To celebrate Blessed Carlo Acutis’s upcoming canonization and inspire our kids, we’ve made a family-friendly Carlo Acutis novena with prayers for healing and requests for his intercession.

As we race toward December and all of the fasting and feasting it holds, the month of October seems like a welcome pause before the storm. In this beautiful month where the temperature in San Antonio drops to 95, Costco starts selling marigolds, and ofrendas start popping up everywhere, we as Catholics get to celebrate some of our most beloved Saints. Expected to be added to the ranks of October feasting in 2025, Blessed Carlo Acutis’ feast day lands on October 12.
Who Was Carlo Acutis?
Carlo Acutis is known as the Millennial Saint. He was born in the 90’s and died in 2006 at the age of 15 from an aggressive form of Leukemia. Currently, he’s being hailed as the Patron Saint of the Internet because he used impressive computer programming and web design skills to most-famously catalog Eucharistic Miracles on a website he named “Eucharistic Miracles of the World”.

Besides his aptitude for computers, Blessed Carlo was known to fight for human dignity by feeding and caring for the poor, standing up to school bullies, and reaching out to fellow students who struggled with school work or fitting in. He devoted himself to praying the rosary, going to Mass, and asking for the intercession of his favorite Saints, all while playing video games and soccer, hanging out with his friends, and living the life of a typical Italian student.
Very shortly after his death, two miraculous healings were attributed to him. After the second was found to be true, his canonization was approved and slated for sometime in 2025. Read more.
What is A Novena?
Novenas are nine consecutive days of prayer asking for the intercession of a particular Saint for a specific purpose, often the healing of a loved one. This is a Catholic tradition that dates back to the 17th Century. Some Novenas are prayed at specific times, like the Divine Mercy Novena which begins on Good Friday, but most of them are prayed 9 days before the saint’s feast day.
About Our Carlo Acutis Novena
Having been bested more times than we’d like to admit by a nine-day prayer commitment with our husbands and kids in tow, we decided that if this was really going to work for families, we needed to make it simple.
It needed to be something that young kids could do, and that older kids and youth could still learn from and not see as babyish.
It needed to be in the car because seatbelts keep everyone in one place, and car time is at an all-time high during the school year.
It needed to be visual and auditory to help non-readers and the driver, to help everyone keep track of the day, and to hopefully keep the whole family more engaged.
It needed to have a take-away challenge that everyone could participate in and hold each other accountable for.
It needed to have resources for extension work so that the novena didn’t stop at the car ride or the ninth day.
Printable Novena and Instructions
We took all those needs and put them into a free one-page, double-sided printable that you can cut into 9 separate novena cards, one for each day. Once printed, you can hole punch them and attach them to a binder ring, keychain, or loop of string, yarn, etc. to make them small enough to either sit in the car or stash in your purse.

That first page is the novena for the whole family to pray together. It has images and themes on the front of each card. It uses simple language with short descriptions of Blessed Carlo, a one-sentence prayer with a blank space to write or draw the intention, and a clear, kid-doable challenge at the end. It has a monstrance symbol on each card that’s numbered with the day of the novena and doubles as a checkbox for when that day has been completed. What you see on the cards is also read aloud on our YouTube podcast so that you can play it in the car while you’re carting kids to and from everything.
Then, we made a second page of 9 prayer cards for middle-school-aged kids. These cards have more detailed information to spark their enthusiasm for learning more about Blessed Carlo and imitating him. The back is left blank to encourage them to jot down their thoughts, especially when they read or do the more in-depth challenge at the bottom.

To continue thinking about the novena, we also added a list at the bottom of this post for parents to reference when you want to find more information, books, craft recommendations, or our exclusive coloring sheet for Blessed Carlo Acutis. Some of these are referenced in the middle school challenges.
Carlo Acutis Resources for Kids
Books:
Blessed Carlo Acutis: The Amazing Discovery of a Teenager in Heaven
Religious Items:
Carlo Acutis’s favorite quotes on downloadable stickers!
Crafts:
Carlo Acutis Saint Pumpkin craft for All Saints Day
Carlo Acutis Computer Craft for kids
Information Resources:
Carlo Acutis research guide for older kids
Active and original Carlo Acutis Euchatist Miracle site
Vatican Canonization Announcement
Videos:
Interview with Carlo Acutis’s Mother
Carlo Acutis unofficial Lego BrickHeadz build – Coming Soon!
Our Carlo Acutis Novena for Families Read Aloud – Coming soon!
Bibliography:
- https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/46048/who-was-carlo-acutis-a-cna-explainer
- https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/november-2021/blessed-carlo-the-first-millennial-saint/?utm_term=&utm_campaign=Resources&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=9501521413&hsa_cam=20589716369&hsa_grp=153938894639&hsa_ad=677409948209&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=dsa-19959388920&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrKu2BhDkARIsAD7GBou7rGBn3nFJWhCS5TRr5rkOwm87TFToeJp1h6zNdNLDK-HkAwZlAWoaArPREALw_wcB#google_vignette
- https://insidethevatican.com/news/saint-of-the-day-bl-carlo-acutis/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrKu2BhDkARIsAD7GBovNefGDX8PMBJmdK1v9EYMANfwM6UlIor60Tzwf0YqFC_Q2b_b45FAaAqVXEALw_wcB
- https://www.ncregister.com/features/blessed-carlo-acutis-parish-chicago-canonization
- https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2024-05/pope-francis-saints-decrees-miracle-acutis-allamano.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Acutis
- https://aleteia.org/2022/10/12/why-bl-carlo-acutis-limited-his-video-game-time
- https://www.ksbw.com/article/saint-carlo-acutis-pope-millennial/61470452
- “My Son Carlo” by Anotnia Salzano Acutis and Paolo Rodari