On the evening of Saturday, Sept. 6, several Catholic churches around Rome — including St. Peter’s Basilica — hosted prayer vigils to prepare for the Canonization Mass of Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis the next day.
One of them took place at the prestigious Pontifical Gregorian University. Among the hundreds present at the event honoring Frassati were the Italian layman’s 98-year-old niece, Wanda Gawronska, and Father Juan Gutierrez, the Los Angeles priest who received the second confirmed miracle attributed to Frassati’s intercession needed for sainthood.
During the vigil, Father Paolo Asolan,an expert on Frassati and author of a spiritual biography titled "Io, ma non più io" (“I, but no longer I”), addressed the gathering. Here are his remarks, published with his permission.
Dear friends, I wondered what I could say to you this evening, on the eve of tomorrow's celebration, on this occasion where we share our friendship with Pier Giorgio.
I don't know how he would have commented on a moment like that: in fact, I think he would have even refused to participate in an event where he had been the center of attention. But he was certainly a friend who was happy for his friends' joy; he was a friend who wished his friends joy, happiness, even to the point of jokes and laughter.
We all know the words of the letter he wrote to his sister Luciana:
You ask me if I'm happy; and how could I not be? As long as faith gives me strength, I'll always be happy! Every Catholic cannot help but be happy: sadness must be banished from Catholic souls; pain is not sadness, which is a disease worse than any other. This disease is almost always caused by atheism, but the purpose for which we were
created shows us the way, strewn with many thorns, but not a sad way: it is joy even through pain (February 14, 1925).
Joy — perhaps the most powerful magnet of human desire — was a hallmark of Pier Giorgio's personality and is what human beings ultimately seek when they search for something, what they ultimately aspire to, regardless of all other desires: be it power, health, money, companionship, knowledge, or social respect.
The Christian joy Frassati experienced was not a material "thing" to possess, nor even a more or less prolonged state of mind, nor even a merely physical or psychological sensation: rather, it consists in a relationship, made possible by God's initiative and human response. The joy of the Gospel comes from the presence of the Lord, and redeems the sadness produced by sin — atheism, living without or against Him, to use Pier Giorgio's vocabulary.
So, the first thing I'd like to say is precisely this: Frassati teaches us that we are made for joy, and that this joy comes from living together with the Lord. Our friendship with Pier Giorgio must help us navigate every situation in life — joyful, bright, painful, glorious—hand in hand with the Lord. Let us help each other do so, also by turning to prayer to the new saint.
The second thing is this: let us continue to know Pier Giorgio, even after his canonization. Luciana, his sister, could be said to have fought her entire life to prevent her brother from being reduced to a caricature of a saint, and to make known the newness that had manifested itself in him.
We could also pause to repeat a few phrases, to cite some aspect of his life that we like best, without continuing to grasp all the richness of life that the Holy Spirit poured into him, and
that makes him so attractive; instead, we must want him to act within us like an ever-extinguished light, like a vital force that helps us find and follow our path. His life teaches us that there is no situation in life in which we cannot live as children of God, as brothers and sisters, as friends. His company will help us make our lives a masterpiece.
Finally, the third thing: let us help one another walk together behind Pier Giorgio. Let us continue to discuss it among ourselves, to cultivate friendship in his name, to contribute together so that the life of the Church may appear (and be) ever more beautiful and its mission ever more at the service of the world's hope. The Church needs a renewal like the one Frassati brought to Turin in those years: it's up to us to do our part.
For resources on Pier Giorgio Frassati and viewing information for his canonization Mass, visit FriendswithFrassati.com/watch
