Pope Francesco he is fond of Pier Giorgio and often quotes him: he did so when speaking to the young people of Turin on 21 June 2015, he dedicated a passage to him in the letter for World Youth Day 2016, recalling his great mercy and charity, and in a catechesis on the commandments on 13 June 2018 he indicated him as an example against mediocrity.
Celebration of the first Vespers of Advent with the University Students of Rome (November 30, 2013)
May the commitment to walk in faith and to behave in a manner consistent with the Gospel accompany you in this time of Advent, to live authentically the commemoration of the Lord's Birth. The beautiful testimony of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati can be of help to you, who said - a university student like you - said: "To live without faith, without a heritage to defend, without sustaining the truth in a continuous struggle, is not to live but to get by. We must never get by, but to live" (Letter to I. Bonini, 27.II.1925).
Message 29th WYD (2014)
But what does “blessed” (in Greek makarioi) mean? Blessed means happy. Tell me: do you really aspire to happiness? In a time when we are attracted by so many semblances of happiness, we risk settling for little, having a “small” idea of life. Aspire instead to great things! Expand your hearts! As Blessed Piergiorgio Frassati said, “living without a faith, without a heritage to defend, without sustaining the truth in a continuous struggle, is not living but eking out a living. We must never eke out a living, but live” (Letter to I. Bonini, 27 February 1925). On the day of Piergiorgio Frassati’s Beatification, 20 May 1990, John Paul II called him “a man of the Beatitudes”
General Audience June 13, 2018
“Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who was a young man, used to say that one must live, not just get by” […]
Some think it is better to turn off this impulse – the impulse to live – because it is dangerous. I would like to say, especially to young people: our worst enemy is not concrete problems, however serious and dramatic they may be: the greatest danger in life is a poor spirit of adaptation which is not meekness or humility, but mediocrity, pusillanimity. Is a mediocre young person a young person with a future or not? No! He stays there, he does not grow, he will not be successful. Mediocrity or pusillanimity. Those young people who are afraid of everything: “No, I am like this …”. These young people will not move forward. Meekness, strength and no pusillanimity, no mediocrity. Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati – who was a young man – used to say that we must live, not just get by. Mediocre people just get by. Live with the strength of life. We must ask the heavenly Father for the gift of healthy restlessness for today’s young people. But, at home, in your homes, in every family, when you see a young person who sits all day, sometimes mom and dad think: "But this person is sick, he has something", and
they take him to the doctor. The life of the young is to move forward, to be restless, the healthy restlessness, the ability to not settle for a life without beauty, without color. If young people are not hungry for authentic life, I wonder, where will humanity go? Where will humanity go with quiet and not restless young people?
The question of that man of the Gospel that we have heard is within each of us: how do we find life, life in abundance, happiness? Jesus replies: "You know the commandments" (v. 19), and quotes a part of the Decalogue. It is a pedagogical process, with which Jesus wants to lead to a precise place; in fact it is already clear from his question that that man does not have a full life, he seeks more and is restless. So what is he to understand? He says: "Teacher, all these things I have observed from my youth" (v. 20).
How does one move from youth to maturity? When one begins to accept one's own limits. One becomes an adult when one relativizes oneself and becomes aware of "what is lacking" (cf. v. 21). This man is forced to recognize that all he can "do" does not exceed a "ceiling", does not go beyond a margin.
How beautiful it is to be men and women! How precious is our existence! Yet there is a truth that in the history of recent centuries man has often rejected, with tragic consequences: the truth of his limitations.
Christus Vivit, 25 March 2019 (n. 60)
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who died in 1925, "was a young man of overwhelming joy, a joy that overcame many difficulties in his life."[22] He said he wanted to repay the love of Jesus that he received in Communion by visiting and helping the poor.
Holy Mass with the delivery of the World Youth Day Cross (November 22, 2020)
Choosing, especially today, means not being domesticated by homologation, it means not being anesthetized by the mechanisms of consumption that deactivate originality, it means knowing how to renounce appearances and appearances. Choosing life means fighting against the throwaway and all-at-once mentality, to steer existence toward the goal of Heaven, toward God's dreams. Choosing life means living, and we were born to live, not to just get by. A young man like you [Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati] said this: "I want to live, not just get by."
To the participants in the Shalom Catholic Community Meeting (September 26, 2022)
And regarding protagonism, I would say two things. The first is the protagonism of holiness. I think of Carlo Acutis, as a recent example; but before that of Piergiorgio Frassati, before that of Gabriele dell’Addolorata, of Teresa of the Child Jesus, of Francis and Clare of Assisi, who were young, and so on up to the first and perfect disciple: Mary of Nazareth – young -, who was a girl when she said “here I am”. All these have built the Church and still build it with their testimony, corresponding to the grace of God.
To the young people of Italian Catholic Action (29 October 2022)
Young believers, responsible and credible: this is what I wish for you. This could also become a formula, a “way of speaking”. But it is not so, because these words are incarnated in the saints, in the young saints! The Mother Church offers us many, let's think - limiting ourselves to just a few Italians - of Francis and Clare of Assisi, Rose of Viterbo, Gabriele dell'Addolorata, Domenico Savio, Gemma Galgani, Maria Goretti, Pier Giorgio Frassati, Chiara Badano, Carlo Acutis. They teach us what it means to be leaven, to be in the world, not of the world. Pier Giorgio Frassati was an active and enthusiastic member of the Italian Catholic Action, in particular of the FUCI, and he shows how one can be a young, responsible, credible believer, a happy, smiling believer. Woe to the young with a face like a funeral wake: they have lost everything.
Greeting to the Circle of St. Peter (June 24, 2024)
I am reminded of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati – soon to be a saint – who in Turin went to the homes of the poor to bring help. Pier Giorgio was from a wealthy family, upper middle class, but he did not grow up “in cotton wool”, he did not get lost in the “good life”, because in him there was the sap of the Holy Spirit, there was love for Jesus and for his brothers.