“The Eucharist is My Highway to Heaven”, by Paul Senz

By Paul Senz, Catholic World Report, Oct. 12, 2023

Paul Senz has an undergraduate degree from the University of Portland in music and theology and earned a Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry from the same university. He has contributed to Catholic World Report, Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly, The Priest Magazine, National Catholic Register, Catholic Herald, and other outlets. Paul lives in Elk City, OK, with his wife and their four children.

“By rooting his life in prayer and the sacraments,” says Courtney Mares, author of Blessed Carlo Acutis: A Saint in Sneakers, “Carlo was able to approach technology in a healthy way. I think that prayer was truly the great secret of his life.”

We do not have photographs of the vast majority of the Church’s saints and blesseds. Portraits and sculptures suffice for most of them, and those of whom we do have photographs are usually shown in prayer, smiling on a mountaintop, or feeding the poor.

Blessed Carlo Acutis may be the only person ever raised to the altars who was photographed in a Spider-Man costume.

Born in 1991 in London to Italian parents, Carlo grew up during the age of the internet, a bona fide millennial. He played video games, was a fan of Pokémon and Transformers, and taught himself computer coding. …