I came to know Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati on pilgrimage to Pollone last spring, 2016, where I saw witnessed to me by the RA staff of the Franciscan University (Gaming campus) the glory of God alive in the hearts of the youth I was pilgrimaging with and I came to know him as a dear heart who wants us all to live our life to the full and bring Christ alive in our hearts and in the world.
-Lauren
I know him because I study at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, led by Dominicans, and I've always admired his example. Thanks to him I understood that lay people are called to be saints!
-Claudia
Bl. Pier Giorgio was the patron for a discernment group that I was in, which helped give me a desire for the priesthood. Now I am in seminary and am sure that his prayers helped me in finding God's will for my life.
-Denis
My son chose Pier Giorgio for his Confirmation Saint, and I feel Pier Giorgio's example of how to live life has inspired him and helps him to make the right choices.
-Tamara
Pier Giorgio's witness in friendship and family has taught me what it means to live a life of joy. I have found myself quicker to embrace the Beatitudes as he did after I began asking for his intercession in my relationships.
-Catherine
His story has touched me while I was trying to raise my six kids alone. Thanks be to God they are all good Catholics. His virtues are heroic to us all! We love Pier Giorgio!!!
-Janey
I first learned of Blessed Pier Giorgio from a friend in school. I quickly became inspired by his life and his humility. I learned more and more about h throughout my time at university. When I studied abroad in Europe in the fall of 2015 I had the opportunity to go on a trip to Pollone and Turin with 18 of my classmates and our residence directors. We visited Pier's tomb where I had a deep spiritual encounter with the Lord and with the Man of the Beatitudes himself. I felt the Lord calling me to live like Pier Giorgio Frassati in service of the poor and the sick by loving them in all and any ways possible. Our group then traveled to Pollone where we visited Pier Giorgio's house and met on of his nieces. We hiked up the mountain that Pier often climbed. It was an incredible experience to hike the path he did and to pray and ask for his intercession along the way. I often pray the novena to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and ask for his intercession to help me and the youth I minister to. Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us!
-Milan
Frassati is the name of my high school. This school is only four years old, but it has already grown so much. Even though the student body is small, we have such an abundance of faith shown in our everyday life's. I think since Frassti was so young when he started serving others and the people around him, he is an inspiration to us teens everyday. We look to Frassati when we need courage and help in everything we do! Every day i go to our little chapel and pray thanking Frassati for being such an inspiration and guide. He is amazing!!!! Please help support our school with your prayers and please help Frassati become a Saint!!! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bS85aHcPFBA
-Alaina
I was introduced to Bl. Pier Giorgio by a priest friend who knew that his life would be an inspiration to our family. Another dear friend acquired some relics for us from Wanda Gawronska - these relics fostered an even closer restionship with him. Having four young daughters at the time, asking him to be a brother to them was only natural. My grandfather, too, was struck with polio at a young age and his courage was an inspiration to me. I felt a natural attraction to the life of Pier Giorgio from the start. Our eldest daughter, Alexandra, was touched by his witness and chose him to be her confirmation saint. Alexandra was very moved when Wanda sent a letter and picture of Pier Giorgio on his own confirmation day. This is a gift she will treasure. I'll not forget the surprised smile on the Bishop when he confirmed our daughter as Alexandra Pier Giorgio!
Bl. Pier Giorgio has accompanied our daughters (especially our eldest) throughout their young lives and now into young adulthood. I considered him the greatest brother for our daughters and a dear and faithful friend who always comes to our aid.
Bl. Pier Giorgio, Pray for us!
-Susan
I think I first heard of Bl. Pier Giorgio at Franciscan University while once praying with the "Totus Tuus" household. Blessed Pier Giorgio is part of my regular litany of saints and blesseds! He is an inspiration for all to remember the sick and poor in our midst and reach out to them with compassionate understanding and heroic generosity, always founded on prayer and devotion to the Blessed Mother and love for Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.
-Corey
I met Pier Giorgio when I was a freshman in college at Benedictine College. Through his intercession I was able to find the courage to enter the seminary.
-John
He was a Lay Dominican, as I am right now.
I marvel at his self-gift always!
-Marylin
I've met Pier Giorgio for the first time in 2005 - we created a group of volunteers withing our academic chaplaincy to help some people in need here in Warsaw and we prayed for the intercession of Bl. Pier Giorgio. This group existed only for about 3 years.
Last year (2016) Pier Giorgio appeared in my life once again. I'm a lay Dominican and we had unique opportunity to host his integral relics in Warsaw, in St. Dominic's Church (Sluzew). His relics remained with us for only 24 hours - but there were hundreds of people who came to meet him although it was in the middle of summer and holidays. We managed to create an outdoor exhibition about his everyday life, his social involvements and his choice to remain a layman. We've also created the website (in Polish) about Pier Giorgio - and it still exists and is visited by many people (check it out: www.frassati.dominikanie.pl).
For me Pier Giorgio is an example of being very normal man, living his everyday life with deep joy and relentless faith. He was an ordinary young man - and still he was extraordinary when it comes to his faith, his care for the poor (both materially and spiritually), his devotion to Eucharist and Rosary. He asks me not to be lukewarm, to abandon what makes me weak, ambiguous or illegible. I hope he will be soon proclaimed as saint so many many more people can follow in his footsteps.
Blessed Pier Giorgio, pray for us!
-Piotr
Finally a COOL person whom was fulfilled with Gods joy and grace and followed Jesus ,he was a snappy some guy. He was not a priest or a boring monk whom just lived and prayed alone in the middle of nothing. He was a cool outstanding engineering student , had a funny social life and beside that he done many charity, get introduced spirits to christianity ,stood out for christianity combined with braveness cleverness fun and coolness to show what is really like to be a faithful Christian. Thanks for Him and his life I could really believe that combination of modern adventurous active lifestyle, fun and faith is possible.
-Lorinc
Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati inspired me for his good works
since 2008 World Youth Day in Sydney.
-Helen
Bl. Pier Giorgio has been very present in my life of faith both as one who is inspirational and one to whom I go for intercession with requests for myself or others. I have seen how his story has positively affected young people during my time as a high school theology teacher, inspiring them to reach for the heights, as Pier Giorgio encouraged his friends to do. A number of years ago, while on pilgrimage in the footsteps of Bl. Pier Giorgio our group climbed Mt. Mucrone, a place he liked to climb. I truly felt his presence when we were on top of the mountain, especially since I am have had a lifelong fear of heights. I lost that fear upon the mountain after I spent some time alone in prayer with Pier Giorgio and climbed down with confidence and joy. I am sure he interceded for me.
-Michele
I've always considered PierGiorgio as my brother. I've read of him for the first time when I was 22 and he has been with me since then. A priest friend of mine and of Luciana Frassati, once was visiting her and spoke to her about my devotion for PierGiorgio; she gave him a copy of a picture of PierGiorgio with his signature right for me, as a present. I have this picture since then in my children bedroom, and always told them to consider him like an older brother and to speak to him as I did, too. I believe it's time for Blessed PierGiorgio to be canonized. Thank you. Bl. PierGiorgio Frassati, play for us.
-Claudia
Pier Giorgio has opened up a whole new way of life for me that I am inspired to follow. His light has created something inside me, an everglow. He had fun, he loved others, and fully gave himself to Jesus. His bravery in evangelizing others in his time gives me hope. Hope which is necessary for one to fully live the Christian life that God has called us to.
-Emma
I am a stronger man because of the ways the Pier Giorgio continues to bring people of good cheer together to follow the Lord Jesus and share His life.
-John
It was 1994, and I was a theology student at Franciscan University of Steubenville. the minister-general of the Franciscan TORs, as I recall, came to give a talk to the university community about how he was healed through the miraculous intercession of Bl. Pier Giorgio, the miracle which led to his beatification. The minister-general was accompanied by an exposition of large poster-size photos of Frassati along with some quotes of his famous sayings. I was captivated by him immediately, by this young man who was so much like me around the same age, similar heritage, and similar outlook on life. I was so impressed I built a web site on my old AOL account, which became the first version of what remains the oldest web site dedicated to PGF, over 20 years!. You can find it today at bettnet.com/frassati.
Some time later, I got an email from Wanda Gawronska, PGF’s niece in Italy, asking about the site and thanking me for creating it. We kept in touch occasionally over the years and at one point she sent me some things, including a relic. I knew it was a relic when I received it, but had no idea of the history or even what the original material had been. I later found out that it was a piece of sheet that was on his bed when he died.
I think what really made me connect with PGF was how “real" he is to me, which is a funny thing to say given that all the saints are real. But I think what I mean is that he is relatable. As a young man of the 20th century, he dealt with many of the same aspects of life that I did at his age, including struggles with school, relating to family that maybe sometimes didn’t understand him, spending time with friends and balancing that with other obligations including faith activities, getting involved in politics. He showed what all the saints show us, which is that the perfection that Christ calls us to in Matthew 5:48 is attainable through Jesus Christ in our regular, old daily lives.
I first built my PGF web site back when web sites were still pretty rare. I’ll admit part of me was motivated by learning how to do it, but I chose the subject of the site, PGF, because I wanted other people to have the same experience of meeting this remarkable young man like I did. Even then I was fairly knowledgable about my Catholic faith and about saints and I’d never heard about him. It should have to take a traveling exhibition to get the word out and I had realized early on the power of the internet to be a vehicle for evangelization and the Catholic faith. So I built the site using whatever photos of PGF I could find, most of them scanned from a pamphlet from the official cause for his canonization. I knew that photos would be important because it’s the photos that really capture his relatability. But I also wanted to include his own words, which were an inspirational call to action, not to mention the stories of his amazing selflessness that began even at a very young age.
As I’ve grown older, got married, had kids of my own and am now old enough to be his father, my perspective has changed a little, but I still maintain a strong devotion. Over the past two decades, I’ve seen devotion to PGF blossom and explode and now a whole generation of young people look to him for inspiration and example. I like to think I’ve played a small role in that.
-Domenico
Feel free to contact us with any questions or suggestions: piergiorgioletter@gmail.com
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