Though the life of Saint Dymphna was short, she had a profound impact – just like this coming week’s saint, Carlo Acutis!
Born in 1991 in London, Carlo spent most of his life in Milan, Italy while his parents worked for their successful insurance company. He was cared for by many nannies, and to one he had even mentioned that “Jesus would not be happy if I lost my temper” after the nanny learned that daycare children had been taking his toys. Though he became a defender of bullied classmates in high school (and a mediator for reconciliation in fights!), he maintained his joyful and peaceful demeanor throughout his life.
Carlo regularly made time in his day to say hello to the people he met on his walk and enjoyed his passions: soccer and computer science. He cared for stray animals, picked up garbage in the beaches and the woods, and played Pokémon. Carlo taught himself how to build a website and created one with a global map of Eucharistic miracles that he could use to teach the younger students in faith formation. It was a product of over two years of diligent and hard work, launched in 2006 just days before Carlo’s sudden death.
After developing inflammation in his throat, acute pain and being too weak to go meet His Eucharistic Lord in the Mass, Carlo was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia: cancer of the white blood cells. He offered his last days of pain for the Church and died on October 12, 2006. His funeral was attended by people his parents had never met but had been touched by the fifteen-year-old’s life, and his cause for canonization was opened in Milan on October 12, 2012.
Hear more about Carlo’s extraordinary devotion to the Lord, even in suffering, on Monday, April 29th at thesaintspodcast.com.
