Oh shoot, I’m almost out of water.
That was my thought as I sat in traffic on I-95 North, just after 4:00 PM on the Friday before Memorial Day, 2024. I was still recovering from radiation therapy. Cancer had changed everything, including my need to always keep water with me. But what I remember most from that moment wasn’t the traffic or the thirst from the burns in my mouth. It was a New York Times headline alert that arrived on my phone as I happened to look down:
“Italian Teenager to Become the First Millennial Saint.”
The name was more than familiar. During my cancer treatment, my aunt gave me a book about his life and prayed to him for my health every day. Carlo was a teenager who saw technology as a tool for truth and beauty, a Saint in sneakers with a laptop. Earlier in the day, I had published a reflection on my Faith for the first time in my life, and there it was: news that Carlo’s canonization was official. At that moment, the convergence felt uncanny. Sacred, even.
I was inexplicably overjoyed.
Carlo was supposed to be canonized in April of this year. But the death of Pope Francis delayed the ceremony—like so much else in these uncertain times, it was quietly postponed. The faithful would have to wait.
The world is still waiting—crying out, desperately, for a change in how we think, live, and relate to one another and Mother Earth. The late Pope, in Laudato Si’, urged us to see the Earth not as a resource to be extracted, but as a common home to be cherished. I agree with the spirit of that teaching—but I don’t believe we need to live in guilt or shame. We already have enough. The path forward isn’t austerity, but memory. It’s returning to the kind of life we already know how to live here in Easton.
This town still remembers how to live with the land. We can walk past stone walls and know how to care for our wells and protect the watershed. We understand seasonal rhythms and neighborly interdependence. We don’t need to invent a regenerative future. We just need to notice how much of it is already underfoot.
That’s part of what drives my writing here. And it’s a major part of how I view this website. A place to build community, celebrate local stories, and inspire a just and sustainable future for Easton and beyond.
Just as Carlo saw technology as a tool for sharing and revering the good, I hope The Cultural Easton can bring those values together.
I’m not writing just to reflect. I’m writing to connect. To help stir a quiet revolution, not of anger, but of attention. Not one of scarcity, but of sufficiency.
A revolution of thought, rooted in place.
That’s why I’m here.
That’s why I write.
That’s why The Cultural Easton matters.
And what an appropriate way to close this reflection: on June 13, 2025, the Vatican announced that Blessed Carlo will be canonized on September 7th.
My wife Jess and I each saw the news on our own, she sent me a calendar invite just as I was about to do the same. Discern from that what you will.
If you want to reflect on his story in person, there will soon be a striking painting of Saint Carlo Acutis in the hall at Notre Dame of Easton. His quiet joy will watch over faith formation classes of the parish’s children. One of the many exciting changes happening as Notre Dame refurbishes the church this fall. Masses are Saturday at 5:00 PM and Sunday at 8:00 and 11:00 AM.
As for me and my crew, we’re usually there at 11:00. The kids especially love the first Sunday of every month. Affectionately known in our house as donut Sunday! Come to the next first Sunday, or any Sunday, to see what Father Ford is building at the top of the hill on Morehouse in Center Easton.
Saint Carlo Acutis, pray for us.
The Cultural Easton 