By Jamie O’Brien and Phil Bayne
Perth pilgrims have flocked to venerate the relic of St Carlo Acutis, the Church’s first millennial saint, during the relic’s national mission.
St Mary’s Cathedral, St Michael the Archangel Chapel in Leederville and Sacred Heart Church in Highgate hosted the relic that is a section of Saint Carlo’s pericardium, the membrane that encloses and protects the heart.
At the Youth Mass on Wednesday 5 August, the last day that the relic was in Perth, Perth Auxiliary Bishop Nelson Po said faith was the cornerstone of Saint Carlo’s life and it is faith that we need to respond to God’s call and serve as part of God’s community.
“Saint Carlo (displayed) this level of faith his entire young life, and we are very blessed to have his relic with us; to have spent time with the relic of our saint, the saint of the millennium, the true model for our time and our age,” he said during his homily.
Referring to the Gospel of the day, Bishop Nelson said faith also featured prominently in the story of the Canaanite woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter.
At a more personal level, he also said faith had brought him to where he is today, initially as a priest and now a bishop of the people.
“The Canaanite woman in tonight’s gospel and Saint Carlo Acutis have one thing in common: they have faith, strong faith,” he said.
“So, in our most disconcerting and stressful times in life, let us not lose faith in our prayers. Let us model the Canaanite woman who shows us how faith can work wonders.”
The faith journey of Saint Carlo Acutis is particularly inspiring given that his family were not practicing Catholics. At the age of three however, he was introduced to the Church by his nanny and from that time he was determined to visit and converse with Jesus every day.
At seven years of age, he asked to receive his Holy Communion, however in Italy, the required age is nine or ten, so he had to get special dispensation from the bishop. With permission granted, from that day forward he went to Mass, received Communion, participated in Adoration and prayed the Rosary every day, and went to Confession every week.
On the day of his First Holy Communion, he told his parents his plan: “Always to be united to Jesus. This is my program of life.”
He kept to his plan through five practices: frequent reception of the Eucharist, Eucharistic Adoration, regular confession and spiritual direction, devotion to Our Lady and the saints, and acts of charity.
Those five steps also shaped the Perth visit, with pilgrims having the opportunity for Adoration, veneration of the relic, information sessions, Mass and Confession.
Preaching to a million young people in Rome at the close of the Jubilee of Youth last August, Pope Leo XIV commended St Carlo’s “programme of life” and urged the young to “aspire to great things, to holiness, wherever you are.”
The relic of Saint Carlo Acutis travels the world under the custodianship of the Diocese of Assisi, accompanied by Monsignor Anthony Figueiredo, whom the Archbishop of Assisi appointed to carry Saint Carlo’s message and relics abroad.
The International Exhibition of Eucharistic Miracles, which Saint Carlo himself created travels alongside the relic.
Monsignor Figueiredo said the relic was an invitation addressed above all to the young: to stop wasting their lives, and to put God at the centre of what they do.
Carlo Acutis was born in London on 3 May 1991 and died of leukaemia in 2006, aged 15. An ordinary teenager with a real gift for computers, he used it to build an online catalogue of Eucharistic miracles from around the world, and he called the Eucharist his “highway to Heaven.”
