In Via
Planning a trip? Or just on the pilgrimage of daily living? We are the podcast at the intersection of faith and travel, assisting you on the journey to encounter Christ. Hear stories, discover travel tips, and learn more about our Catholic faith. Along the way, we’ll show you that if God seeks to meet us in Jerusalem, Rome, Lourdes, Mexico City, or Santiago, he also wants to encounter you - right there in your car, on your run, or in the middle of your workday.
In Via
Beyond the Mountain Climber: Pier Giorgio Frassati
Christine Wohar takes us deep into the life of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati as we anticipate his long-awaited canonization this summer during the Jubilee Year of Hope. As Executive Director of Frassati USA, Christine shares the fascinating story of how this young Italian man who died at just 24 years old continues to captivate Catholics worldwide with his remarkable ordinariness.
Born into a prominent family, Pier Giorgio's upbringing wasn't overtly religious. Yet despite living through World War I, the Spanish flu pandemic, and the rise of fascism under Mussolini, he developed extraordinary devotion to the Eucharist and service to the poor that ultimately led thousands to flood the streets at his funeral in 1925.
What makes Frassati particularly compelling is his relatability. He wasn't academically exceptional, faced family conflicts, and experienced relationship disappointments – yet chose holiness daily through faithful Mass attendance, acts of charity, and joyful friendship. His canonization miracle, involving the healing of a torn Achilles tendon, perfectly reflects this same accessibility – a reminder that God and his saints care about our everyday struggles, not just life-and-death situations.
Christine also shares personal stories of meeting Frassati's family, including his sister who lived to 105 years old, and reveals delightful behind-the-scenes details like the amusing story behind his beatification banner at St. Peter's. As we prepare to celebrate Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati, discover why he's precisely the saint we need today – showing us that holiness begins with Monday mornings and ordinary moments, offering hope that amid our own everyday struggles, we too can become saints.
Join us for Pier Giorgio Frassati's canonization celebration this summer! Whether you want to take a group or you're just an individual looking for a trip, Verso Ministries can make that dream a reality. Visit versoministries.com/Jubilee for all our Jubilee dates and for more information.
For more on Pier Giorgio, check out:
A Man of the Beatitudes by Luciana Frassati
Finding Frassati: And Following His Path to Holiness by Christine Wohar
Welcome to In Via, the podcast where we're navigating the pilgrimage of life. We are all in via on the way and we are learning a lot as we go. I'm your host, joan Watson. Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn more about our Catholic faith. Along the way, we'll see that if God seeks to meet us in Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, he also wants to encounter you right there in your car, on your run or in the middle of your workday.
Speaker 1:On today's episode of NVEA, we welcome Christine Wohar, executive Director of Frassati USA. As we prepare for Pier Giorgio Frassati's canonization this summer, christine will bring us up to speed about his life, the origin story of the nonprofit. Frassati's canonization this summer, christine will bring us up to speed about his life, the origin story of the nonprofit Frassati USA and how Pier Giorgio is a sign of hope for us in this jubilee year. So I think it's an understatement to say we should be excited about the canonization, right? Like you have to be beyond excited about this canonization because we've waited so long for Pier Giorgio, right?
Speaker 2:I try to keep in mind that we could be waiting another two or 300 years, right, because in a way it's 100 years. In a way, that's maybe not that long in canonization timeframes although Carlo Acutis really beat the system, he jumped in there pretty quickly but for Pier Giorgio to have this happen in my lifetime, yes, I think it's thrilling. So anybody that knew him in 1925 when he passed away and that was really like a John Paul II moment when thousands of people poured into the streets and his canonization cause really began at that moment of his funeral so maybe there might have been people at that time thinking they will see this in their lifetime and then they never got to. Have been people at that time thinking they will see this in their lifetime and then they never got to. So, yes, I'm thrilled about it and very grateful, because for me, I met Piero Giorgio 30 years ago. Of course, this is the 100th anniversary of his death, but it could have been outside of my lifetime. So what a blessing.
Speaker 2:And, more importantly, his niece, wanda, who is the key person after her mother. So so her mother was Piero Giorgio's sister, luchana, and Luchana was there for the beatification, so all of the family got to see that His own parents died before the beatification. But for Wanda and her family to be able to see the canonization, that's really incredible, because maybe another 10 years they're all close in their 90s, late 80s, you know, that's really incredible because maybe another 10 years they're all close in their 90s, you know, late 80s, 90s and they might not have been able to enjoy this moment. So for like a selfish moment, on behalf of the family, I think it's exciting, and then of all of us who have a devotion to Peter Giorgio, it's just off the charts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, before we jump into, kind of well, let's jump into his life first, cause I was going to say I want to hear your story and how you met him, cause I think so often the saints find us, you know, and so we all have that story of where, like, the saint found us. But I guess, before we jump into how you met Pierre Giorgio or how he found you, could you give us a little synopsis of of his life and like, why is he being canonized? Because I think in some ways, like Carlo Acutis, it's easy just to dismiss him as, like this ordinary person and you know, like what was so great about him and we, I think we can learn a lot about holiness through his life. So could you give us like a little like snapshot of his life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, and I think with both Carlo Acutis and Piero Giorgio, we may be scrutinized, maybe a little bit more like because they weren't priests or nuns, religious popes or something like that in a way, and say, well, these are just ordinary guys. But I think, as Pope John Paul II said, it's his ordinariness that calls us to imitate, it compels us to imitate his virtue, but in both of those cases, their extraordinary devotion to the Eucharist is what fueled their lives. So they are different, though based on their time frames, that they lived, and the life experiences of Peter Giorgio, I think, were significantly more different than Peter Giorgio I mean than Carlo only because he lived longer. But so Peter Giorgio was born in 1901, at the beginning of the 20th century, and he lived. He died in 1925. This is the centenary of his death. He died of the 20th century and he lived. He died in 1925. This is the centenary of his death. He died on the 4th of July, which is his feast day. So I love that part of it. I see fireworks on the 4th of July and I'm like God bless America and woohoo, pure Georgia.
Speaker 2:So, but he died after 24 short years, but those 24 years were very significant in the course of world history, especially Italian history, because when he was 13, world War I began, which the Great World War with so many deaths, and then his father was the founder of the Italian newspaper La Stampa. People only got their news from the paper really back then and there were two main papers. So his father was a very key, significant figure in Italy and then he became the youngest senator for the kingdom it was a kingdom at the time and then he, in Germany, spoke Germany fluently and to be there for Germany at that time was a significant political position, an appointment, and then the war ended when Pier Giorgio was 17. But then you had the Spanish flu, which claimed a lot of lives, and then you had, when he was 21 years old, you had the March on, which claimed a lot of lives, and then you had, when he was 21 years old, you had the March on Rome in 1922, and Benito Mussolini comes to power, fascism takes over Italy and he sees, like he says, his blood boiled when he read the speech of Mussolini. So he sees his beloved country falling into the hands of a fascist regime and he, because of his awareness and political involvement of his father, pier Giorgio, I think, was far more politically astute than certainly I was at that age and I think most young people are, because he was thrust into that through the wars, the you know, the massive disease, the rise of fascism and and his father's position. So his father resigned when Mussolini came into power and the family then was forced kind of on the outs because they opposed fascism and so there was a lot going on in his life and that's just the cultural aspect, and in those days Catholics were not supposed to be participating actively in politics. But it changed right at that time and a Catholic priest started a Catholic political party, the People's Party, which Pierre Georgiou joined, and then was greatly disillusioned when he saw that party, which was supposed to be promoting Catholic social teaching, betray itself and he said how men will trample on their consciences for worldly honors. And so here he is trying to make a difference in the culture. So that was like the big political picture.
Speaker 2:And then in his own family he was born into a family which really didn't have a deep spirituality. His father is often referred to as agnostic or atheist, which I really try to like redefine that, because if you do a lot of the reading especially the Italian sources. His father was a fallen away Catholic. He wasn't anti-Catholic, he wasn't against the church. If you read some of his father's writings reflecting on the beauty and the nature and God and all, I mean he had a real deep essence. He raised a saint. You know, he gave him here Giorgio. He infused a lot of these beautiful qualities in him. But in those times, as I said, you really weren't supposed to be participating in politics. So I sometimes wonder, and I don't know, if his father suppressed maybe some of his Catholic leanings just because otherwise he really couldn't have been a senator or an ambassador. I don't know, that could be completely wrong.
Speaker 2:Nonetheless, his mother was a Sunday Catholic. She took the kids to church, she made sure they had the sacraments, and sometimes you'll read that they never saw her receive communion. And I've discussed this with Peter Giorgio's niece and she's kind of dismissed that, as of course grandmother received communion, but it wasn't like she didn't go, I mean. So that creates a bad impression. But they definitely weren't having family rosaries and prayer times. He would run home and he would pray outside of the dining room because they wouldn't be praying at meals and so.
Speaker 2:But he all you know what I mean and so so he wasn't raised in a Catholic environment but he had this great grace, I think, of having a deep love for Jesus and the Eucharist and the poor, and all of that clearly from an early age. So it wasn't nurtured in the home, but it wasn't. He was misunderstood his whole life, even at the time of his death His parents saw that outpouring of thousands of people at the funeral and his mother you know his father they said we didn't know our son and they didn't know their son, even up until the end. They thought he was a little bit odd with the things that he did in church, all the time in adoration, so. But he was a regular guy, practical joker, life of the party, had a lot of friends. He was struggling in school.
Speaker 2:People sometimes think he had intelligence problems. He spoke several languages and he was prepared to study engineering in German when his father became the ambassador. So you don't do that when you don't have a level of intelligence. But he was on like the six year plan when he died, so he hadn't finished his degree. His sister had already finished and she was younger, and he was told you'll never amount to much if you continue down these paths Because he was spending so much time, you know, caring for the poor. So I'm giving you far more of an answer than you want, but that's kind of like the dramatic. You know the setting of his life, because he had a political, cultural environment that was very significant at the time in the history of Italy and even the world, and then he had the dynamic of how the family life was, and yet he was an explosion of joy, had this great spiritual life, and now they're being canonized. So it's a bit, it's a lot.
Speaker 2:I think there's a I always say there's such a depth of Piero Giorgio that we still have not explored because we think of him as climbing mountains and things like that and there's so much more to him, and my dream is that one day we have all of these tremendous Italian books in English, so that people can really get the full picture and then really, truly appreciate how he got to the point of being canonized today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because I mean even what you're talking about. I mean politically how much can we learn from that? This need for Catholics to get involved but also to remain Catholic? Right, there's so much we can study in that and I think people just see him. They don't see him within his historical significance and they don't see that aspect of him. That's so much for us right now to like unpack. But then also this Catholic home, that not being raised in a Catholic home how typical is that today? That you know mom goes to mass, dad doesn't, you know? And I think sometimes we, um, we can see our own lens of 2025, you know, the fact that she didn't receive communion is actually pretty common in years past. Right, that like people felt unworthy or they didn't receive communion, it doesn't mean they were a bad Catholic. It meant they. You know, it was just different back then.
Speaker 2:And he might not have been at mass or no, they might not have noticed. I think that the point was that that wasn't maybe a dramatic. The problem is, some of these things come right from his sister's books, so you can't discount it because she wrote it. But sometimes the translations aren't clear.
Speaker 1:And it's also her point of view.
Speaker 2:People didn't always receive Like right now we just go up to get communion whether we were doing like the worst evil deed the night before we don't question it, and so I think a lot of times people were far more scrupulous about making sure they didn't go to communion unless they went to confession, so it could be cases like that where they didn't see her go or they might not even have been at mass with her, or something like that.
Speaker 1:Like we don't want to read too much into the past and put people in boxes, but this idea that he was born and he became a saint within a very what now might be a typical Catholic home Right.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great observation.
Speaker 1:And that's really powerful for us to say okay, how can you know, not that we want to set the bar low for our families, but that it's possible. God works with it.
Speaker 2:All right, and Pierre Giorgio can come out of this very typical Catholic home and in fact, it was his mother's mother, his grandmother Linda, who she was more of that religious spiritual figure. You know your old grandmother who prayed all the time and she taught him to pray for the souls in purgatory and things like that.
Speaker 2:So there was, and they always had, an abundance of nuns and priests in the home. In fact, a nun was the one who cared for his grandmother, especially when she was aging and dying. So it wasn't like they didn't have the presence of Catholic influences and things like that in the home. It was just that. Just what you described and that's how I like to think of it actually is like the Sunday Catholic or I don't know just what you said. The mother might take the kids to church, the father might not be home watching something on television, sports or whatever.
Speaker 2:Maybe they go maybe they don't Exactly, and yet they made sure the kids received the sacraments. They respected the church, but it wasn't a priority of prayer and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean there's a lot we can unpack about his life and devotion to him, but I'd love to hear your story of how he discovered you and you discovered him and how Frassata USA came to be.
Speaker 2:Well, I like what you said earlier about the saints find us, because Bishop Egan from England wrote the foreword for my book and he writes that in there that he firmly believes that we don't choose the saints, the saints choose us, and that is the truest thing that I've ever seen as far as this goes. So I came to Nashville to go to law school at Vanderbilt my plan and there I met a parish priest. Within, I would say, within 12 hours of landing in Nashville, I was introduced to the parish priest. He, I would say, within 12 hours of landing in Nashville, I was introduced to the parish priest. He was the associate pastor at the time and he wanted to start a young adult group. And he asked me and I always look back on that, we kind of joke about this a little bit but this particular priest had gone to law school and then decided to convert to Catholicism while in law school and then left After he graduated law school and then left after he graduated law school, became a Catholic priest.
Speaker 2:And so my point is just that he had gone through law school at a top tier law school. He knew what it was. I was kind of so naive, I was thinking I was just going to be at the pool all day. This is going to be a breeze and you know that's not how first year law school is, which I found out. So I the reason I mentioned that is just that for him to ask me new to Nashville, I know nobody and I'm a first year law student and he knows, although I don't, the intensity of that why, ask me to help start a group.
Speaker 2:But sure Father, he saw that I went to daily mass. There was a six 30 mass and that was my routine six 30 mass, the divine office, with a group of faithful Catholics there, and then I'd head off to law school. One day after 630 mass he said I've got it, and he had this old paper with the prayer of Pier Giorgio on it and he said we'll call it the Frassati society and that's how the name came about. He had other names that were being tossed around and this was the one he decided on. I'm just going along with whatever he said. I am in fact still Byzantine Catholic, so for me this is a. You know, this is not a Byzantine Catholic, blessed or saint or whatever.
Speaker 2:But, like we always say, the church breathes with two lungs. I was raised in Latin right, you know, grade school and high school, and so I feel like a very much of a spiritual mutt. But this was there, isn't, there was, hasn't been a Byzzantine church here. So I'm always at the, you know, the roman catholic church. I was fine with whatever he said. I never heard of the guy and from that point on he's kind of had his claws in me, pier Giorgio. I mean, I never would have said I would have seen this coming in a million years.
Speaker 2:But it started that way with starting a young adult group there, starting another young adult group later, and then, 10 years after that first encounter with Pier Giorgio, I went to Rome. I met his niece and I just decided that I was called to do something more to help make him better known in America. And so then I gave up my career path and all of that and went off to Italy, not knowing what would happen. And I arrived. I always like to say I arrived in Italy two days before Pier Giorgio's sister celebrated her 104th birthday.
Speaker 2:So my within two days of this great leap of faith, I was in the first family home celebrating the 104th birthday of Piero Giorgio's sister, and that was very significant for me, because Piero Giorgio missed all of her birthdays when he died at 24, you know so, 80 years later, I'm at a birthday party that he couldn't be at, I mean. You know so, 80 years later, I'm at a birthday party that he couldn't be at. I mean, and it just kind of went from there. Within a very short period of time, it became obvious that the best way to help was to start something in the United States. That's how Forsythia, usa, that I've been able to meet all of Luchana had six children.
Speaker 2:One just recently died in the last few years, but the other five are still alive. I've met and spent time with all of them and, of course, with her. She died at the age of 105. I was there the last month of her life, in the home and at her funeral. So, just yeah, things that you can't really put a value on, how significant that is to be able to have had those experiences and all along not knowing what in the heck I was doing here, where this was going, why people will always ask me questions about why you're doing this or how you're doing this or whatever, and those are the things you have to leave up to the Lord.
Speaker 1:So he keeps.
Speaker 2:If the path is there, I just keep going on the path. So, and here we are.
Speaker 1:It's like this pilgrimage you don't know where you're going, but you're going with the Lord and that's all that matters.
Speaker 2:It's good that we don't know because if we knew I honestly, if you would have laid this all out for me how this was going to go, I'd be like I think I'll stick with being a partner at the law firm and donate to somebody who might be crazy enough to do this. But anyway, no, it's been a blessing. Yeah, it's priceless.
Speaker 1:That's a beautiful lesson. How have you seen, you know, how have you seen Pierre Georgiou's effect in his family, who maybe didn't even know him, but they're hearing the stories that we're hearing, you know? Do you see that effect of this holiness, of this man that only lived to 24? How does that impact his family? I can't comprehend having a relative. That's a canonized saint right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know how it's impacted them. I the story of Pierre-Georges. So Pierre-Georges' sister married the January of the year that he died, so obviously none of his nieces and nephews ever knew who he was After he died.
Speaker 2:It was very, of course, it would be for your parents to suffer the loss of their child, but it was told to me that his father couldn't bear to see pictures of him in his daughter's home and that when he would go there to visit she would, you know, put pictures in the drawer, or something like that. And his father eventually came back to the fullness of the faith and he has written some beautiful things, the pain of losing his son and so on. And his mother began, because of that outpouring of the people there, to work on the canonization cause, but for his living relatives I think they didn't have any experience of that. And then the cause, for reasons, was put on hold and it didn't get reopened again until the late 70s, I think, is when it was reopened. So so they all grew up really with him being a figure, but not necessarily celebrated in the church because things were put on hold for so long.
Speaker 2:Okay, so they had luchana's books, which she actually didn't write, those books till about maybe 30 years or so after he passed away.
Speaker 2:Um, there were commemorations of his death and things like that.
Speaker 2:But I don't think, as opposed to carlo cutas's mother and her family, who are actually like living in the moment because it's so fresh and she lived with her, you know they all. So I think, for the family, the impact of the family I don't really know how that impacts them to process, like the fact that he was not being canonized, not being beatified. Then he was beatified and then there was another law, and now you have somebody who's a famous saint because for them their father was a very famous, I mean, the, the grandfather, the father of Luciana and Piero Giorgio was a very significant, famous figure and that would have been something. And then you know, luciana herself was a very accomplished, significant figure. So I just think that they have a richness in the family of everyone, a richness in the family of everyone and I don't know how the the life of Piero Giorgio. You know what dimension that is for them in. In all of that. It's a lot. I think it's a lot for them to have that kind of a legacy in their family their family history.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, we're so far removed from Italian history. I mean, the average American doesn't even realize, like you know, even, that there used to be kingdoms in Italy, right? Like the idea of like the unification of Italy is like some foreign idea. We don't know history outside our own um in America, and so, like we don't even know his dad, we don't think about that. And so the thing that this is a very you know, there's, there's multi-level of famousness in their family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things I think is interesting. If you go to Polone to visit the home of Pier Giorgio, you drive up. The main road is called Via Pier Giorgio Frassati. So when you go into Polone you're driving on Pier Giorgio Frassati Street, but you cross over Senator Alfredo Frassati Street where you find a monument of Mr Frassati. So there's a street intersection right Frassati and Frassati. So you had a worldly figure of success and a spiritual figure of success on this crossroads there, literally.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's a lot to think about in a family like that. I know, when Luciana passed away, one of her sons at the funeral said to me everyone thinks of my mother in terms of Pier Giorgio, his uncle, you know, her brother, he said. But my mother did so much more. She saved over a hundred Polish Jews from extermination by directly going to Mussolini and getting their freedom with her diplomatic passport. So for him he was always trying to be mindful of the fact that this family, you know, there's way more than Pierre Giorgio and Pierre Giorgio would be enough for any family, but you have the mother, the grandpa, you know. So there's a lot that this family has contributed in the, you know, in the life of in that timeframe and extending even far beyond so far more than we can comprehend, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, you talked a little bit about the lull and then you know we were waiting for the canonization. Um, can you talk a little bit about the miracle that led to his canonization? Were you surprised that? I mean, I think after a while, when you're waiting, you're like oh, it's actually happening. Um, you know just the idea that he's getting canonized in this Jubilee year. Um, can you talk a little bit about the miracle that was approved? So the miracle was.
Speaker 2:I was aware of the miracle in 2019. It happened in 2017. But you are absolutely right. You're like is this finally happening? Because I'll up on them and the powers that be decide which things get investigated. So when this was the one that was chosen to be investigated and approved, I think everybody is scratching their heads a little bit because it's not one of these. Wow, you know, incredible dramatic life and death type of miracles. Incredible dramatic life and death type of miracles. It was the.
Speaker 2:He was a seminarian at the time in the diocese of Los Angeles playing basketball.
Speaker 2:I just recently ran into somebody who knows things about Los Angeles and she told me that in that diocese it's a big thing to have the seminarians playing the priest in a game of basketball out there.
Speaker 2:This it's like some big thing, I guess. Anyway, this seminarian injured his he tore his Achilles tendon playing basketball, and so that was the miracle was the miraculous healing of his Achilles tendon. And somebody wrote a recently a great reflection on that, saying how this is a nice miracle actually for Piero de Giorgio, because it shows something that didn't have to have a miracle, because he could have had surgery and repaired his torn Achilles tendon, so it wasn't like a stage four cancer or something dramatic like that, or the brain injury of Kevin Becker, who everyone thinks often is the actual canonization miracle, because that's been far more publicized, but it's a simple miracle and a sweet story of, I think, the intercession for the little things, which I think is a significant thing. It was a big thing for Father Gutierrez. He's now an ordained priest in the Diocese of Los Angeles and you can find his beautiful testimony about that healing online. But yeah, it was a simple healing of an Achilles tendon.
Speaker 2:And so sometimes people you know ask about that. I don't know, I don't know. Another miracle the first miracle for Peter Giorgio happened in the 1930s and it was a dramatic case, but I think there is a real beauty to this a sports injury and something that just affected this particular person.
Speaker 1:Um, it was a frustrating, disappointing thing for him and obviously there's some special reason that pietro giorgio wanted to do this for father gutierrez, yeah, yeah, there's like a tenderness, a tenderness with a tendon, exactly life and his daily choices that led him to heaven, right, that he brought people with him to mass and he, you know, spoke out when injustice was happening and he served the poor when he, you know, and it wasn't just, oh, he sat and prayed, but he, like, he was active, that man of the Beatitudes, but that it was in his ordinary life, and I think that this kind of ordinary miracle kind of speaks to the ordinariness.
Speaker 2:I think so and it's a good lesson for us too, to remember that it's not just the big things out there. Like some people, I mean, our lives ebb and flow, and sometimes you have more suffering than other times. You know my mother used to say you have the joyful and the sorrowful and the glorious, you know, like the mysteries of the rosary in your life, and I think that's true. But God, as scripture tells us, worries about every hair on our head, and so it doesn't have to be like I'm only going to pray if I have like this worst, terrible thing that's happening to me. I think it's a good message that God cares about everything, as do the saints, and Peter Giorgio, and he, in his friendship with us, I think, would want us to be able to participate in the things that we do.
Speaker 2:There's a letter in one of in the Pierre Georges book of letters where he talks about he has to skip an adventure to the mountains for a ski tournament because he has a problem with, well, a climb that he was going to go on, because he's injured his knee, and he describes the injury to his knee and so so like that was a frustrating thing for me because he knew he for him, because he knew he wasn't going to be able to do that. So, like, those things affected him little things and then he had the dramatic big things in his life. But I think it's a good reminder for us that God cares about every little thing and it doesn't have to be only the big things that we run to God, because a lot of people wait until they're on their last breath of gasp of life before they turn to God. And God should be with us all of the time, in everything and the little things now, and not just wait till things get so bad and then you decide, ok, I really need God. Now I'm going to pray.
Speaker 2:I mean he's there for the little things, the daily things as well as not going to bug him. And we don't all you know, not everybody gets the big things anyway, but um yeah, so I've um taken a lot of consolation from that miracle actually that the little things that matter to me. God hears, he's listening, he's you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. What, how do you think so he's getting canonized in this Jubilee year, this year of hope? And how is Pierre Giorgio a sign for hope for us today? How is he a pilgrim of hope?
Speaker 2:It's really perfect timing. I think the one number one thing people say about Pierre Giorgio he's so relatable. Okay, he's so relatable. Everybody can find something in Pierre Giorgio. But the relatability of him is, I think, what makes him such an important figure for people from the standpoint of hope.
Speaker 2:Because, okay, pierre de Georgia didn't get the best grades. We know he was out doing all these works of poor. So if you don't have a good, you know straight A report card, you can still be a saint. Like he gives you hope academically. And he had a relationship that didn't go the way he wanted and so and his parents had a very unhappy marriage, were on the verge of separation. You maybe come from a bad home life or an unhappy home life or unhappy relationship with your own spouse, and and you can be a saint.
Speaker 2:Pier Giorgio did all, he did a lot of things that in the ordinariness of his life that I think people can look at that and say, if he could do it, there's hope for me. And so I think that in some ways, the ordinariness of Pier Giorgio and the jubilee of hope, hand in hand, show us that there's hope for everyone, no matter what your circumstance. People can confine him to well. He came from a wealthy home and he had these opportunities, but he really suffered In many ways. He suffered with misunderstanding and loneliness and the lack of spirituality in the home, a lack of understanding in the home of his own, the way he lived his life, the struggles, the comparisons, the pressures, the things he had to sacrifice, and in the end he was able to overcome all of that and choose the things that matter more, like be faithful to the fundamentals of the faith, practicing his spiritual life, communion, confession, serving the poor and all of those things, being faithful to that, finishing the race, finishing the race until the day he died.
Speaker 2:And so I look at it as if, if Pier Giorgio could do those things as just a regular guy with all of the pressures and things that we have, then there is hope for me, because I'm never going to be the one who sees the blessed mother or who founds the hospital in here or bilocates or becomes the Pope or something, and so we always compartmentalize sanctity for those people, and I think Pietro Giorgio gives us the hope of holiness for us, as does, I think, carlo Acutis, you know, also shows us, in the same way that in your everyday circumstances and the challenges that you face. Yes, you can be holy, and so the hope of holiness now, not just later, is, I think, what he really brings us by the synergistic timing of the Jubilee year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. Sometimes we dismiss the ordinary things as like oh well, that's not holiness, that's too normal.
Speaker 2:But I fail at those.
Speaker 1:I fail at those all the time. The ordinary things. That's where God wants me to be faithful. Do I need to be more outspoken about political injustice? Do I need to help the poor outside my home?
Speaker 2:right, um, and that's where he's calling me to be we might all have the capacity to be a hero in some dramatic situation, but the heroic virtue of daily life for I think especially lay people in the world you know to get up and every day make those choices, that you're yes to God, on a daily basis, when you're not in a religious community, when you don't have some kind of obligation to do those things, I think it's you know, I just getting out of bed sometimes, I think is canonization material. So I think the ordinariness of life, as John Paul II said, that that's what compels us to look at him and imitate him, because as you say it's not that easy every day.
Speaker 2:It's not that easy every day to go through the world being in the world and not of the world. And that's really what Pierre Georges shows us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like to say that saints are made on Monday mornings, right, like just getting out of bed sometimes is heroic. Do you, as we finish up, do you have a favorite Pierre Giorgio story, a favorite story or a personal anecdote, maybe something that you don't think people know about him, or just something that you'd like to share about him?
Speaker 2:I have so many stories about Pierre Giorgio that I love, so rather, I um, I like to, when people ask me that, I like to give you, um, trivia that maybe people don't know. So, and it's a cute story in a way, but one of the unknown things that I've been told personally. So I believe it's true, it came right from the horse's mouth that when Pier Giorgio was being beatified, the Vatican had this is kind of Pier Giorgio in a nutshell in a way, but when he was being beatified, they had prepared a holy looking image for his banner to be displayed on the facade of St Peter's, and his sister was his banner to be displayed on the facade of St Peter's and his sister was not wanting that. And so if you ever can look at a beatification image of St Peter's, peter Georgia was beatified alone, which was saying something, a statement, I think, by Pope John Paul. But you see this picture of a guy in mountain climbing clothes hanging there on the front of St Peter's. If you could look closely you would see that the head and body don't match. So this was 1990. It was a little bit before everybody had personal computers and all of the ability to Photoshop things and so on. So what they did at the time, the picture of Pier Giorgio on the mountains was a picture with him with a pipe in his mouth, and so they put this mountain climbing picture. But they didn't want the picture with the pipe. So they put the head of him at 16 on the body of him in like 24 years old. If you ever see that it's a little bit of trivia and it just kind of. It's an interesting thing, because if you smoke a pipe you can still get to heaven, obviously.
Speaker 2:But the funny part too of that story is so then after someone's beatified, they go for a, they have a mass to celebrate that in their diocese, and so they go to the diocese of Turin to have this big mass and they bring out the banner of the holy one that Luchana Frassati didn't want, of the holy one that Luchana Frassati didn't want. And so Wanda told me that as they're processing out, she says Luchana says to her daughter go and get that banner. She didn't want them to use that banner but it was too late. Wanda said it was too late, what could I do? And then, after the mass was over, they did go and get it and removed it so it wouldn't be used again.
Speaker 2:But Wanda says that during the kiss of peace the Cardinal came up to Luciana and said peace, be with you. And she said to him I will have no peace until you get rid of that horrid banner. So I just think it's a great story of how the family wanted us to have him as a normal saint that you know. This guy makes it to the beatification and he has to have an image with a head and body that don't match, but he wouldn't have cared.
Speaker 2:I mean, he was a practical joker and I think that he would find that amusing and then for his sister to be so determined that he remained normal for us. So I like the fact that she took great care for that. And if you're able to go to the family home, it's another beautiful thing about how they have preserved things in a very accessible way, which I think is incredibly generous that you can walk into that home. It's not a museum, they don't sell tickets. It's their home and you can still go in there and pray at the bed of Pierre Giorgio. So I like that they were wanting to go to such great lengths to make him normal and accessible for us, as he would want to be always for his friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it makes you wonder. You know, we have the kind of this like hagiographical account of a lot of the ancient saints and I wish that we could get underneath that sometimes and say like, yeah, but tell me a story of when they saints. And I wish that we could get underneath that sometimes and say like, yeah, but tell me a story of when they played a practical joke, or tell me a story of when they messed up. Right, I, I need some like normal stories, and so that's what I'm really grateful for. Pierre Georgiou I love the picture of him with the paper hat on. Um, he has that like newspaper hat and he's holding a bottle. And I'm like you, like that's holiness too, you know, and so it's, it's refreshing.
Speaker 2:Some people don't agree with you, but, yes, some people get annoyed at seeing those kinds of everyday pictures. But yes, I agree, I agree with you.
Speaker 1:That's he. He's the saint, for for me, he gives me hope. Right, it's real life. And if we're not?
Speaker 2:human and living real life, then there's no hope for any of us. I mean, we can't. Our life is not 24 seven inside of the church walls. It's like you said begins on a Monday morning and then it goes throughout the day and every encounter, and that's really the lesson of pure Georgia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect. Well, thank you, christine. I think that's a great way to end. Thank you for telling us a story and and sharing your own story, and we'll be celebrating with you this summer. Just really thrilled, we get to say, saint Pier Giorgio Frassati, we're going to have to change all the holy cards that Verso Ministries passes out, because they all say blessed, and now we get to change them.
Speaker 2:That's a good problem to have right. It is.
Speaker 1:It is. Thanks so much and thanks, listeners. Share this episode with someone who may need to know the real Per Giorgio Frassati. Maybe they just know him as a mountain climber and he was that, but we would love to spread the word that he's somebody to really emulate, even when there aren't physical mountains in our lives. God bless, listeners. Please share the episode and tune in as we continue our Jubilee series here on NVEA. Do you want to experience this historic event in the life of the church for yourself? Whether you want to take a group or you're just an individual looking for a trip, verso Ministries can make that dream a reality. Visit versoministriescom slash Jubilee for all our Jubilee dates and for more information.
