Monday, April 6, 2009

Celebrating Pier Giorgio's Birthday

It is a dreary, rainy, cold day here in Nashville and the start of Holy Week. It is a day for celebration, though, because we are marking what would be Pier Giorgio's 108th birthday! I'm sure many of you joined in the novena leading up to today. I admit that I keep hoping my phone will ring with news of a canonization miracle, but I know that it is all in God's perfect timing.

In the meantime, many wonderful things keep happening as knowledge of Pier Giorgio becomes more and more widespread. This past weekend, for example, I was in Boston for the Eucharistic Congress sponsored by the Archdiocese. What a beautiful event! (Thanks, by the way, to Fr. Dan Hennessey for the invitation to attend and to Maria Lucci for getting me to where I needed to go!) It is always inspiring to be around young adults who are joyfully living the Faith and it was an added bonus that Pier Giorgio was the focus of the Saturday morning event.

Often, I view my work at FrassatiUSA as merely planting "Pier Giorgio seeds." When even one seed bears fruit, it is a cause of great joy. Here are a just a few:
  • Last week, I spoke at a high school in San Antonio where only a handful of the 700+ crowd had ever heard of Pier Giorgio. I recently learned that the very next day one of the students presented a proposal to school administration to start a Frassati Society there.
  • A few hours after giving a talk in New Braunfels, Texas, I received a phone call from the mother of one of the youth in attendance. She called to say that her daughter never got excited about Catholic things but couldn't stop talking about Pier Giorgio. The mother could hardly believe that someone had gotten through to her daughter that quickly. (I didn't want to suggest it could have been Pier Giorgio's exceptional good looks but I am guessing that may have had something to do with it!)
  • After a presentation to K-4 children at a Nashville school, one little girl announced to her teacher that she no longer wanted to be a ballerina -- she wanted to be a saint!
These young people responded to the simple message of Pier Giorgio -- holiness is for everyone. Today, on his birthday, may his message also inspire you to reach for even greater heights in your spiritual journey. Verso l'alto!

1 comment:

Caroline said...

For Pier Giorgio's birthday, our Frassati Society had a birthday party! Because our meetings are on Fridays, we went to the stations of the cross at our parish and then came back to my house to celebrate... and we had a blast!!! I put a birthday hat and badge saying "King Robespierre" (since he was "king for a day") on the poster of Pier Giorgio and we brought it out for everyone to see. Everyone got a kick out of it and had a great time celebrating Pier Giorgio's life (in his joyful and mischievous spirit!). It's amazing how much he is acting in my life and the lives of those how have become involved in our society.