| Title:
Letters to His Friends and Family
Author: Pier Giorgio Frassati ISBN: 0-8189-1305-3 Paperback: xxviii + 260 pp. Illustrated Price: $19.95 + shipping To Order call: 1 800-343-ALBA (2522) Please have your Master, Visa or American Express card ready. To order online click here. |
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"So what did he do to become a saint? What miracles did he work?" These are the questions one often hears about the life of Pier Giorgio Frassati. For Catholics who associate sainthood with miracles and spiritual phenomena, the story of a young man who lived an ordinary life seems rather... well, ordinary. And at first glance, that is what it was: days that revolved around a routine of home, school and friends; weekends spent skiing in the mountains or swimming at the beach. Many of Pier Giorgio's letters and postcards are filled with the humdrum recitation of details concerning exams taken, tourist sites visited, trains missed, and even greetings to the family pets. His was a life like millions of others, even like our own; it was very ordinary. Or was it? From the first letter written to his father at the age of five, to the last reminder to a friend scrawled with a paralyzed hand as he lay on his deathbed at the age of twenty-four, Pier Giorgio's strong faith shines forth brightly. The child's promise that "I'll pray to Baby Jesus for you" grows throughout the years into a crescendo of blessings and spiritual encouragements until it reaches a shout of "Long live Christ the King!" in manhood. Frequent references to St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Catherine of Siena intermingle with his own thoughts about peace, prayer, friendship, charity, family life on earth and life with God forever in Heaven. His personal mission to the poor and the sick is also revealed in his letters, as is his fervent love of country and his hatred for tyranny and injustice. Pier Giorgio was a prophet, and more than that he was a saint. And in these Letters, he shows us that it is possible for us to become saints, too. --Fr. Timothy E. Deeter, Translator. |
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati , was born in the northern Italian city of Turin on April 6, 1901, son of a prominent jounalist, Alfredo Frassati and his wife, Adelaide Ametis, a painter. His father was the founder of La Stampa, a daily newspaper still published in Turin. He served as senator in the Italian parliament and later as Italian ambassador to Germany. Their second child, Luciana, was a year younger than Pier Giorgio and the two were always extremely close. It was particularly difficult for Pier Giorgio when Luciana, newly married, moved to the Netherlands with her husband in early 1925. She died in 2007 at the age of 105. An avid skier and mountain climber, Pier Giorgio once told a friend that he had left his heart on a mountaintop and looked forward to retrieving it on a climb to the summit of Mont Blanc. Since prayer and the Eucharist were the integrating factors of his busy life, it was his custom to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, which he never failed to receive daily, at the conclusion of each climb. His death came only three days after the death of his beloved grandmother. At his funeral, his doubly grief-stricken family were astounded to find the streets of Turin lined with thousands of the poor who knew Pier Giorgio as the young man who had always been there to help them in their need. It was only after his death that the Frassati family learned the full extent of his impact. In fact, it was the poor of Turin who asked their archbishop to open Frassati's cause for canonization. In his homily during Frassati's beatification on May 20, 1990, Pope John Paul II said, He was "entirely immersed in the mystery of God, and totally dedicated to the service of his neighbor". For World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney at which Pope Benedict XVI was present, the body of Pier Giorgio was flown to Australia where it remained in the cathedral for the veneration of thousands of young people during the month of July.
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