BRISTOL — Blessed Carlo Acutis, as beloved as he is, isn’t a saint quite yet. But in the eyes of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Bristol, he most certainly is.
On the afternoon of Divine Mercy Sunday, hundreds of parishioners gathered inside the church to celebrate God’s love for man. That love was manifested in the recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet following an hour of Eucharistic adoration. At the end, Father Henry Zinno blessed the brand-new three-foot fiberglass statue of Acutis sporting his red polo shirt and backpack to add to the church’s extensive collection of saint statues.
You know who else loved the Eucharist? Carlo Acutis. In fact, he loved it so much that at just 15, he built an entire website dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament called
miracolieucaristici.org, which is why he’s set to become the patron saint of the internet. There’s no rescheduled date for Acutis’s canonization following the death of Pope Francis, but it’s expected to happen soon after the next Pope is elected.
Acutis worked tirelessly to recount the roughly 160 Eucharistic miracles throughout history, doing extensive research on even the most obscure miracles from thousands of years ago. They’ve happened on every continent and nearly every century since Christ established his church. Mount Carmel highlighted some of the most famous and interesting ones in the parish hall this weekend, but the ones they included were just the tip of the iceberg.
Stephen Caveleri, a Knights of Columbus member at the parish, led the setup of this special event. One of the obscure miracles that stuck out to him when perusing the website was the Miracle of Alboraya-Almacera, Spain, which happened way back in 1348. As Acutis recounts, a priest accidentally dropped a collection of consecrated hosts into a river. But then, the fish swimming by each grabbed a host in their mouths and held the hosts above the water so they could be recovered.
Julie Laroche is a teacher at Our Lady of Mount Carmel School next door. With First Communion right around the corner for her first and second graders, she said it’s been a blessing to show them all the proof they could ever want of the Eucharist truly being the body and blood of Christ. She said their response has been positive and encouraging, knowing that a kid not much older than them could understand the Eucharist’s power on such a deep level.
“I felt good because these things can come true,” 7-year-old Morgan Placido said on learning about the Eucharistic miracles.
Upon blessing the Acutis statue, it was also dedicated in loving memory of Laroche’s sister, Natalie Swift of Warren. Like Acutis, she passed from this world all too soon at the age of 53 in 2020. But instead of Leukemia, she suffered from ALS for seven years.
Laroche said, “My sister could not do anything alone, but she still had joy in her. And her joy came from Jesus. You would come to her house and be like ‘Oh my gosh, Nat, my kids are doing this, my kids are doing that,’ and she would just sit here and listen. She had the gift of being present.”
Laroche said her sister exemplified everything it means to be a light to everyone around her, despite her suffering. She hopes that this dedication will help spread the word about her story. For example, a local parishioner named Mary Scotti was in a coma suffering from encephalitis.
“The hospital told her family to send Mary home and get hospice or a feeding tube,” Laroche said. “There was no hope for her.”
As Laroche continued to recount, Scotti awoke from the coma shortly after Swift prayed for her. One of the first people to see her awake was Laroche’s other sister, Lisa Benzer. Scotti had never met Benzer before, but upon seeing her, she called her “Lisa.” Today, Scotti is living with autoimmune encephalitis instead of the active disease.
Following her death, Laroche said more than 4,000 people showed up for Swift’s wake and funeral. People formed a line that circled the whole block to pay their respects. She left behind her husband, Neil Swift, and their six children.
Just as God would have it, both Carlo Acutis of Milan and Natalie Swift of Warren will together be remembered as shining examples of how God’s love can radiate as brightly as the Eucharist itself.
