Today is July 7, Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time.
We read at today’s Mass, “In you and your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing. Know that I am with you; I will protect you wherever you go, and bring you back to this land” (Gen 28:14).
That assurance of God’s presence and protection frames our reflection on the seventh Beatitude: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”
If ever there were a young man who embodied this beatitude, it was Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. He had a truly reconciliatory spirit — a natural ability to bridge divides in friendship and social life alike. While we’ve already discussed the political turbulence of post-World War I Europe and Pier Giorgio’s conviction that peace would not come without a return to God, today I want to highlight something more personal: his gift for building peace through friendship.
In a letter to his dear friend Marco written around Easter, Pier Giorgio offers what he calls his “one wish” for his friend who was serving in the Air Force: “The peace of the Lord be with you always. Because when you possess peace every day, you will be truly rich.”
Born from friendship with God
There it is — his definition of true wealth. Not money, not power, not success. Peace — the peace of the risen Christ — is what mattered most to him.
This kind of interior peace, born from friendship with God, made Pier Giorgio a calming and unifying presence. Even amid conflict and personal suffering, he remained anchored. His joy wasn’t shallow; it flowed from that deep sense of Easter peace.
For Pier Giorgio, peace wasn’t passive. It was something to cultivate, to extend, to protect. And he knew its source: Christ. The one who stood in the upper room and spoke those first words of resurrection: “Peace be with you.”
So today, let’s ask ourselves: Are we peacemakers? Do our words and relationships reflect the peace of Christ? Are we offering others the same blessing Pier Giorgio offered his friend Marco — the rich peace that only Christ can give?
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.
