Place 15 minutes away from the Square.

Uncertain where exactly to enter with my concelebration ticket.

Mass at 10. I walked there at 7am. Ten of Thousands, crowds at 7am.

Follow the leader to get the way in to concelebrate.

Excitement and some impatience and raised voices, Swiss guards deferential but firm.

Eventually, good seat. Clergy unruly mob.

Priests of all sorts. Mass nowhere else given number.

Scotland hat: Argentinians in Stirling university. Priest from N.I.

Prayer petitions to Carlo.

Pope himself came out to greet before Mass and then afterwards.

Rosary blessed. Babies, flags, bells.

Prisoners of the Vatican. Marathon for Pope and me.

Heat – soaking wet.

Bagno di gente. Large G & T!

Handicapped man: as if to test the authenticity of our faith.

The ceremony and all that preceded and followed it was a real marathon, but at heart it was a marathon of tangible love, praise and joy! Dream come true. A few moments of intensity during it, highlighting two: 1. The overwhelming awareness of unity with the body and blood of Christ during the consecration. 2. The formula of canonization: authority of Christ, definitive.

What did it mean for me? Confirmation of the journey which began with Covid, Agape, the discovery of Carlo, the testing and earlier confirmation to place the figure of a child before our parishes as a helper and challenge towards Eucharistic revival in faith, practice and adoration. Seals a friendship with him and a sort of covenant to work with him to make Jesus in the Eucharist better known, believed and loved. A further confirmation of other more personal matters of a spiritual nature.

What do I hope it means for the parishes? Whatever the Lord will dispose! I hope his story, example, watchwords of wisdom, intercession and friendship will inspire many of us to put out into deeper water in our relationship with Jesus and with His Church, especially in the Eucharist. The Star of the Sea and the Star of the Surf will work beautifully together to bring us to do the Will of God for us and through us. Mary’s fiat and Carlo’s “not I, but God” merge into one grace-filled obedience to Christ, opening more fully the river of the water of life into our hearts and drawing us into deeper communion in God, if we respond.

Does any of this have anything to do with the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross? Well, the Mass itself, of course, is the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Cross. To exalt and to celebrate the Cross is to exalt and celebrate the outpouring of the love of God. That self-sacrificing love is what cleanses us from sin and makes us holy. The formal act of canonizing a saint declares that the Cross has triumphed definitively in the life of that saint. What the Pope binds on earth is bound in heaven. No saint holds up before our eyes some trophy of their own. Each and all of them hold up before us the Cross of Christ: it is His merciful love alone which has exalted them. He humbled Himself so that we might be exalted through Him and in Him. Sanctity is not a human achievement, but gift of human fulfilment given by the author of our humanity to whoever accepts it. The Cross alone confers that fulfilment.

The Cross was exalted in St. Carlo’s life in many different ways. Through his deep faith in and love for the Eucharist the crucified Lord was already drawing Carlo to Himself. Carlo quickly learned the art and necessity of self-denial for one who receives the Eucharist worthily, despite the fact that he lived in a well-to-do family. What he denied himself, he gave away to others in persistent and often hidden little acts of generosity, as if he were a eucharist for them. He learned from Christ in the Eucharist to give bread, clothes and money, to give time, love and friendship to others lying in the streets. He suffered opprobrium from school mates for his religiosity, his purity, his defence of the teaching of the Church in class and outside of it. He sought out and protected the underdog, those bullied. He befriended and consoled his classmates whose parents got divorced. And he did it all with the uncomplicated and uncomplaining simplicity of Christ Himself.

At some point in his exceptionally intense friendship with Jesus, there emerged what must have been a very personal and direct invitation from Jesus to Carlo to accept a special mission: to let Jesus take him to Himself very early in his life and to work with Jesus from heaven to draw people to, or back to, the Lord, especially in the Eucharist. Carlo intimated to his mother at one point not only that he would die soon: he even told her what would kill him. He told her that a vein would burst in his brain. His mother dismissed this as boyish nonsense since Carlo was brimming with the health of a teenagr. But two months before he died, Carlo made a short video, unknown to his family, in which he simply said, “I am destined to die.” The very word “destined” echoes the predictions which Jesus made of his own death when He said, “the Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously and be put to death.” His parents found the video only after his death. When he was admitted to hospital with a sudden and intense form of leukaemia in early October 2006, he told his mother that he would not come out of it again and said that he offered his suffering for the Church and for the Pope. He also said, “I am happy to die because I have lived my life without wasting even a minute on anything unpleasing to God.” What he is saying here is that, like Christ and with Him, he lived his whole life for God and so would die his death, too, with Christ for God. At his funeral, the crowds overflowed onto the street.

Carlo would have been 34 today had he not died. His short life proves that grace can work wonders with us if we learn to say in truth, “not I, but God.” Carlo invites us to join him in the adventure of holiness, to really and truly want holiness. That means wanting the Cross and the love of Christ flowing through it, but it also means eternal glory and the consummate fulfilment of our humanity. As Carlo said, “heaven has been waiting for us for ever.” So let us, too, work and long for holiness and, like Carlo, no longer keep heaven waiting.