I first heard about Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati in 2008 because he was one of the patrons of World Youth Day that year. He was born to a rich and politically influential family on April 6, 1901 in Turin, Italy. His mother was a painter and his father was the founder and editor of a liberal newspaper. He also became the Italian ambassador to Germany.
He was a pious teenager, an average student, outstanding athlete and loved to mountain climb. He was tutored at home with his younger sister Luciana. After high school he studied mineralogy in an engineering program. He worked with Catholic groups like Apostleship of Prayer and the Company of the Most Blessed Sacrament that ministered to the poor and promoted Eucharistic adoration, Marian devotion
, and chastity. He was also involved in Catholic Action and other groups like that. On May 28, 1922, he enrolled as a Dominican tertiary and took the name as Girolamo (Jerome). He was devoted to the teachings of Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Thomas Aquinas. He spent a lot of his fortune on the needy and he visited the sick. It was doing this ministry that he contracted the disease that killed him. He died on July 4, 1925 in Turin of polio. He was buried in the family cemetery in Pollone, Italy. His body was found incorrupt when it was moved to the Cathedral of Turin in 1981. He was beatified on May 20, 1990 and awaits canonization."To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth, that is not living, but existing."
No comments:
Post a Comment