By Msgr. Joseph Prior • Posted June 5, 2026

(See the readings for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ)

St. Carlo Acutis was canonized the first millennial saint last September by Pope Leo. He died young, 15 years old, after falling ill two weeks earlier. In his short life we see the power of God’s grace drawing Carlo into a deep relationship of love.

Born into a family of then non-practicing Catholics, he was introduced at an early age to the Mass by a babysitter. He was captivated by Christ’s love and moved to share that love in kindness. His devotion to the Eucharist led him to develop a website devoted to Eucharistic miracles. Many will have seen the displays based on this website that have traveled around to different locations over the past few years.

St. Carlo referred to the Eucharist as the “highway to heaven.” After his death, his mother Antonia found some journal entries and reflections on his computer. In one of these he writes:

“And so the Eucharist, which is a ‘second Incarnation,’ truly becomes not so much a sacrament in the ritual sense but rather a sacrament in the supernatural sense. For this reason, when we take Communion, Jesus pauses among us for 15 minutes, hidden in the form of bread and wine, substantially present, truly residing. … He shares this day with us and continues, after the forms of bread and wine have decomposed, with his grace, his residence with us. So we become his house, his home; and so Jesus, present, alive, and real, is not only a fact of faith, not only a fact of ‘sacramentality,’ but a fact of ‘Life!’

“Jesus is with me and I with him, as an extremely personal, individual fact. This direct contact between Jesus and I occurs through the Eucharist and the faith. When Jesus came to this planet Earth, he tried to summarize, or as Paul says, to recapitulate all eternity, all of humanity in himself. Humanity before him, humanity in him, humanity after him. This is residing. And Jesus, residing in this sense, recapitulated in himself, day by day, hour by hour, the entire human race, in every sense.

“And so we have before us a miracle which leaves us in awe and which leaves us truly surprised. It is the miracle of redemption, it is the miracle of Jesus’s life with us, who in recapitulating all of humanity in himself, made himself truly, really Redeemer, Savior, and Sanctifier of each and every one of us.”

Carlo’s short life is a testament to the power of God’s love especially realized in the Eucharist. He is a witness to that love in our time as this Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi.

The solemnity draws our attention to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He is truly present under the form of bread and wine. His body broken on the cross in love is now mysteriously, or sacramentally, offered to all. Through this participation in His loving sacrifice we are bound together in love.

St. Paul writes of the communion effected by the Eucharist in his First Letter to the Corinthians. “Brothers and sisters: The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”

The Gospel passage comes from the “bread of life” discourse in the Gospel according to John. Jesus speaks of the connection between Himself and life. Later in the Gospel, Jesus will refer to Himself as “the way, the truth and the life.” Here he says: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Later in the passage He says: “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” Jesus is present to us in the Eucharist, and participation in this Eucharist is a participation in eternal life.

Carlo Acutis at a young age came to a profound understanding of the mystery of the Eucharist. He opened his heart to Jesus in the sacrament and was transformed by His grace. The manifestation of this grace was the loving kindness he showed to his family, his classmates, the excluded, and those in need of love. Jesus, present in his Body and Blood, offers us the same grace.

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Msgr. Joseph Prior is pastor of Our Lady of Grace Parish in Penndel and a former professor of Sacred Scripture and rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. Read more reflections by Msgr. Prior here.