Episode Transcript  

One

The Miracle That Opens the Door

Today Pier Giorgio Frassati was Canonized in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. I first became acquainted with his life in 1992 and with so many others have been anxiously looking forward to this day. But before I introduce this new saint to you, let me tell you about the miracle that led to his canonization. 

On All Saints’ Day, 2017, Juan Gutierrez, a seminarian in Los Angeles, limped into the chapel with a torn Achilles tendon. Surgery was scheduled, recovery would be long, and his vocation felt threatened. As he prayed, an inspiration suddenly pressed itself upon him, “Why don’t you make a novena to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati?” Now, Juan had no devotion to Giorgio, barely knew his name, and knew the idea wasn’t his own. But he obeyed the nudge and began a novena.

A week later, while praying again in the chapel, his ankle grew hot, burning hot, so much so that he looked under the pew for a faulty outlet or a fire. But nothing was there. He began to weep. Something supernatural was happening. By the time he met the surgeon, the tendon was completely healed. The doctor shook his head, saying, “You must have help from above.”

This miracle advanced Pier Giorgio’s canonization, but more importantly, it reminds us that the saints are alive and near. They want to pray for us. Giorgio once said, “Jesus comes to me every morning in Holy Communion, and I return the visit in the poor.” He lived in friendship with Christ, and now, from heaven, he lives in friendship with us. What grace, what healing, what strength do you need Pier Giorgio to ask for on your behalf?

Two

A Man of Friendship and Joy

To know Pier Giorgio was to encounter joy. His sister Luciana, after years of sibling rivalry, grew into a deep friendship with him. His friends remembered not only his piety but his laughter. He once formed the “Shady Characters Society,” a tongue-in-cheek circle of friends bound together by inside jokes, goofy nicknames, and shared adventures. But at the center was their common pursuit of holiness; the Mass and prayer always had their place. Their fun almost always ended with the Rosary.

In the last year of his life, Giorgio wrote, “After the affection for parents and sisters, one of the most beautiful affections is that of friendship; and every day I ought to thank God because He has given me men and lady friends of such goodness who form for me a precious guide for my whole life.”

Pier shows us that sanctity is not joyless isolation. Holiness is friendship lifted up into Christ. He was magnetic, precisely because he was alive with grace. His life asks us: Who is walking with you toward holiness? Who is your circle of friends that lifts you higher, not lower? As we pray this decade, let us ask Our Lady to give us friends who lead us toward heaven, and to help us be such a friend to others.

Three

His Charity: Christ in the Poor

From childhood, Giorgio’s love for the poor was instinctive. Once, when a barefoot child came to the door with his mother, Giorgio immediately pulled off his shoes and handed them over. When his bicycle was stolen, he shrugged, “Whoever took it needed it more than I did.” He gave away his train fare and ran home rather than miss dinner. Later, he gave away his graduation money, his new jacket, and whatever he had in his pockets.

At seventeen, he joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society and began visiting orphans, widows, wounded soldiers, and miners. He did not want to pity the poor from afar; he wanted to know their names, enter their homes, and lift their burdens. In fact, he studied mining engineering so that he could improve conditions for the working-class underground.

When he contracted polio from the poor he visited, he was paralyzed and near death. Yet even then, he scribbled notes for Luciana, instructing her about who needed food, who needed medicine, who must not be forgotten. Holiness is measured by love, and Pier Giorgio’s love was measured in deeds. St. John says, “Let us not love in word or speech, but in deed and in truth” (1 Jn 3:18). As we pray this decade, who in our own path needs us to love in deed, not only in word?

Four

His Strength: The Eucharist and the Rosary

Where did Pier Giorgio find such tireless energy? His strength came from Christ in the Eucharist. At twelve, he begged for daily Communion and never stopped. His horse learned to stop in front of the church because Giorgio always dismounted to kneel before the tabernacle. He often served morning Mass before his studies, and even on ski trips, he took the less convenient train so that he could attend Mass first. Luciana later said, “It was Communion that made him who he was.”

Giorgio’s devotion to Mary was just as strong. As a boy, he made rosaries out of seeds and stones. Friends remembered seeing the beads slip through his fingers while hiking. At night, his parents sometimes found a Rosary clutched in his sleeping hand. When he entered the slums to serve the poor, he prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries aloud as he walked, bringing Our Lady into the midst of poverty.

Giorgio teaches us that devotion is not complicated. Daily Mass, daily Rosary. Christ and Mary, that was his secret. And it can be ours. In this decade, let us ask: where do we need to reorder our lives so that the Eucharist and the Rosary, not busyness or distraction, become our daily strength?

Five

Verso l’alto — To the Heights

On July 4th, 1925, Pier Giorgio died at only 24. He loved life, his family, his friends, and the poor, so death was hard. But as the priest assured him that from heaven he would remain close to them, Giorgio nodded and whispered simply, “Yes.”

His family expected a quiet funeral. Instead, the streets of Turin filled with thousands of the poor who came to honor him. His parents were astonished to learn of the hidden extent of his charity. In that shock of grace, his parents, who had been away from the Church, went to confession and returned to the sacraments.

Just weeks before his death, Giorgio had been photographed climbing a sheer cliff, and on the back of the picture, he wrote the words that became his motto, “To the heights!” To him, holiness was like mountaineering. It required effort, courage, endurance, and joy. “To live without faith, without a heritage to defend, without constantly struggling for truth, is not living, but existing,” he said.

As we pray this final decade, let us ask Pier Giorgio to pull us upward with him. Not to drift, not to merely exist, but to climb with Christ, to the heights of holiness, to the heights of heaven.

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, friend of Christ, friend of the poor, friend of Mary, draw us higher. Pray for us to live fully alive, to give generously, to laugh joyfully, and to climb courageously—to the heights of holiness with you. Amen.

Suggested Resolutions:

Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you. 

• Who is your circle of friends that lifts you higher, not lower? Ask Our Lady to give you friends who lead you toward heaven, and to help you be such a friend to others.

• Ask yourself, where do I need to reorder my life so that the Eucharist and the Rosary, not busyness or distraction, become my daily strength?

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