the stories and testimonies of his professors, some of whom are also ours, helps us to hear him very close, like a schoolmate of ours,” says Filippo, “The fact that he used the Internet, was passionate about digital technology and knew how to use the computer very well It makes the very idea of holiness as a possibility open to everyone, not something archaic or dusty ».
A short life that of Acutis, but intense, marked by some pillars: Irony, youth, passion, devotion to the Eucharist, self -denial towards others.
A trait that Leonardo finds very interesting: «It affects me a lot of his discretion, the desire to never want to flaunt anything of what he did. In the afternoon, instead of staying at home or dedicating himself to some pastime, he left to meet the homeless and give him a pair of shoes or bring something to the canteens of the poor. Today on social media there is an ostentation, almost a race, to want to show these gestures. Carlo did it secretly. Perhaps the spark of holiness is seen in this normality, even in devotion to the Eucharist. And it was this normality of life that “conquering” his parents first, who were not particularly believers, and then all the other people “.
The normal of the extraordinary, the ordinarity of holiness: “Religion is often characterized by experiences that we consider unattainable: miracles, the same resurrection of Jesus”, Leonardo still underlines, “The life of Carlo Acutis instead reminds us that faith can be lived every day, in the small choices we make, in prayer, in participation in mass. His life for me is an example of how faith can live in everyday concrete life ».
For years Carlo’s fame has expanded to the world. Everywhere, from Europe to the United States, from Latin America to Asia, it is known, invoked, prayed. Filippo tells an episode: “Last year I had gone to New York for a cultural exchange and the professor had given me the image of Acutis without knowing that I came from the school he had attended. He remained amazed and fascinated. “
The understanding of what the lives of the saints mean often also depends on the way they are told, on the storytelling. “The most important thing, apart from some exceptions, is that his figure was not myth», Cristina underlines,” when the professor of religion showed us the site that Carlo had created for the volunteering of Leo XIII by promoting and coordinating the realization of some commercials for a competition, makes us understand what we guys can do for others with our creativity and ability. A practical holiness ».
Of Santo “next door”, citing an expression of Pope Francis, speaks Father Vitangelo denora, President of the Board of Directors of Leo XIII: “His life is a fresh, clean testimony, which infuses hope because you see the trust that wins on the distrust, the love on the retailer, the refusal to think of a life in small but to face it with his head held high, with joy, hope, responsibility. Carlo does not belong to the Jesuits or Leo XIII but we have received his life and his testimony as a gift that “descends from above”, as Sant’Ignazio recalls, in spiritual exercises. A simple gift that arouses gratitude and interpellar. And we want to tell it like this, without frills, embellishments or hagiographic reconstructions with the humility with which it has passed between us “.
