Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

Today, I would like to highlight the lives of two very remarkable people: Therese Lipscombe and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.

Therese is a senior in high school who suffers from cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening, genetic disease that causes persistent lung infections and progressively limits the ability to breathe. Thick mucus builds up in her organs, especially her lungs, preventing the release of digestive enzymes and clogging airways and trapping bacteria, leading to infections, extensive lung damage, and eventually, respiratory failure.

Basically, Therese can breathe right now about as much as you or I could through a straw.  Really.  Go on.  Try it.  It's not fun.

Walking from one room to another or eating a small meal causes Therese to be out of breathe and panting, as if she'd just run a 5K race in 20 minutes.

But, Therese keeps going.  She is joyful and outgoing, with a heart for service to others.  She is one of my favorite people and adopted niece!

I've never met a person who is more positive, more upbeat, more enthusiastic about LIFE in general than Therese!


Which is why I also want you to meet Blessed Pier Giorgia Frassati.

On 6 April 1901, Pier Giorgio was born in Turin, Italy into a prominent family, which owned the noted liberal newspaper La Stampa.  Though an average student, Pier Giorgio was known among his peers for his devotion and piety, works of service, and charity. He was active with Catholic youth groups and was a Third Order Dominican. He established the newspaper Momento based on Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, Rerum Novarum, and joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society in 1918, spending much of his time helping the poor.

He also vigorously enjoyed outdoor pursuits like rock climbing, skiing, and horseback riding.

His friends described him as “an explosion of joy!”

Frassati died in 1925 of poliomyelitis. His family naturally expected Turin's elite and Pier Giorgio’s friends to attend the funeral.  However, they were shocked to find the streets filled with thousands of mourners, many of whom he had helped directly during his brief life. 

The poor of the city petitioned the Archbishop of Turin to begin the cause for Frassati's canonization. The process was opened in 1932 and on 20 May 1990 St. Pope John Paul II beatified him.

After this, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati's body was moved from the family crypt in the Pollone Cemetery in Turin and re-interred in the Turin Cathedral, at which time his body was found to be incorrupt.  His body remains there for veneration by the faithful today!

Joyful, outgoing, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, with a heart for service to others, needs only one miracle to become a saint.  Only one.

Just.  One.  Miracle.

Joyful, outgoing, Therese Lipscombe, with a heart for service to others, needs only one miracle to be healed.

Just.  One.  Miracle.

We believe that, if it is God's Will, Therese can be Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati's .... miracle!

Specifically, right now, as her condition is dramatically worse, please pray for Therese's miraculous healing, through the intercession of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati!  And spread the word to others to beseech their prayers, too!

"O merciful God,
Who through the perils of the world
deigned to preserve by Your grace
Your servant, Pier Giorgio Frassati,
pure of heart and ardent of charity,
listen, we ask You, to our prayers and,
if it is in Your designs that he be
glorified by the Church, show us Your will,
granting us the graces we ask of You,
through his intercession,
SPECIFICALLY FOR THE HEALING
OF THERESE LIPSCOMBE,
by the merits of Jesus Christ, Our Lord.
Amen."

IMPRIMATUR, 1932
+Maurillo, Archbishop of Turin




(sources:  Catholic Online and FrassatiUSA.org)