Dominican Order

“Strengthening ourselves in Grace to attain the Eternal Prize” : Towards the Holy Year with Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.

On Saturday, November 30^th, 2024, in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, a time of prayer and adoration took place, under the title “‘Strengthening ourselves in Grace to attain the Eternal Prize’. Towards the Holy Year with Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati”, organized by the Pier Giorgio Frassati Association and attended by the niece of the future saint, Wanda Gawronska.

“Dear friends, a time of joy and light is opening before us, resplendent with the smile of Pier Giorgio. The centenary of his death, on July 4^th, and his canonization next year, invite us to gather in prayer at the beginning of this Advent, the high point that opens the way to this special year 2025,” reads the invitation to the time of prayer and adoration hosted by the Pier Giorgio Frassati Association and Wanda Gawronska. “In that basilica lie the remains of St. Catherine of Siena, to whom Pier Giorgio was particularly devoted. One day, he said to his friend Franz Massetti: ‘While she was still alive, St. Catherine had the gift of seeing Jesus; we, on the other hand, must wait to go to Paradise.’ Only four days later, Pier Giorgio reached Paradise, which he awaited as the most beautiful day of his life. It was the Holy Year of 1925. This meeting will be our way of saying together with Pier Giorgio: ‘Look, the plans for the Holy Year are great.’ Now, let us prepare ourselves to live fully this time in which ‘the graces of the Lord multiply’ (To Franz Massetti, January 4^th, 1925).”

In the introduction to the moment of prayer and adoration, his preparation for the Holy Year of 1925 was highlighted: “He had carefully prepared himself to enter with a new heart into those open doors of Justice, which would welcome him forever. Strengthened by Grace, consummate in charity, he obtained the Eternal Award that year, on July 4, at the age of 24, just two exams away from graduation. He opened for all a door to Heaven and traced a path for so many who, all over the world, wish to be his companions on the way. Even today, one hundred years later. At the gates of this new Jubilee, let us ask Pier Giorgio to help us too prepare ourselves for the Holy Year during this Advent so that we may feel as he did that immense joy, the deep joy that still radiates from his eyes, shining with holiness.”

After the recitation of the First Vespers of Advent and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, during which some of the future saint’s letters were read, Father Paolo Asolan, author of his spiritual biography Io, ma non più io (Ed. San Paolo 2023), said a few words. “The Vicar of Christ has opened the gates of Justice, gates through which we must all strengthen ourselves in Grace to obtain the Eternal Prize,” wrote Pier Giorgio Frassati at the beginning of 1925 in a letter to his friend Isidoro Bonini. He had prepared himself carefully for that special year: “I have prepared myself for the Holy Year during Advent by reading St. Augustine, a reading which I have not yet finished, but which has filled me with an immense joy, a profound joy that, until now, unfortunately had not reached my soul,” he wrote in another letter to Franz Massetti.

At the end of this time of prayer and adoration, the Hymn for the canonization of Pier Giorgio Frassati, “Verso l’alto” (Towards the Heights), composed by Monsignor Marco Frisina, was intoned, recalling the future saint’s passion for hiking in the mountains. “Verso l’alto camminerò / verso l’alto cercando Dio / scaleremo le nostre vette, / ricercando la Verità” (Towards the heights I will walk / towards the heights, seeking God / we will climb towards our summits, / seeking the Truth), is the text of the hymn’s refrain.

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