The nationwide first-class pilgrim relic exhibition for Saint Carlo Acutis is now in Adelaide from 6-9 August, with the first two nights in the Adelaide CBD and then a day each in Payneham and Pooraka.

Archbishop Patrick O’Regan spoke at length about Saint Carlo – who died from leukemia aged just 15 in 2006 – during his Thursday night homily at the Cathedral Mass.

Carlo was an ordinary Italian teenager who loved video games, played football, joked around with his friends and “also happened to be one of the most extraordinary saints of our time” the Archbishop said.

“He wasn’t a monk hidden away from the world. He used a computer. He coded websites. He was, by every account, a completely normal kid, except for one thing: he had actually seen the glory, and he built his whole life around it.

“He went to Mass every day, not because someone forced him, but because he had glimpsed, like Peter on the mountain, that this ordinary-looking bread was actually blazing with the same glory that lit up Christ’s face in front of his disciples. He said ‘The sun that we see is dark in comparison with the Eucharist’.”

Mass goers unaware of the relic’s arrival would have been forewarned by a white car stationed outside the Cathedral emblazoned with the pilgrimage details (five months across Australia until late October).

Australia is the 25th country to welcome the relic said Kate Hobbs, who along with her daughter Clare brought the relic and accompanying exhibition to Adelaide.

Kate was in the Cathedral at 9.30am to welcome groups of students lined up to pay their respects. She gave a detailed and engaging talk that brought a few sighs of near disbelief from the students when she told them that Carlo decided, aged just eight, that despite his love of computer games, he would limit himself to just an hour a week on PlayStation. And he stuck to it, she said.

Fr Matthew Newman, the assistant dean of the Cathedral then held the tiny relic, a 6 × 2cm section of St Carlo’s pericardium that encloses and protects the heart, for students and staff to venerate.

(As an observer seated a few rows back, it was a respectful but undoubtedly uplifting occasion and a pleasure to observe.)

Feedback from two 15-year-old boys immediately afterwards was telling.

Tim Randall and Jaden Chung attend Rostrevor College in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs but had not taken the easy route to get to the Cathedral. Just hours before they’d spent the night outside as part of the school’s Vinnies Sleepout before hotfooting it into town to take part in the well-attended ‘Walk a mile’ charity fundraiser.
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“He would be one of the lads and pull us into line,” said Tim when asked whether they’d have been friends had they met at the same age.

“To discover what he wanted to do and balance that (with everything he did) is amazing.”
“I didn’t know what to expect,” said Jaden of the relic but the experience was undoubtedly uplifting both boys said with a “definite connection” all around.

Post visit the Rostrevor students and two teachers walked into Victoria Square, chatting away animatedly, someone waving a school staff.

Whether that was down to Saint Carlo alone we clearly don’t know. By even by 11am it had been a very good day.