“What is being taught is not correct according to the gospel.” I had been celebrating Mᴀss the same way for 23 years, repeating the same comfortable words, the same safe explanations I had learned in seminary. When I heard the voice that pierced my homily like a ray of light through dirty glᴀss. It was the voice of a child, clear, but not disrespectful, firm, but not arrogant, saying from the third pew, “Father, forgive me, but that’s not exactly correct. May I explain afterwards?” And my first reaction was not humility, but wounded pride. Because, who was this boy to interrupt an ordained priest in the middle of preaching?

But when I looked towards where the voice came from, I saw something in his eyes that stopped me in my tracks. I saw burning faith. I saw a conviction that I had lost years ago without realizing it. I saw someone who truly believed every word he said while I only repeated memorized formulas. And something in my heart broke in that instant. Something that had been hardening for decades began to crack, because I recognized in those young eyes what I had once had and what I had sacrificed on the altar of pastoral prudence. The fear of offending, the desire to fill pews instead of converting hearts.

And what happened that Sunday morning in Milan, in the small parish of Santa Maria di Legratie, where I served as pastor, didn’t just change my way of preaching, but my entire way of understanding the priesthood, the Eucharist, and who God really is when we stop domesticating him with our comfortable theologies.

My name is Alesandro Montini, I am a diocesan priest, I am now 62 years old, but back then I was 38. I was ordained in 1982 in a beautiful ceremony at the Duomo of Milan along with 19 other seminarians. We were young men full of fire, convinced we were going to renew the Church, bring Christ to the mᴀsses, transform Italy, which was becoming increasingly secular after the Second Vatican Council.

But the years have a way of extinguishing that fire if you don’t constantly feed it. And I had stopped feeding it without realizing it. I had fallen into what in Italy we call *sacerdote burocratico*, bureaucratic priesthood, where you celebrate Mᴀss because it’s your job, you preach because you have to preach, you administer sacraments because it’s your function, but the love, the pᴀssion, the awe before the mystery, all of that had slowly evaporated like water under the Milanese summer sun.

My preaching especially had undergone a subtle but devastating transformation. I had started with so much zeal, wanting to preach the gospel in its complete radicality. But Italy in the 90s was not Italy in the 50s. Churches were emptying, the youth were leaving, culture was becoming agnostic, and I, like many priests of my generation, made a fatal decision. I decided that the problem was that the message was too difficult, too demanding, too radical for modern man. So I began to soften it, to make it more accessible, more relevant, more pastoral—which are nice words to say I started to lie. Not big, obvious lies, but small, dangerous lies. Half-truths that are worse than complete lies, because they sound true.

I presented God as a tolerant grandfather instead of a Father who loves us so much that He demands holiness from us. I spoke of sin as mistakes or imperfections instead of rebellion against God’s love. And above all, above all, I had begun to explain the Eucharist in a way that wouldn’t offend modern sensibilities.

That Sunday was the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, late August 1998. Milan was in that suffocating heat that makes even breathing an effort. The church was half empty, as usual in August, when families fled to the coast or the mountains. There were maybe 60 people scattered among the old wooden pews, mostly elderly people who came out of habit more than devotion. Some mothers with restless children drawing on the Mᴀss pamphlets, some teenagers clearly forced by their parents to be there.

And that boy in the third pew, I had seen him before at recent Mᴀsses, always attentive, always kneeling during the consecration when everyone else stayed standing out of laziness, but I had never spoken with him. He was just another face in the crowd until that moment.

The gospel of the day was John, chapter 6, the Bread of Life discourse, where Jesus declares, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Perfect text for preaching about the Eucharist, about the Real Presence, about the central mystery of our Catholic faith.

But as I had done for years, I automatically began to dilute it, to explain it in a way that wasn’t too literal, too scandalous, too difficult for the secular mindset to accept.

“Dear brothers and sisters,” I began from the pulpit with my voice trained to project in churches with bad acoustics. “Today Jesus speaks to us of the bread of life. He invites us to feed on him. Of course, when he says we must eat his flesh, he is using metaphorical language. He is employing a powerful image, a *simile*, to teach us that we must nourish ourselves on his words, his example, his teachings. The Eucharist we receive is a beautiful sign of this spiritual reality. It is a memorial of the Last Supper, a moment of fraternal communion, a profound symbolic gesture that unites us as a community of believers. When we receive Communion, we are expressing our commitment to follow Jesus, to live according to his values of love and justice. We don’t need to understand it in too literal a way. We don’t have to imagine that we are literally eating flesh and drinking blood. That would be scandalous to modern reason. What is important is to grasp the deep spiritual meaning, the message of love and unity that the Eucharist represents for us as the pilgrim People of God.”

It was precisely at that moment that the voice interrupted me. It wasn’t a shout nor a whisper, it was a voice that cut through the air with crystalline clarity.

“Father Alesandro,” it said, and I noted he knew my name, though we had never formally conversed, “forgive me for interrupting, but what you are saying does not match what the gospel says. Could I explain my point of view when you finish?”

There was an uncomfortable silence in the church, heads turning to see who dared to interrupt the homily. Some expressions of disapproval from the elderly who considered this an unforgivable lack of respect.

But when I looked at the boy, when I really looked at him instead of just seeing him as a bothersome interruption, I saw something that completely disconcerted me. There was no arrogance on his face, there wasn’t that air of superiority that teenagers have who want to show they are smarter than adults. There was something else. There was pain, genuine pain, as if he had heard something that deeply hurt him, as if my words were not just wrong, but were hurting someone he loved.

Part of me wanted to immediately rebuff him. To remind him that the homily is not an open forum for debate, that if he had questions he could approach me after Mᴀss in private. But something stopped me. Perhaps it was the look in his eyes. Perhaps it was the Holy Spirit shaking me out of my complacency. Perhaps it was that deep down in my heart I knew that boy had detected something I didn’t want to admit.

“You may speak at the end,” I finally said, and I saw relief on his face as if he had feared I would completely silence him.

I tried to continue my homily, but I could no longer concentrate. The words I had repeated hundreds of times now sounded hollow, even to my own ears. I finished quickly, faster than usual, and when I descended from the pulpit, I felt my hands trembling slightly, something that hadn’t happened to me in years.

If you’re still here, if something inside you tells you to keep listening, share this video, because what that boy taught me that day was not just a lesson in Eucharistic theology, it was a lesson about what it really means to believe, about the difference between faith you repeat and faith you live, about how God sometimes sends us prophets with a child’s face to remind us of truths we have buried under layers of pastoral pragmatism and fear of rejection.

“May you speak now?” I said to the boy. My voice sounded more defensive than I intended. He stood up, but didn’t go up to the pulpit. He stayed in his place, his hands slightly trembling, but his voice firm.

“Father Alesandro,” he began. “I understand perfectly why you preach that way. I truly understand. You want people not to be scared. You want them to keep coming to church. You want the gospel to seem reasonable and accessible to the modern mindset. But I have to tell you something with all respect.”

He paused, took a deep breath as if gathering courage.

“When we do that, when we turn mystery into metaphor, when we transform miracle into symbol, we are not making the gospel more accessible, we are emptying it of its power.”

The church was so quiet I could hear the buzz of flies near the open windows. 60 people holding their breath. I was paralyzed, not by indignation, but by recognition, because that boy was saying out loud what I had been avoiding in my heart for years.

“Father,” he continued, his voice gaining strength, but never losing that tone of genuine respect. “When St. John wrote this chapter of the Gospel, he used a very specific Greek word, the word is *trōgō*, which doesn’t mean simply ‘to eat,’ but ‘to chew.’ To grind with the teeth. It’s a word used to describe how animals devour their food. It’s intentionally crude, intentionally physical, intentionally scandalous. Jesus did not say ‘he who believes in the idea of my flesh,’ he said, ‘He who eats my flesh.’ And when the disciples were scandalized, when many left him saying, ‘This teaching is hard; who can accept it?’ Jesus did not call them back saying, ‘Wait, you misunderstood, it was just a metaphor.’ He let them go because the truth was exactly as scandalous as it sounded.”

I felt my face flush, not with shame, but with something deeper: recognition. That 13-year-old boy was giving me a lesson in biblical exegesis. He was quoting Greek, he was doing textual analysis that most of my fellow priests couldn’t do.

“And there’s something else, Father,” he continued, now looking directly into my eyes with an intensity that was disturbing in someone so young. “You spoke of the Eucharist as a memorial, and you are right, it is a memorial, but not in the modern sense of remembering something that happened. It is a memorial in the biblical Jewish sense. *Zikkaron* in Hebrew, which means to make present again, to actualize. When the priest consecrates the host, he is not remembering something Jesus did 2000 years ago. He is making that same sacrifice present here and now. Calvary becomes present on the altar. It’s not a theatrical representation, it is mystical reality. The bread ceases to be bread and becomes the Body of Christ, not in a symbolic sense, but in a substantial sense. It is what the Church calls transubstantiation. And this is a miracle, Father. The greatest miracle that happens every day at every Mᴀss, in every church in the world. How can we reduce that to a symbol?”

There were tears in my eyes. Now I couldn’t control them, because that boy wasn’t attacking me, he was loving me, he was offering back to me the truth I had lost, and he was doing it with such humility, such respect, such genuine love that it was impossible to feel offended.

“But, Father,” his voice softened even more, became almost tender. “What worries me most is not just that you are teaching incorrectly about the Eucharist, it’s that by doing so you are presenting a small God, a God who fits our expectations instead of a God who challenges us to grow. When you present the Eucharist as a symbol, you are saying that God loves us, but from afar, that he offers us his example, but not himself. But the real God, the God of the gospel, is a God so crazy in love with us that He becomes bread so we can eat Him, that He lets Himself be literally consumed, that He enters physically inside us to transform us from within. That God is not comfortable, He is scandalous, He is radical, He is love that demands everything because He gives everything. And that is the God people need, not a tolerant grandfather, but a Father who loves us so much that He will not let us stay as we are.”

The boy sat down. He was finished.

Everyone was looking at me, waiting for my response, waiting for me to defend my authority, to put that presumptuous child in his place, to remind everyone that I was the ordained priest and he was just a boy.

But I couldn’t. Not because I was afraid, but because I knew he was right. Completely right.

I stepped down from the pulpit, walked to the center of the nave, knelt right there on the cold marble floor in front of everyone, and said loudly enough for all to hear:

“The boy is right. I have been wrong. I have been preaching half-truths for years, out of fear, out of cowardice, out of wanting to please everyone and offend no one. But the truth is that the Eucharist is not a symbol, it is reality. Jesus is truly present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. And I have sinned against you by robbing you of this truth, by giving you stones when you asked for bread. Forgive me.”

Subscribe to this channel if you want to hear more real stories of how God works in unexpected ways, because what happened after that moment changed not only my life, but the life of that entire parish, and eventually led me to discover the full story of who that extraordinary boy was, of what he would become, and how that moment in the church was just a small preview of the impact Carlo Acutis would have on the entire world.

Yes, that boy was Carlo Acutis, though I only discovered his full name weeks after that Sunday. After Mᴀss he approached me. I was still in shock, still processing what had happened.

“Father,” he said, extending his small hand. “I am so sorry if I was disrespectful. I didn’t want to embarrᴀss you in front of everyone, but I couldn’t remain silent when I heard you teaching something that is not true.”

I took his hand, felt the firmness of his grip despite his youth.

“You were not disrespectful,” I said, my voice still trembling. “You were prophetic. You spoke the truth I was afraid to speak.”

“How do you know all this? Do you study theology? Are your parents religion teachers?”

He smiled a shy smile, but full of joy. “No, Father. My parents are good, but not very religious, to be honest. It’s more like I drag my mom to Mᴀss. I learn by reading a lot, studying, but mainly I learn by spending time with Jesus in the Eucharist. I spend many hours in adoration, and when you are with Him, when you really believe He is there, He teaches you, not with audible words, but with knowledge that enters directly into your heart. It’s as if He shows you things from the inside.”

That answer left me completely speechless.

“How old are you?” I asked, though I already knew approximately: 13.

“I will be 14 in May of next year.”

“And since when do you have this… this devotion to the Eucharist?”

“Since my First Communion at 7 years old,” he responded naturally. “That day I understood, I don’t know how to explain it in words, but I understood in my heart that it wasn’t bread, it was Jesus, really Jesus. And since then I can’t stay away. I need to be with Him. It’s like having found the most precious treasure in the universe, and now everything else is secondary in comparison.”

We talked for almost two hours after that Mᴀss. He told me about the website he was creating to catalog all the Eucharistic miracles of the world. He showed me on his mobile phone pH๏τographs of Lanciano, where a host turned into human heart muscle in the year 700, of Buenos Aires, where in 1996 a profaned host bled, of Santarém in Portugal, of dozens of places where the consecrated bread had transformed into real human flesh, verified by scientists, impossible to explain naturally.

“See, Father,” he said, showing me the images with enthusiasm. “God continues to prove that He is real, He continues to show that the Eucharist is not a symbol, but reality. Why would we Catholics be afraid to proclaim this? Why would we be ashamed of the greatest miracle?”

That question haunted me for weeks after. Why *was* I afraid? I spent many sleepless nights reflecting, praying, examining my conscience, and slowly I understood the painful truth. My fear came from years of seeing churches emptying, of seeing young people abandoning the faith, of seeing Italian culture becoming increasingly hostile to Christianity, and at some point along the way I had made a fatal decision. I had decided that the problem was the message, that it was too radical, too demanding, too medieval for postmodern man. So, I had diluted it, made it more reasonable, more pastoral, more welcoming, but in the process I had emptied it of its power. Because a gospel without scandal is a gospel without power. A Eucharist reduced to a symbol is a Eucharist incapable of transformation. Carlo showed me that the problem was never that the message was too radical. The problem was that I didn’t believe in it enough to proclaim it with conviction. I was trying to sell something I myself had stopped fully believing in.

My preaching changed radically after that day. I began to speak about the Real Presence with fire, with pᴀssion, with absolute conviction. I began to teach people about Eucharistic adoration, about how to spend time in silence before the Blessed Sacrament. We established perpetual adoration in our parish. 24 hours a day there was always someone before Jesus in the Eucharist. Carlo was one of the first to sign up. He took the 3 a.m. shift when no one else wanted it.

“It’s the best time, Father,” he told me. “The church is completely silent. It’s just you and Jesus. You can hear His voice speaking in your heart without distractions.”

And I began to see real and deep changes. People who had come to Mᴀss mechanically for years suddenly awakened spiritually. Young people who had been dragged by force by their parents began to come by their own decision. Conversions happened. A woman who declared herself an atheist spent an hour in adoration just out of curiosity and came out crying uncontrollably, saying, “He is there. I felt Him. He is really there. It’s not my imagination.” A man addicted to pornography for 25 years was completely freed after 4 months of daily adoration.

“It wasn’t willpower, Father,” he explained to me with tears. “It was spending time looking at Jesus in the host, letting Him look at me. That changed my heart in a way years of therapy never achieved.”

Carlo became a friend, a spiritual mentor, despite being 40 years younger than me. We talked regularly after Mᴀsses. He told me about his discoveries, his studies, his interior life. I discovered he was an absolutely normal boy in many aspects. He liked video games, especially PlayStation, computer programming, superhero movies, pizza with extra cheese, soccer, though he wasn’t very good at playing, but he had this deeply mystical interior life that was extraordinary, even compared to adults who had dedicated decades to the spiritual life.

“Father,” he told me once during one of our conversations in the sacristy after Mᴀss, “Do you know what my greatest fear is?”

“What, Carlo?”

“That people don’t believe in the Eucharist, that they see it only as a nice tradition, as an ancient ritual, as a poetic symbol, but not as what it really is: Jesus Himself giving Himself completely to us. Because if people really believed, if they really understood, the churches would be crowded 24 hours a day, people would sleep at the doors waiting to get in. How can there be anything more important in the entire universe than being with God face to face? And He is there, available, waiting in every tabernacle of every church in the world. And most people run past without realizing, or come to Mᴀss but without really believing, without really encountering Him. That breaks my heart, Father. It literally hurts me physically to think of Jesus waiting alone in the tabernacles.”

Those words devastated me because they were true, because they showed a pᴀssion for Christ that I had lost, that perhaps I had never had with that intensity, even in my best moments.

I began to imitate Carlo. I began to spend more time in Eucharistic adoration. I began to really believe that I was before Jesus when I looked at the consecrated host. And my priesthood was completely transformed. Mᴀss stopped being a job obligation and became the most incredible privilege. The moment of consecration when I held the host and pronounced the words “This is my body” stopped being a repeated formula and became a moment of awe, of reverence, of trembling almost, because I was holding God in my hands. I was participating in the greatest miracle in the universe. I was being an instrument of the physical presence of Christ in the world.

In October 2006, Carlo became seriously ill. He was diagnosed with fulminant leukemia. His condition deteriorated at a terrifying speed. Within days he was hospitalized in critical condition. I went to visit him at the hospital. He was extremely weak, pale as the sheets, but his eyes still shone with that light he always had.

“Father,” he said when I entered his room, his voice barely a whisper. “Did you bring Jesus?”

“Yes, I brought Him,” I replied, showing the pyx with the Holy Communion.

“May I receive?”

“Of course, my son.” I gave him Communion. He closed his eyes, remained silent for several minutes that seemed eternal. Tears ran down his gaunt face.

When he finally opened his eyes, he told me something I will never forget.

“Father, I am happy.”

“Happy, Carlo? How can you be happy being so sick?”

“Because soon I will see Jesus face to face, without the veil of bread. I will see Him as He really is, in all His glory. But I am also a little sad.”

“Why sad?”

“Because I will miss the Eucharist. I know it sounds strange to say that when I am going to be in heaven with Jesus Himself. But there is something about the Eucharist, something about receiving Him in this humble way, hidden under the appearance of bread, that is so beautiful, so intimate, so incredible. I will miss that specific kind of encounter with Him.”

Carlo Acutis died on October 12, 2006. He had just turned 15. I celebrated his funeral. The church was completely full, to the point that hundreds had to stay outside. Young people mainly, many who had known Carlo, many who had been touched by his testimony. During the homily I could barely speak. I cried openly before everyone. I only managed to say:

“Carlo taught us to love the Eucharist. He taught us to believe that Jesus is truly present. He taught us that it is not a symbol, but living reality. And now he is with Jesus face to face without veils. But his testimony remains, his example challenges us. And every time we look at the consecrated host, we must remember this boy who loved Jesus so much, who was not afraid to correct even a priest to defend the truth, who preferred to seem strange rather than be lukewarm, who chose uncomfortable truth over comfortable falsehood.”

In the following years, Carlo’s testimony spread far beyond Milan. His website on Eucharistic miracles became famous internationally. Tens of thousands of people began to visit it, to learn about the Eucharist through his work. In 2020 he was officially beatified, becoming Blessed Carlo Acutis, the saint of the youth, the saint of the internet, the saint of the Eucharist. I was invited to participate in the beatification process. I gave my extensive testimony about that Sunday in August 1998, about how that moment transformed my life, my priesthood, my entire faith.

“He was only 13 years old,” I told the Vatican investigators, “but he had more spiritual wisdom than most priests I have known in 40 years of ministry. And the most impressive thing was that this wisdom did not come from intellectual arrogance, but from genuine love. He corrected me because he loved me, because he loved the truth, because he loved Jesus in the Eucharist, and he could not bear to see Him being minimized, reduced to a mere symbol, treated as less than what He really is. That was prophecy, not disrespect.”

Today I am 62 years old. I still serve as pastor in the same church in Milan, but I am a completely different priest from the one I was before that Sunday in August. Now, when I preach about the Eucharist, I speak with fire, with pᴀssion, with absolute and unwavering conviction. I do not soften the truth. I do not use pious half-truths. I proclaim with all clarity that Jesus is truly present, that every consecrated host is the living Body of Christ, that every chalice contains His precious Blood, that when we receive Communion we are receiving God Himself within us, not symbolically, but really and substantially.

And do you know what happened? Instead of driving people away, this radical truth attracted them in numbers I had never seen. Our church is now full even in August, especially with young people. Because young people don’t want a watered-down message, they want a challenge, they want uncompromising truth, they want something worth living and dying for. And the Eucharist is exactly that. It is God giving Himself completely without reserve, asking for everything in return because He gives everything. It is radical love that transforms lives from the root.

Write in the comments: CARLO WAS RIGHT, if this story touched your heart, if you believe the Eucharist is truly the Body of Christ and not just a beautiful symbol. Because Carlo gave his short life of 15 years to proclaim this truth, and now from heaven he continues to teach, continues to correct, continues to love, continues to show that the greatest adventure in life is to be with Jesus in the Eucharist, that there is nothing more important, nothing more transformative, nothing more real in the entire universe.

I learned many lessons from Carlo during those years I knew him, but the most important was this: True love is not afraid to correct, because correcting with love is not judging, but offering the truth as a precious gift. It is trusting that the other person can handle the truth and be transformed by it rather than destroyed. Carlo corrected me not because he saw me as an enemy, but because he saw me as a brother who had strayed from the path, as a shepherd who had forgotten that his flock needs true pasture, not artificial food. And by correcting me he saved me, he gave me back my vocation, he gave me back my priestly joy, he gave me back Jesus Himself.

If you are a priest, seminarian, deacon, lay minister, anyone in spiritual leadership, let me ask you something directly: Are you preaching the full truth, or are you softening it out of fear of rejection? Are you proclaiming the Real Presence with burning conviction, or are you treating the Eucharist as a convenient symbol? Do you really believe Jesus is there, or is it just theology you repeat mechanically without feeling? Because people perceive the difference, especially young people perceive when we truly believe or when we are just fulfilling our religious duty. And they deserve more. They deserve the full truth undiluted. They deserve to know Jesus as He is: radical, demanding, transformative, really and physically present in the Eucharist.

And if you are not a leader, but a Catholic who goes to Mᴀss, let me ask you the same question Carlo would ask: Do you believe that host the priest places on your tongue is truly Jesus? Not symbolically, but literally? Do you understand that in that moment God enters physically inside you? That He remains within you, that He wants to transform you completely from the inside out? Because if you believe that, truly believe it in the depths of your being, your life cannot continue the same. You cannot receive Communion on Sunday and live as if God didn’t exist on Monday. You cannot receive Jesus and continue in deliberate sin, in spiritual tepidity, in comfortable mediocrity. The Eucharist is divine fire, and fire either transforms you radically or consumes you completely, but it never leaves you the same, never leaves you lukewarm.

Carlo Acutis lived only 15 years, but he changed the world because he understood this truth with crystalline clarity, because he loved the Eucharist with all that he had, because he was not afraid to proclaim this truth, even when it meant correcting ecclesiastical authorities, even when it meant seeming like a religious fanatic, even when it meant being completely different from all his schoolmates. And now he is a saint—officially a Blessed—but a saint in the hearts of millions, especially young people who look at him and think: If he could do it, I can too. If he loved Jesus like that, I can love like that too. That is his legacy. That is his message. And it was the message he gave me that Sunday 27 years ago when he was only 13 years old, but he already understood what I, with 23 years of priesthood, had conveniently forgotten.

Share this video if you believe in the Real Presence, if you want more people to know about Carlo Acutis, if you want more young people to discover that they can have a real and personal encounter with God in the Eucharist. Not because I ask you to, but because Carlo deserves to be known worldwide. Because Jesus in the Eucharist deserves to be worshipped universally. Because truth deserves to be proclaimed without shame. And because perhaps someone watching this video is exactly in the same place I was that Sunday in August: spiritually lost, tired of pretending, preaching half-truths, living a tepid faith without fire. And they need to hear that there is a way back, there is a fire waiting to be rekindled. There is Jesus in the Eucharist, patiently waiting to transform everything. You only need to believe, you only need to approach, you only need to open your heart completely.

My name is Alesandro Montini. I am a diocesan priest. I am 62 years old. I have been a pastor in Milan for 40 years. And the most important thing that happened to me in my entire priesthood was to be corrected by a 13-year-old boy who loved me enough to tell me the uncomfortable truth, who showed me that God is not a permissive grandfather who accepts everything, but a consuming fire who loves us so radically that He became bread so we could eat Him and be transformed from within. And now my only mission is to proclaim this truth to all who want to listen, without fear, without shame, without softening anything, because Carlo taught me that true love does not minimize truth. True love proclaims truth courageously, knowing that truth liberates even when it initially hurts, even when it costs everything, even when it demands complete, radical transformation.

Carlo, thank you for correcting me. Thank you for loving me enough to tell me the truth. Thank you for showing me Jesus in the Eucharist. Continue to intercede from heaven for all priests who have forgotten, for all young people who have not yet discovered, for all the faithful who receive Communion mechanically without truly believing. Show them what you showed me: that the Eucharist is not the end of the journey, but the glorious beginning, that every Communion is a divine invitation to total radical transformation, that Jesus is really there, waiting patiently, loving unconditionally, wanting to consume us completely with His purifying fire.

And for you who are listening to this right now, it doesn’t matter if you are a priest or a layperson, young or old, devout or distant from the faith, let me tell you exactly what Carlo told me that Sunday that changed my life: Jesus is in the Eucharist, truly, literally, completely, substantially. Go to Him. Stay with Him in silent adoration. Let Him transform you from within, because that is the secret of holiness. It’s not complicated nor does it require extraordinary mystical experiences. It only requires believing that He is there present and spending time with Him regularly. The rest He does. He transforms, He heals, He sanctifies. You only need to show up and believe with the faith of a child.