Relics of St. Manuel Gonzales Garcia and Blessed Carlo Acutis will be at Columbus St. Joseph Cathedral, 212 E. Broad St., on Friday, Dec. 2.
The day will begin with Mass at 7:30 a.m., followed by exposition of the relics for veneration throughout the day. There will be Mass at 12:05 p.m., and the veneration will end with a Holy Hour from 5 to 6 p.m. with Bishop Earl Fernandes presiding.
The relics are on a tour of the United States as part of the National Eucharistic Revival sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. St. Manuel and Blessed Carlo are special intercessors for the event.
St. Manuel is known as the Apostle of the Abandoned Tabernacles. For his first assignment as a priest in Huelva, Spain, no one came to meet him, and he found his church abandoned, filled with dust and dirt, with cobwebs inside the tabernacle and torn altar cloths.
Upon seeing this situation, he knelt before the altar and thought about the many abandoned tabernacles in the world. He devoted his life and ministry to teaching people about the Eucharist and cared deeply for youth.
Huelva was a copper mining community where working conditions were poor and the people cared little about where they lived or one another. St. Manuel paid careful attention to them and promoted schools devoted to assisting their children, providing them food and bringing their families teachings related to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
He did this even more than usual during the winter of a strike at the mine in 1913. His concern revived the town’s faith and led to his appointment as auxiliary bishop of Malaga in 1915. He became bishop of Malaga in 1920, was appointed bishop of Palencia in 1935 and remained in that position until his death five years later.
He was also the founder of the Eucharistic Missionaries of Nazareth, an order of priests, and established the lay orders of the Disciples of St. John and the Children of Reparation. He was canonized in 2016.
Blessed Carlo has acquired the nickname of “the computer geek saint.” He hasn’t been canonized but is the first member of the millennial generation to be beatified.
He was raised in Milan, Italy by parents who were not religious. After his first communion, he attended Mass regularly, making a point of praying before the tabernacle before or after every Mass. In addition to St. Francis of Assisi, he took younger saints such as St. Bernadette Soubirous, Sts. Jacinta and Francisco Marto and St. Dominic Savio as role models.
At school, he tried to comfort friends whose parents were undergoing divorce, as well as stepping in to defend disabled students from bullies. After school, he did volunteer work with the homeless and destitute. He spent four years creating a website dedicated to listing every reported Eucharistic miracle throughout the world. He also enjoyed movies, comic books, soccer and playing video games.
Diagnosed with leukemia, he offered his sufferings to God for the intentions of Pope Benedict XVI and the Church. He died on Oct. 12, 2006 at age 15 and was beatified in 2020, with many of his friends present for his beatification in Assisi at the Basilica of St. Francis.