Today is July 1, Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time.
At today’s Mass we read, “Search me, O LORD, and try me; test my soul and my heart. For your mercy is before my eyes, and I walk in your truth” (Ps 26:2-3).
I couldn’t be more excited to kick off this month’s devotional series dedicated to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, whose canonization is coming up on September 7 in Rome. He’ll be raised to the altars alongside Blessed Carlo Acutis — two luminous examples of young holiness for our times.
As we journey toward Pier Giorgio’s canonization, we’ll spend the month exploring his interior life, his apostolic zeal, his friendships, and his spirituality. Today, we begin right where the Church began with him in the Beatitudes.
That’s Pier Giorgio. A soul refined by prayer, detached from worldly power and walking in the truth of Christ. In fact, in 1977, Polish Dominicans created an exhibit showcasing his life. Present at that exhibit was none other than Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, the future Pope John Paul II. He blessed the exhibit and declared, “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.”
Seeking poverty of spirit
So let’s begin where the Gospel begins: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
Though Pier Giorgio came from a wealthy, politically influential family — his father was an Italian senator and the founder of the major newspaper La Stampa — he lived with striking detachment. His sister Luciana observed, “He was forgetful of the family’s economic position. He did not consider his father’s fortune his own and said he did not have a penny.”
This was not an exaggeration. The few liras his mother gave him were often spent on those in greater need. That’s what it means to be poor in spirit — to live freely, not bound by possessions, but open to God and to others. Detachment made Pier Giorgio free. It made him generous. And it made him joyful.
So today, let’s ask ourselves: What might we detach from? Where do we find our security — in wealth or in Christ? May we begin, like Pier Giorgio, by seeking poverty of spirit as the first step in our walk with the Lord.
Let us pray,
O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth. 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.
