International Jubilee for Athletes

Excerpt from Address to the International Jubilee for Athletes, Rome, April 12, 1984

"Dear Athletes,
You have models to inspire you. I am thinking, for example, of Pier Giorgio Frassati, who was a modern young man open to the values of sport -- he was a skillful mountaineer and able skier -- but at the same time he bore a courageous witness of generosity in Christian faith and charity toward others, especially the very poor and the suffering. The Lord called him to Himself at only 24 years of age, in July 1925, but he is still very much alive among us with his smile and his goodness, inviting his contemporaries to the love of Christ and a virtuous life. After the First World War he wrote the following: "Through charity, peace is sown among men, not the peace that the world gives but the true peace that only faith in Christ can give us, making us brothers and sisters." These words of his, and his spiritual friendship, I leave with you as a program, so that in every part of the world you too may be messengers of the true peace of Christ!"