The miracle attributed to the prayers of Carlo Acutis

The beatification of Carlo Acutis took place on October 10 after a miracle attributed to his prayers and the grace of God. In Brazil, a boy named Mattheus was healed of a serious birth defect called the annular pancreas after he and his mother had asked Acutis to pray for his recovery.

Mattheus was born in 2009 with a serious condition that caused him difficulty eating and severe abdominal pain. He was unable to hold food in his stomach and was constantly vomiting.

When Mattheus was nearly four, he weighed only 20 pounds and lived on a vitamin and protein shake, one of the few things his body could tolerate. He was not expected to live long.

His mother, Luciana Vianna, had spent years praying for her recovery.

At the same time, a family friend priest, Fr. Marcelo Tenorio, learned the life of Carlo Acutis online, and began to pray for his beatification. In 2013 he obtained a relic from Carlo's mother and invited Catholics to a mass and prayer service in his parish, encouraging them to ask for Acutis' intercession for any healing they might need.

Mattheus's mother heard about the prayer service. He decided he would ask Acutis to intercede for his son. In fact, in the days before the prayer service, Vianna made a novena for the intercession of Acutis and explained to her son that they could ask Acutis to pray for her recovery.

On the day of the prayer service, he took Mattheus and other family members to the parish.

Nicola Gori, the priest responsible for promoting the cause of the holiness of Acutis, told the Italian media what happened next:

"On 12 October 2013, seven years after Carlo's death, a child suffering from a congenital malformation (annular pancreas), when it was his turn to touch the image of the blessed future, expressed a singular wish, like a prayer: ' being able to stop throwing up so much. Healing began immediately, to the point that the physiology of the organ in question changed ”, p. Gori said.

On the way back from mass, Mattheus told his mother that he was already healed. At home, he asked for fries, rice, beans and steak, his brothers' favorite foods.

He ate everything on his plate. He didn't throw up. He ate normally the next day and the next. Vianna took Mattheus to the doctors, who were bewildered by Mattheus's recovery.

Mattheus' mother told Brazilian media that she sees the miracle as an opportunity to evangelize.

“Before, I didn't even use my cell phone, I was against technology. Carlo changed my way of thinking, he was known for having talked about Jesus on the Internet and I realized that my testimony would be a way to evangelize and give hope to other families. Today I understand that anything new can be good if we use it forever, ”he told reporters.