by Gianni Di Santo - One on the left, the other on the right. The two tapestries depicting Saints Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis flutter on the façade of St. Peter's Basilica on a bright sunny day, surrounded by a cheering crowd. A young man from the early 20th century and a teenager from today. A pipe and a smartphone. A color photo and a black-and-white one. That's why approximately 90,000 people (including 20,000 from AC), entire families, young men and women, braved the late-summer heat and came from all over Italy, many from abroad, to be close to these two young men with smiling faces. Two young people who truly appeal to everyone, especially adults.
The faces next door
In love with Jesus and close to the poor, Pope Leo XIV described them in his homily at the canonization rite. Faces of ordinary sanctity, those "next door" saints who are not afraid to look out the sacristy door and at the same time drink from the source of the Spirit. The Eucharist is like a highway to heaven, for Carlo Acutis. And the face that looks to the goal, in the words of Pier Giorgio Frassati. That upward direction that has become more than a leitmotif to reach the hearts of those who walk in the Spirit, where heaven and earth merge in a common embrace.
Frassati, a beacon of lay spirituality
The people of Catholic Action embraced their long-awaited saint, Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati. They dedicated to him a square filled with smiling faces, passionate about the "good news" of a gospel that smiles, embraces, is supportive, even joyful. Pier Giorgio's life, said Leo XIV, represents a light for lay spirituality. "For him, faith was not a private devotion: driven by the power of the Gospel and by his membership in ecclesial associations, he generously engaged in society, contributed to political life, and devoted himself fervently to the service of the poor."
This is why Catholic Action has always loved him, somehow feeling him as its own, from the adults who got to know him through the stories of the elderly and his books, to the young people who discovered his words and his life, so beautiful and full of joy and solidarity, through a profound yet extroverted biography.
Saint Frassati, the mountaineer of the Spirit
Yes, it took a hundred years. But Saint Pier Giorgio is here among us, honoring our journeys along mountain paths and through the depths of history. Today, we can ask him for something: intercession for ourselves, for others, for those we care about. Our favorite companion, in short.
"The mountaineer of the Spirit ," Cardinal Marcello Semeraro has described him in this way, having made no secret of his natural fondness for the young man from Turin in recent days. Perhaps that's exactly right. Among the many definitions he's been given, "the mountaineer of the Spirit" fits him perfectly. And it seems the most fitting. Because—and this is well known to those who go to the mountains in search of the last cloud beyond the horizon—every summit reached offers the opportunity to fully grasp what lies "below," in that world just beneath that summit. The mountaineer of the Spirit knows how to praise the wonders of creation and, with his gaze cast a little further ahead, to glimpse the face of God, but God rewards him with a taste for the other, for what lies beyond. One gaze a little higher, to praise. The other, a little lower, to glimpse on the ground the path to the common good that fears no compromise.
Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati, the mountaineer of the Spirit, will protect us, from now on, from the storms of our journey along the paths of life. A good walker of the Spirit and a savorer of earthly embraces, never fears rain and hail, because afterward he knows there is always sunshine.
* San Frassati, the mountaineer of the Spirit was published in Segno nel mondo , an insert of Avvenire on Tuesday 9 September