Dear All Saints Family,
I am freshly back from the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, where the whole parish was carried in my heart and prayer at adoration, at Masses, in the Procession, everywhere! My soul is filled to the brim with the graces of that experience. You’ll be hearing all about those graces for the foreseeable future in homilies and bulletin articles, hopefully not ad nauseam, but ad maiorem Dei gloriam…to the glory of God!
On the first full day, as I walked the expansive Exhibit Hall where there were Catholic vendors of every category, I came upon a painting of Blessed Carlo Acutis that stopped me in my tracks. Do you know who he is?
Carlo is the first beatified millennial, and coined “the first beatified person to have played PlayStation” and “the Saint in Sneakers”. He was an ordinary boy with an extraordinary faith, with particular intense devotion to the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. Even when his parents weren’t intent on being at Mass, Carlo went. He spent hours each week in adoration. And here’s the proof of his holiness: that this devotion led him outward in charity. He offered a family dinner to friends in school whose parents were going through divorce. He developed a website to catalog Eucharistic Miracles throughout the Church’s history. As he played video games he would use the time to share about the importance of confession and reception of the Eucharist.
Carlo died at the age of 15 in 2006 from leukemia and is buried in Assisi, the place where he was most happy.
This painting captured his youth, his joy, his peace…he stands off to the side of a huge monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament for adoration, with a faint image of Jesus, the Divine Mercy, barely visible in the Host. His website is tastefully integrated into the open space above his head. The buttons of a PlayStation controller are subtly present off to his side. And there are so many more hidden details and intentional tributes to Carlo’s faith.
In my mind’s eye, I saw this painting hanging outside our Our Lady of the Knights Adoration chapel, inspiring everyone in the narthex and serving to remind Adorers of the great gift we have in our Eucharistic Lord, and the call we have to let everyone know about the banquet He provides. The artist had many offers to purchase that piece, but she said I was the first. I should know soon if she has chosen us to have the honor of displaying this striking image.
Lord, if it be your will, we would love to have this painting of one of your newest saints giving inspiration to our All Saints family! Thy will be done.
Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!
Blessed Carlo Acutis, pray for us!
All you holy saints of God, pray for us!
Peace in Christ,
Fr. Michael
Pastor