On the eve of the Annual Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage in Washington D.C., Dominican friars Fr. Patrick Mary Briscoe, O.P. and Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P., gave a talk on the virtues of St. Pier Giorgio Frassati. The friars gathered with their audience after an hour of Eucharistic Adoration inside the St. John Paul II National Shrine. Both friars were present in Rome for the new Saint’s September 7th canonization, where they braved the spartan conditions of Tor Vergata, and celebrated with thousands of other excited pilgrims.
Given the occasion, the friars highlighted the importance of the Rosary in St. Pier Giorgio’s life. “The desire for God was expressed in St. Pier Giorgio’s life through his devotion to the Rosary, through his commitment to Our Lady, and through his love for turning over the mysteries. He would fall asleep praying the Rosary. You’re on the right track if you’re falling asleep praying the Rosary at night. It’s that dedication to prayer that kept his priorities straight so that he could be a concrete man of action. He would recite the Rosary loudly while walking through the streets of Turin, getting other people to come and pray with him – his prized possession was a 15 decade rosary, like we wear all the time as Dominican Friars.”
“There is something very hands-on about his sanctity,” said Fr. Gregory, “we think about him largely in terms of the practical exercise of the intellect because he’s getting after it in the mountains, and he’s about this social and political work.” The friars discussed St. Pier Giorgio’s activism among the poor – his parents did not realize the extent of his work until after the Saint’s death, when they witnessed the large crowds flocking to his funeral.
Fr. Gregory elaborated on St. Pier Giorgio’s constancy, “I consider him as a man who was uncompromising, uncompromising in his principles and uncompromising in his relationships, not in a way that represents a kind of inflexibility or rigidity, but instead a steadfastness.” St. Pier Giorgio modeled a kind of life totally devoted to his friends and his community, especially whenever there were needs for action. On the virtue of perseverance Fr. Gregory detailed its special relationship with time – “in making a commitment, you make an appointment with yourself at the end of a duration. When God gets involved in those commitments, then he has a way of solemnizing them, and he has a way of consecrating them such that we can consecrate the duration of our life.” St. Pier Giorgio Frassati was a man who kept his commitments, even to the point of dying of the polio he caught while ministering to the poor.
