“All people are born as originals but many die as photocopies” (Bl. Carlo Acutis).

The First Millennial Saint

Last year, on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje and Italy, I stayed two nights in the medieval town of Assisi. One would think this beautiful town in the middle of the country was frozen in the 13th century, with several churches built by St. Francis himself.

After our morning excursion to the beautiful and historic Cathedral Basilica in the main square, we ventured to the church of St. Mary Major, where a young man’s body lay incorrupt. You may have heard his name in recent worldwide news: Blessed Carlo Acutis.

As we approached Carlo Acutis’s tomb, I was stunned by how young he looked, as if he were only sleeping. Yet, he passed away on October 10, 2006 (from a deadly form of leukemia) and has been buried for 18 years. After a few prayers and quiet, peaceful moments, we left the shrine, not knowing that less than a year later, the Church would announce that this young man would be canonized.

Some of the most well-known facts about Blessed Carlo are his love and talent for computers, his devotion to the Eucharist and Eucharistic miracles, and his becoming the first millennial saint. But what does Carlo Acutis’s life and canonization mean for us, especially in the younger generations? Turns out, this saint wore his blue jeans the same way as the rest of us. Carlo Acutis lived a simple, everyday holiness that can change everything.

A Relatable Saint

There used to be an imaginary barrier between us and the saints. All it took was one look at these martyrs, cloistered religious, or missionaries for us to throw our hands up in the air and say, "Well there’s no way I could be a saint. That life is much too difficult.” These heroes of the faith felt too archaic and distant for us to relate to them.

In one of my favorite homilies by Father Mike Schmitz, he describes the all-too-familiar feeling of disqualifying ourselves before we give God a chance to work through us. We can so quickly disqualify ourselves from holiness due to our sins, flaws, or the world in which we live, because we don’t think we are worthy of God’s grace working in our lives. In a way, maybe we secretly felt relieved to have had an out; since we couldn't relate to the saints, there was no way we could be expected to attain that level of holiness—or to make the sacrifices that come with it. Our disqualification gives us an excuse. Sure, not every saint in history was a pope or martyr, but it seemed as though saints from older generations were living in a completely different world.

Enter Blessed Carlo Acutis. Only a 16-year-old boy when he died, he was a normal kid like everyone else. He went to school and played video games and sports. Photos and videos show his trademark beaming smile. He was not part of a consecrated community. On the surface, he lived the same ordinary life that we do. And, born in 1991, he was a millennial. Today, Carlo Acutis would have been 33 years old.

Love of the Eucharist

Carlo’s profound faith in Jesus, especially present in the Eucharist, was extraordinary and attainable at the same time. His love was pure, his devotion profound, and his actions of love simple and childlike. Carlo Acutis may go down as the most relatable saint for this generation. His example can inspire our devotion to the Lord.

We can add in a morning Mass during the week, weekly adoration, or helping the less fortunate. We can give our smiles away to strangers and live our lives with a palpable joyfulness. We can limit our phone scrolling time to one hour a week, as Carlo did with his beloved video games. In everything we do, we can offer up our days to do the will of our Father in Heaven.

We can no longer try to make the excuse that it’s impossible to be holy in the modern world because soon, we will have a saint in sneakers. It should be a great joy for us.
We can turn to Carlo Acutis for his intercession. No doubt, graces will abound for the world’s youth when Carlo is officially canonized—and the world desperately needs it. We can look to Carlo Acutis as God’s reminder to our generation that no matter how dark, confusing, and distorted our times may become, holiness is possible in the simplest of ways.

Mary Kate McNamara is a Jersey girl with a Midwest heart. She works at a consulting firm in downtown Chicago and is a proud Michigan alum (Go Blue!). While Chicago is her favorite city, she can still whip out an East Coast accent and Springsteen lyrics faster than a New York minute. Mary Kate is known for loving long, deep conversations that keep her friends up way too late. She considers herself truly blessed to be the daughter, sister and close friend of the best people she knows. Mary Kate has a life-long devotion to St. Joseph and the Blessed Mother, and is beginning to discover what it means to be friends with Jesus.