This article first appeared in Our Sunday Visitor magazine. Subscribe to receive the monthly magazine here.
I walked by his picture dozens of times without really seeing it. Eventually it struck me as odd to have a huge picture of a good-looking young man hanging outside the gym and I asked who it was. One of my postulant classmates helpfully informed me that it was Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. She proceeded to say a few things about him, but most of this was lost on me because I was overwhelmed by the long Italian name.
I remember my response vividly: “Thank you for telling me, Sister, but I am never going to remember that name.”
Little did I know!
I had entered the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, mere months earlier, having discerned a call from God with a little help from Pope St. John Paul II and a trip to World Youth Day in Rome. I still think often of the homily the pope preached during the vigil at World Youth Day in Tor Vergata, a suburb of Rome, in the year 2000:
It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.
The choice in my heart was the convent, and these words helped give me the strength to get there.
Since my community has a custom of taking a new name along with the habit, the next thing Jesus had to help me discern was a new patron saint. And he led me to the young man whose name I was sure I would forget.
Taking the name Sister Maria Frassati was a surprise ending to my introduction to Pier Giorgio, but then again, Pier Giorgio Frassati is a surprising saint. For one thing, he is much more handsome than the usual face on a holy card. But the most surprising thing about him is not his good looks, but the way his boisterous personality continues to be part of everything he does, even as a saint.
Consider the story of college student Kevin Becker. Kevin fell from a roof and fractured his skull in multiple places. While he lay unconscious, he dreamed of the house he was living in and discovered his roommates had been replaced by a fellow named George. When Kevin attempted to leave the house and play soccer, George physically restrained him in a fighting-with-your-brother kind of way. George then stayed inside with Kevin to play FIFA (a popular soccer video game) with him.
When Kevin surprised everyone by waking up from his coma, he spoke to his mother about his dream. His mother produced a holy card of Pier Giorgio that she had been sent — indeed, that she had placed on Kevin the day before. Kevin had never previously heard of Pier Giorgio Frassati, but he recognized him as the George in his dream.
Kevin returned to his regular life in short order, having been cured in the midst of Frassati’s roughhousing and FIFA playing.
That whole episode is Pier Giorgio all over. Pier Giorgio loves surprises. And whimsy. And adventure. I should know — I’ve been subject to all three things in the past 20-plus years that I have known Frassati.
Surprises: An unexpected friend
As I was praying about what name I should take, I kept getting the message that I should choose a Dominican saint. However, though I loved all of our saints and blesseds, none of them seemed like they should be my patron.
Then, one day, I was flipping through a little book called “Faces of Holiness: Modern Saints in Photos and Words,” by Ann Ball (OSV). And there he was, the handsome fellow from the school gym, staring up out of the book with that arresting gaze of his. The caption informed me of the difficult name, Pier Giorgio Frassati, and added that he was a lay Dominican. I knew that seeing that caption was an invitation to learn more.
In true Dominican fashion, I set about reading everything I could get my hands on relative to Pier Giorgio Frassati, which, at that time, was exactly two books. I was immediately charmed.
Pier Giorgio climbed mountains! He smoked pipes! He played pranks on his friends! These were all things that sounded, frankly, fun. But his piety impressed me, too; devotion to the Blessed Mother and to the Eucharist were hallmarks of his spiritual life.
I began to think I might have found my patron saint.
But there was a big problem, 19 letters long: that crazily large wall of syllables that is the name “Pier Giorgio Frassati.” I suppose it is strange for a woman with a long Slovak surname to object to taking his name on the principle of its being difficult, but I most certainly did.
I told him this most politely. Thank you very much, Pier Giorgio, for the offer. I think you are really great, but your name is kind of odd to my English-speaking ears. Let’s just be friends.
Extraordinarily ordinary
While Pier Giorgio and I were in this “just friends” stage, I still thought a lot about him. My students would probably say he is “relatable,” by which they mean that many things in his life echo things in their own.
What has always impressed me most about Pier Giorgio is his ordinariness. Other saints are known for extraordinary things: Vincent Ferrer healed thousands of people. Catherine of Siena had all sorts of visions and mystical experiences. Thomas Aquinas dictated multiple books at once. All of these things are awesome, but they never seemed, well, like something I would end up doing.
Giorgio, by contrast, never did anything particularly out of the common way. He did once achieve international fame when fascists broke into his family home and he used his fists to remove them, but this was a minor episode.
His sufferings were largely ordinary ones: a difficult family life, difficulties in school, difficulties in love. His joys were also ordinary: good friends, good hobbies, good adventures. And in the midst of all this ordinariness he found time for ordinary piety: daily Mass, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Eucharistic adoration.
Pier Giorgio lived in a way I could imagine imitating. Which is not to say his life was easy. Far from it, in fact. Reading “A Man of the Beatitudes,” by Pier Giorgio’s sister Luciana (Ignatius, $17.95), will teach you that growing up in the Frassati family was, to put it mildly, rough.
A couple of illustrative instances: On his arriving late to dinner because he had given away his bus fare to a beggar and then run home, Pier Giorgio’s mother greeted his smiling apology with, “You are fundamentally good for nothing, so you could at least arrive on time.” Or, after forgetting a book he needed to study for an upcoming exam, his father told him, “You will become a man who is useless to others and yourself.”
Resisting resentment
The obvious response to being treated as the Frassatis treated Pier Giorgio is resentment. Yet he did not resent them. It was not that he did not feel these things deeply — he certainly did. Late in his life, for instance, he was forced to forgo his love for a young woman named Laura Hidalgo because he knew his family did not approve of her social class. Pier Giorgio realized that, if he pursued a relationship with Laura, it would very likely mean the end of his parents’ troubled marriage. Accordingly, he never acted on his feelings. Pier Giorgio was very discreet, but he admitted later to one of his friends that he considered this whole episode “a bitter subject.”
Pier Giorgio made other sacrifices for his family, too. When he had nearly finished his degree in mining engineering, he was told by one of his father’s underlings at La Stampa — the anti-fascist newspaper his father founded — that he was expected to take over the newspaper business. His office was already prepared. This work would have suited Luciana, but Pier Giorgio had never wanted a desk job. His plan had been to work as a mining engineer so that he could bring the Gospel to miners, whom he saw as neglected.
However, incredibly, Pier Giorgio saw his duty to his father as more important than his own desires. He said he would give up the career he had been working toward in order to please his father.
And yet, despite these and other instances of ill-treatment — as when they didn’t notice he was dying of polio until it was too late — Pier Giorgio sincerely loved his family. Not in a grin-and-bear-it kind of way, either, but with deep affection expressed over and over again in his letters. Clearly, grace was at work.
Whimsy: ‘Cannon shots’ from Pier Giorgio
The longer I resisted taking Pier Giorgio’s name, the more I learned about his personality. I suppose what I had read about him should have told me that he was tenacious, but I was surprised how serious he was about getting my attention.
I knew about Pier Giorgio’s Tipi Loschi, the group of friends he “founded” by issuing an official charter and having an inaugural picnic. The name is hard to translate: “the sinister ones,” “the shady characters.” Almost every member was given a nickname used by Pier Giorgio. His own nickname was Robespierre. In letters he habitually sent “terroristic greetings” to other members of the group, accompanying them with “cannon shots.”
Obviously the whole thing was tongue-in-cheek, but it was also elaborate and hard to explain to outsiders. In fact, Pier Giorgio once sent the following telegram to fellow Tipi Loschi Marco Beltramo: “Bessanese unassailable, bivouacking outdoors. Cannon shots. Robespierre.” (Bessanese is a peak in the Italian Alps.)
It was a usual sort of communication from Pier Giorgio. However, Marco was at Italy’s air force academy. When his superiors read this telegram, they called Marco in for questioning about what was apparently the final stages of a sinister plot. One can imagine the ado Marco must have had explaining the elaborate inside joke. Pier Giorgio was apologetic when he heard of Marco’s difficulty and promised to send more sensible messages in the future!
The Tipi Loschi‘s lighthearted motto was “Few but good like macaroni.” This indicated that it was not meant to be a large group, but the members would have a certain level of quality, a commitment to goodness. Pier Giorgio was the instigator of this group and, in addition to the fun, there was a serious goal here, too: to build each other up in Christian friendship. Members of the Tipi Loschi wrote each other letters, went on outings, and collectively played pranks on one another.
It was in reference to this last point that I felt as though I had suddenly been inducted into the Tipi Loschi. Pier Giorgio started to come up everywhere. Sometimes holy cards of him appeared as if from nowhere. At other times he turned up unexpectedly in things I was reading. I heard that one of the priests who taught me in high school had been present at Pier Giorgio’s beatification. Then it was announced that my sisters would have the opportunity to attend part of World Youth Day in Toronto, where, of course, Pier Giorgio was one of the patrons.
Eventually I gave in to Pier Giorgio’s frequent “cannon shots.” We traditionally submit three name choices to our superiors, and in the end Pier Giorgio was in all three of my choices. Sister Maria Frassati was my first choice, and I could not have been happier to receive it as my name.
Adventure: World Youth Days
Though I had been to Rome in 2000, it was not until World Youth Day in Toronto in 2002 that I learned that Pier Giorgio had a connection to World Youth Day via Pope St. John Paul II.
In 1977, the Dominicans in Krakow, Poland, invited the cardinal archbishop to an exhibit they were hosting to teach about the life of Pier Giorgio. Then-Archbishop Karol Wojtyła encouraged everyone to “Behold the man of the eight beatitudes who bears in himself the grace of the Gospel, the Good News, the joy of salvation offered to us by Christ.” The nickname “man of the beatitudes” was apt, and it stuck.
When Pope St. John Paul II founded World Youth Day, it was natural that Frassati should be one of the patrons, as he was in Toronto. At that event, there were huge pictures of him scattered about the city. He kept popping up and surprising me; I thought it was a great game.
And evidently Pier Giorgio did, too, because we have continued to play it for over 20 years and across multiple continents. When he finds a joke he likes, he really sticks to it.
In 2008, I was sent with my convent classmates to Sydney for World Youth Day. Pier Giorgio’s relics were flown to Sydney to be part of the pilgrimage to the cathedral. Just prior to the beginning of World Youth Day proper, Pier Giorgio rested at the Dominican church in Sydney. Almost the first thing we did when we arrived in the city was to go and find him there.
As I met Pier Giorgio in person for the first time, I marveled at the beauty of Catholicism. Here I was, an American sister venerating the relics of my Italian patron while in Australia. Amazing. And much to my delight, I was also able to meet Pier Giorgio’s niece, Wanda, while I was in Sydney. It felt like everyone who saw my nametag asked if I had met her, but I kept missing her at venue after venue. I finally complained to Pier Giorgio and, of course, ran into her immediately!
In terms of encounters with Frassati, that trip would have been sufficient for me. But it was not, apparently, sufficient for Pier Giorgio. In 2016, I was sent to World Youth Day in Krakow with a group of high school students. And once again I was able to venerate Pier Giorgio’s relics in a Dominican church outside of Italy!
I probably shouldn’t have been surprised to end up at World Youth Day in Lisbon in 2023, but I was. To be clear, some of my fellow sisters have never had the opportunity to go to a World Youth Day. I have been to five. Pier Giorgio is the best explanation I have of this phenomenon.
In Lisbon it was Pier Giorgio’s ice axe and rosary that were available to venerate rather than the man himself. I did attempt to visit these relics, but when we got to the church, it was full to capacity.
I thought about brandishing my nametag and barging in, but instead I said a prayer from outside. Thanks for sending me to another World Youth Day, Pier Giorgio. I am very grateful. But this trip is pretty taxing, and I think I am getting a little old for this. Perhaps this should be our last World Youth Day?
I have since discovered that I should have made this prayer more specific.
A friendly canonization miracle
When it was announced that Pier Giorgio was going to be canonized, I started hearing from all kinds of people. Everyone had the same question for me: What was the miracle that led to his canonization?
I assumed it was Kevin Becker’s astonishing recovery and was accordingly delighted to discover that there was a new miracle, as yet unknown to me.
In 2017, seminarian Juan Gutierrez was playing basketball with his classmates when he ruptured his Achilles tendon. It is a painful injury that meant surgery, first, but also a long rehab and probably giving up basketball.
Gutierrez felt inspired to pray a novena to Pier Giorgio. He didn’t seek out an officially printed novena; he just prayed a short invocation to the Lord to help with the injury through Frassati’s intercession.
About halfway through this novena, Gutierrez was healed.
What I love most about this miracle is how simple it is. Could Gutierrez have had surgery and a long rehab? Of course. But he would have lost lots of opportunities to play basketball with his classmates.
Often we think our needs are too small to bother the Lord with, or we take matters into our own hands when it comes to addressing things. But Pier Giorgio is a fun-loving fellow, and he is apparently willing to work miracles to make sure that other people have fun, too.
Full circle
And speaking of fun, Pier Giorgio has arranged for me to attend his canonization. I mean, he had some help from generous family and friends, but I know he is responsible, really. How could he not be?
When one of my sisters asked how physically rigorous the canonization trip will be, I replied, “Well, the good thing is that it is not going to be a World Youth Day level of rigor, for sure.”
And then I got the schedule.
The canonization will take place at the closing Mass of the Jubilee of Youth, which is being hosted at Tor Vergata, the venue just outside of Rome where I spent that memorable evening with St. John Paul II in 2000. Attending the Mass will involve a long hike and a night under the stars.
When I asked Pier Giorgio to refrain from future World Youth Days, I assumed I was done with sleeping in an open field along with a million of my closest friends. I can practically hear Pier Giorgio say, “But this is not a World Youth Day! It is a Jubilee of Youth!” Somehow I know that this remark is accompanied by a mischievous wink.
Let me end, then, with a prayer to one of my oldest and best friends, in which I try to be more clear:
Dear soon-to-be St. Pier Giorgio, I am so grateful for the chance to go to your canonization, even if you did catch me on a technicality. The return to Tor Vergata is a nice touch, and I appreciate it deeply.
But let me be clear, Pier Giorgio: After this August, my bivouacking-at-giant-youth-event days are over. I know you love these events, and so do I, but I promise I am no longer a youth.
The power of your witness still inspires me, but it is your friendship for which I am most grateful — even when you occasionally drive me crazy.
Terroristic cannon shots!
Amen.
Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us!
