BAYSIDE — Blessed Carlo Acutis was known for his internet savvy, so it made perfect sense for Margaret Driscoll-Cheah to use the internet to track down a relic of the soon-to-be saint to help her battle kidney cancer.
When Driscoll-Cheah, a 54-year-old lawyer from Syracuse, was diagnosed with Stage 4 kidney cancer in December 2022, she turned to her Facebook community for prayers and to seek help finding a first-class relic of the late Italian teenager that she could touch.
Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15 and is expected to be canonized during the Jubilee Year of 2025, used his internet knowledge to create a website chronicling all of the Eucharistic miracles in the world.
“I knew about Blessed Carlo, and I find him to be very inspirational,” said Driscoll-Cheah, a parishioner of Holy Cross Church in DeWitt, New York. “I think one of the things he tried to teach us is that, yes, there’s a lot of darkness on the web, but it can be used for good, too. So, when I was in the hospital, I went on Facebook and asked for a miracle.”
As it turns out, both Acutis and Driscoll-Cheah have a connection to the Diocese of Brooklyn — a connection she believes led to a significant improvement in her health. Of the eight tumors discovered in 2002, only one remains active today, she said.
A few months into her relic search, Driscoll-Cheah’s Facebook friends connected her with Msgr. Thomas Machalski, pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Bayside. Msgr. Machalski is the custodian of the diocese’s first-class relic of Acutis (seven strands of his hair), which has been housed in his church since coming from Italy in 2021.
Moved by Driscoll-Cheah’s plight, he touched the relic with prayer cards — an act that turned them into third-class relics — and sent them to her.
“I wanted to help her any way I could,” he said. “She was so devoted to Blessed Carlo.”
Driscoll-Cheah, who was in a great deal of pain and could barely walk, asked for Acutis’s intercession to restore her health and placed the prayer cards on the parts of her body that hurt the most, including her back.
She was in such poor health that she closed her law office in Syracuse to devote herself full time to fighting her cancer battle. Her doctors put her on a strict regimen of chemotherapy medications.
“I was told that my cancer was inoperable and that if I didn’t take the medications, and soon, I would not survive,” Driscoll-Cheah said.
But a few months into her prayer card routine, she started to feel better. However, her doctors didn’t believe her.
“I had less pain,” she recalled telling them. “They kept telling me I was stable. I kept telling them, ‘I can’t be stable because I feel better. Something has changed!’ The CT scan showed no changes. But I knew something was different.”
In January, Driscoll-Cheah underwent a more sophisticated test, a positron emission tomography (PET) scan, and received good news.
The PET scan revealed that seven of her eight tumors were found to be inactive with no signs of growth, she said, adding that she plans to schedule a new PET scan to check on the remaining active tumor. She said she is optimistic.
Back in Brooklyn, Msgr. Machalski received regular updates from Driscoll-Cheah. “I was happy to hear she was making progress,” he said.
After helping Driscoll-Cheah from a distance, Msgr. Machalski finally met her. “She was here last week,” he told The Tablet on Nov. 13.
Driscoll-Cheah came to Bayside with her husband, Ben, and a group of friends and visited Sacred Heart Church, where she saw the first-class relic up close.
Interest in Blessed Carlo Acutis is expected to skyrocket once the Vatican sets a date for his canonization. Currents News, NET-TVs nightly Catholic news program, created a special on Acutis and his connection to the Diocese of Brooklyn.
The special, which premiered on Friday, Nov. 15, will also be presented on Saturday, Nov. 23, at 7 p.m and 10 p.m.
Viewers will learn about a local student who received a personal message from Blessed Acutis’ mother, the statues and devotion rooms dedicated to him around the diocese, and the Eucharistic prayer rally that hundreds of young people attended.
For Msgr. Machalski, Driscoll-Cheah’s story offers a lesson in faith. “If you ask Blessed Carlo for help, he’ll help you,” he said.
Driscoll-Cheah agreed. “I would encourage everyone to ask for his intercession. You will feel better if you do,” she said, adding that she is looking forward to Acutis’ canonization.
