A Reflection from “God’s Influencer” by Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano

Carlo Acutis’s Plan of Life

Carlo was mature as a child and mature as an adolescent. He didn’t waste time, but rather used it in the best way possible. Carlo always repeated that time and life are a gift that God gives us to be used well. And to him, “well” meant growing in charity toward God and one’s neighbor. And the better this growth is, the greater our eternal beatitude will be in the life to come. He also wrote:

Every minute that goes by is a minute fewer we have to grow in holiness, and time should not be wasted on things that are not pleasing to God, but we have to make time our ally.

This was his invitation to make the most of time, to render it quality time by living the virtues.

Always having Jesus as his point of reference, Carlo would say that Jesus showed us how best to use our time by becoming incarnate. Through the Incarnation of the eternal Word of God, Eternity manifested Himself openly in time and is now already giving each of us the possibility of living in communion with Him. This is the sense of Kairos, the time that is the today of salvation, that gives us access to God, to the Trinity, to Eternity. He knew that this today, beyond being a precious gift of God, is also a trial. A trial to not fall away from or reject the will of God for us, but rather to grow in harmony with it, to grow in the love of charity. For this reason, he was convinced that the sacraments are the greatest resource that God gives us on a regular basis to orient all our time toward Him. He once said to us, “Our destination must be Infinity, not finiteness.”

He wrote a plan for his life a few days after receiving his First Communion: “To be always united to Jesus, this is the plan for my life.” His fundamental priority was to eliminate everything that in any way might distance him from God; it was his commitment to personal conversion. “Conversion,” as Carlo wrote, “is nothing other than shifting one’s gaze from low to high. A simple movement of the eyes is enough.” And when he said this, he did so with a tone and manner somewhere between serious and playful; with his sympathetic, buoyant manner and with metaphors, he knew how to communicate a great Christian truth.

“Conversion is halting our downward plunge and beginning to climb upward. The lower we have plunged, the more difficult and strenuous the climb upward will be. What is important is to change directions. Step by step, day after day, moving forward without ever stopping. The higher we climb, the more we shall see things from the right perspective, in their entirety and totality. The higher we climb, the more we enter the atmosphere that surrounds co-eternity. We shall then breathe the air of Infinity.”

Wanting his conversion to be sincere and constant, he decided to go to Confession frequently, at least once every week. He almost always confessed to a priest who worked in our parish in Milan. This priest testified to us that Carlo was a very pure boy, desiring to improve in all things, both in love toward God and in love toward his neighbor, beginning with his parents. He desired to grow in friendship with his peers, classmates, and teachers. He wanted to dedicate himself earnestly to deepening his knowledge of school subjects and computer science, as well as subjects connected to faith. And at the same time, he didn’t want any “stain” to tarnish his soul. The sacrament of Confession allowed him to obtain this goal: “Many little spots placed together will form a large one,” Carlo said, “and in the end they blot out all the white space.” Carlo prayed with the words of Psalm 51, the Miserere: “Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow…. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”