My Friend 'the Young Activist' Is Getting Canonized
Plus, interview with FrassatiUSA founder Christine Wohar
Dear friend,
I woke up this morning to some wonderful news, and I thought today must be the day when I should share this story with you.
You could say… I’m introducing you to a friend.
He could’ve been a brand ambassador for happiness; his brand of happiness is the kind that every human being wants.
My first trip overseas was to Sydney, Australia for World Youth Day 2008, a festival encompassing several days where 500,000—1,000,000 youth from 200 countries gathered with Pope Benedict XVI to celebrate & grow in our friendship with Jesus Christ and with one another.
Think of it like a wholesome, international Catholic Woodstock.
Historic St. Mary’s Cathedral was one of my group’s first stops, to pay our respects to Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901—1925). I didn’t know anything about him, but I knew it was a big deal. His body had traveled over 10,000 miles from Torino to Sydney, and the line of pilgrims waiting for a few seconds to be near it, trailed all the way out onto the church’s mighty stone steps.
Inside the grandiose, Gothic Revival structure, I felt strangely at-home as I stood in line for my turn. Various languages buzzed quietly all around me. Along the queue’s path, several biographical panels had been erected. I studied the story and the words of Pier Giorgio, but mostly my eyes were drawn to the photographs. He looked self-assured, determined… and very happy.
That’s what struck me the most—in a disarming yet convicting way. He could’ve been a brand ambassador for happiness; his brand of happiness is the kind that every human being wants.
Now known as a lay activist, Pier Giorgio had been born into a high-profile Italian family, but preferred to quietly serve those living with various forms of poverty. (His family was unaware of the extent of his service until thousands of people—mostly the poor and outcast—attended his funeral.)
When I made it to the front of the line, I dutifully knelt at the altar rail and folded my hands in prayer. About ten feet in front of me sat a shockingly simple, closed wooden box, containing the earthly remains of Pier Giorgio. Behind the coffin towered a brilliantly colorful sacred image of the Resurrected Christ which is traditionally called Christ’s Descent Into Hades. The icon shows a radiant Christ clothed in white looking out to us as he extends his arms to pull an elderly-looking man and woman up from their graves—Adam and Eve.
(Here’s a link to a stock photograph of the occasion.)
As I think back on it now, I realize that this sacred contrast between Pier Giorgio’s simple mortality and Christ’s extraordinarily beautiful resurrection and victory over Hades, perfectly illustrated Christian life and death.
However, I don’t remember anything of what I thought or whispered as I knelt there. Nothing at all.
Patronizing
Over the years following that moment, Pier Giorgio seemed to sneak his way into my life one way or another. I kept a holy card with his picture shoved away in my desk drawer, partially because I didn’t want anyone to think I was a member of the growing, unofficial ‘Frassati fanclub’ which seemed to use his movie-star looks and ad-worthy photographs to paint Catholicism as a hip and fashionable religious lifestyle.
I don’t think Pier Giorgio himself would prefer such a use of his image. This is the image I think he would much prefer:
“Amazed, people saw this young man in the streets of Turin dragging hand carts filled with household goods belonging to the poor who were looking for a home. He would enter the most squalid houses and give away all the money he had, so that he did not have enough money to take the bus home.” — Testimony about Pier Giorgio Frassati1
I call on him when I’m unable to help one of my neighbors who lives on the street. I have asked him to pray for me as I wrestle at the ballot box with frustratingly limited options.
Recently, our news reports have been filled with activist youth. Why not spiritually entrust them to someone who understands what it’s like to have an interior fire burning so brightly that he took to the streets?
Participating in a Church-organized demonstration in Rome on one occasion, he stood up to police violence and rallied the other young people by grabbing the group’s banner, which the royal guards had knocked out of another student’s hands. Pier Giorgio held it even higher, while using the banner’s pole to fend off the blows of the guards.2
Finally, To the Heights
This morning, I woke up to wonderful news from Christine Wohar, founder of FrassatiUSA:
The Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints has announced that Pier Giorgio Frassati is finally scheduled to be added to the Catholic canon of saints in 2025, the Jubilee Year.
I had the great joy of spending an hour interviewing Christine as part of my full-time job a few months ago. We connected over my hometown and over Pier Giorgio. She’s had the great privilege of knowing Pier Giorgio’s family members, and she tells his story like no one else. I invite you to listen and meet our mutual friend, Pier Giorgio Frassati… soon-to-be Saint.
“The purpose for which we have been created shows us the path, even if strewn with many thorns, it is not a sad path. It is joyful even in the face of sorrow.” — Pier Giorgio Frassati
May he pray for, and inspire, us all.
Angela
Excerpt from his biography by FrassatiUSA