Denver Catholic

38 DECEMBER 2020 | DENVER CATHOLIC H E HAD AN ADVAN CE D AWAR E N ES S O F TH E M EAN I NG O F LI FE AN D H OW TO LIVE WE LL . "To be always united to Jesus is my program of life," he declared. In contrast to contemporary narcissism, he said that happiness comes from keeping "one's face turned toward God" and sadness from focusing your attention on yourself. "Not I, but God" was his mantra. "Find God," he stated, "and you will find the meaning of your life." H E LIVE D LI FE WITH A CE RTAI N U RG E N CY: "Every minute that passes," he said, "is one minute less to become like God," and to become like God was his desire. "What does it matter if you can win a thousand battles if you cannot win against your own corrupt passions?" he asked. "The real battle is with ourselves." Right before he died, he said, "To have a long life doesn't mean that this is a good thing [because] one can live a very long time and live badly." He humbly confessed, "I am happy to die because I have lived my life without waiting a minute on those things that do not please God." B LES S E D CAR LO HAD AN AR DE NT LOVE FO R J ES U S I N TH E EU CHARI ST. He lived a Eucharistic life, calling the Eucharist "my highway to heaven." He attended daily Mass from the time he was 7 and spent time each day in adoration. "The more Eucharist we receive," he believed, "the more we will become like Jesus." H E HAD A EU CHARI STI C AMAZE M E NT, so fascinated by the Eucharistic miracles across the centuries that he went on an adventure to try to visit them all and to document them so that others could share his astonishment. It didn't make sense to him that there would be huge crowds for soccer games and rock concerts but no lines before the tabernacle where God is present and lives among us. H E HAD A DE E P LOVE FO R MARY. "The Virgin Mary is the only woman in my life," he said, and he called the Rosary, which he prayed daily, the "shortest ladder to climb to heaven" and the "most powerful weapon," after the Eucharist, "to fight the devil." Like his inspiring 196-part series on Eucharistic miracles that has posthumously traveled the world, he also had conceptualized a 156-part series on the Marian apparitions, which was completed by his mother after his death. H E HAD A LOVE FO R TH E CH U RCH AN D TH E SAI NTS . "To criticize the Church means to criticize ourselves," he said, because "the Church is the dispenser of treasures for our salvation." We judge the Church not by those who don't live according to her teachings but by those who do, which is why he drew near to the saints, like St. Francis of Assisi and various great young saints like Tarcisius, Aloysius, Dominic Savio, Bernadette, and Francisco and Jacinta Marto. W hen I first learned about him, I was impressed by his precocious hunger for God: He prayed the Rosary every day from a young age; made his first Holy Communion a year early and then attended daily Mass thereafter; cared for the homeless each night; trav- eled regularly to Assisi; loved the saints; learned computers to design websites to spread his love of the Eucharist and Mary and to teach about angels and the four last things. I figured, frankly, that he must have come from a home simi- lar to the one that produced, for example, St. Thérèse. Instead he came from a home that, as his garrulous mother Antonia has humbly said in various interviews, wasn't even lukewarm. By the time Carlo was born, Anto- nia had been to Church only three times in her life, the days she was baptized, confirmed and married. Carlo, through his questions and zeal, eventually got her to take her faith more seriously, and she was just one of many converts. While Carlo's grandparents practiced the faith and he attended Catholic schools, it seems pretty clear that the Lord interacted with Blessed Carlo much like he did with the young prophet Samuel. Several things strike me about his life.

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