Today is July 12, Saturday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
We read at today’s Mass, “Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Mt 10:30-31).
Confidence rooted in the Father’s loving care marked the prayer life of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. As we continue our reflections on his interior life, we have to take time to marvel at the depth of his relationship with God in prayer.
Pier Giorgio’s spirituality was simple but profound. He loved the Eucharist. He went to daily Mass, yes — but he also made time to sit before the Blessed Sacrament in the evenings, in silence and adoration. He found peace, strength and friendship there. As he once wrote in a note to a housemaid named Esther, “In prayer, the soul rises above life’s sadnesses.” That’s not a pious platitude — it was the lived experience of a young man who bore his own sufferings with remarkable serenity.
Praying instinctively
In fact, Pier Giorgio’s life was so compelling that Esther began going to Mass herself, inspired by his quiet, joyful witness. He even gave her a prayer book to encourage her devotion. He knew, as we must come to know, that the life of prayer lifts us. Not as an escape from reality, but as a deeper plunge into what’s most real — God’s love, God’s truth and the path to heaven.
Like Blessed Carlo Acutis, Pier Giorgio seemed to know how to pray instinctively. It wasn’t something he learned in a class or even deeply from his family. It was a grace. It was friendship. He often carried a little pocket-sized prayer book, a beautiful reminder that our prayer life can be nourished by the smallest tools when we bring them to the Lord with love.
So today, let’s ask Pier Giorgio to teach us how to pray. To help us rediscover silence. To draw us into friendship with Christ, the one who already knows every hair on our head.
Let us pray,
O God, who in the abasement of your Son have raised up a fallen world, fill your faithful with holy joy, for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin you bestow eternal gladness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
