Day 3: Living instead of Merely Existing (with Pier Giorgio Frassati)

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Who was Pier Giorgio Frassati?

Pier Giorgio went through all the struggles that we, young people, are currently faced with: critical life choices, studies, endless exams, his parents' strained relationship, social and political engagement, and love pangs. And yet, as John Paul II stated upon his beatification, his life is proof that holiness is possible for everyone. He was merely a young man, who loved his family and friends, as well as hiking in the mountains and going to the sea, but above everything else, he loved God. 

 Pier Giorgio was born in Turin in 1901. His mother was Catholic, and his father agnostic. In spite of his difficulties at school, he took a career path towards engineering. He had an inimitable, jovial smile, and glowed with energy. His unsophisticated, spontaneous, genuine, and frank character drew numerous friends to himself. Friendship was a paramount in Pier Giorgio's life. He founded the “Company of Shady Guys”, a group of friends, both male and female, composed of his fellow students. They were all deeply united by pranks, mountaineering, and prayer. Staying true to their mottos: "Few but good like macaroni" and “a society that has distributed its capital so much that there is none left!”these “rascals” took on various nicknames, signed their letters with “Terrible kisses” or “Cordial greetings and terroristic cannon blasts: boom! boom! boom!", and got together to “make a mess in good, pure merriment”

The group was also engaged in a vivid spiritual life and set their goal to “serving God in a perfect joy”.

Pier Giorgio died suddenly of poliomyelitis at age 24. On the day of his death, his parents discovered a reality they knew nothing about: huge crowd of strangers gathered around his coffin in the streets of Turin, thousands of individuals came to touch it as though it was that of a saint. These were the poor, indigent people who came to pay their final respects to Pier Giorgio, who relentlessly visited the most destitute families from the city's slums. 

Mr. and Mrs. Frassati, who thought their boy was just “hanging around” and “wasting his time”, now realized that Pier Giorgio, the senator's son, devoted all his spare time to helping the ones in need. 

A question to ask yourself:

God created us free. Free to choose, free to decide, free to lead our own lives, free to make our own choices. But we are also responsible for these choices. Here is what Pier Giorgio Frassati wrote to his friend Isodoro: 

To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth – that is not living, but existing.”

 What choice will you make: living or merely existing?

Image: Pier Giorgio and some Saint Vincent of Paul Company fellows distributing support goods in Torino's Cottolengo shantytown. Public domain

Community prayer

A prayer of Mother Theresa

Help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love. Penetrate and possess my whole Return to being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.

Thank you! 85 people prayed

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone. Col 4:6

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