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April 6, 2009It 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!