‘Pier Giorgio Frassati is not merely a saint for the young; together with Carlo Acutis, he is a sign of what we Filipinos can and should be.’
LAST week, apart from the anticipated journey of Carlo Acutis toward sainthood, the Church quietly gave us another young companion on the road to holiness: Pier Giorgio Frassati, now counted among the saints.
He was no cloistered mystic nor cathedral-borne preacher. He was a mountaineer, an adventurer, a young man who loved life with lungs full of air and a heart full of fire. He climbed peaks not only of stone but of spirit, reminding the world that holiness is not foreign to laughter, to camaraderie, to the restless search for meaning.
In his short years, Pier Giorgio taught us how to dream, not of shallow glories, but of higher things. He taught us to hold fast to faith, even when the world seemed to whisper that truth was relative, that meaning was negotiable, that justice could be traded like a commodity. He lived as if goodness were not a burden but an instinct.
And that instinct, born of love, carried him upward until heaven itself took him in.
But Pier Giorgio was not only a lover of mountains, he was a lover of people, especially the poor. He was a champion of social justice, who saw no contradiction between faith and action, prayer and protest, joy and sacrifice. He lived convinced that to follow Christ meant not only to kneel before the altar but also to stand beside the marginalized.
In his brief lifetime, he showed that sainthood can be carved in the streets, in service, in solidarity.
The resonance of his life feels urgent now, especially for the young.
In the Philippines today, the headlines ache with news of corruption, with the quiet but relentless robbery of our people’s future by hands that were supposed to guard it. Faith in institutions weakens.
Cynicism thickens. Many of the youth feel orphaned by leaders who trade ideals for comfort and conscience for power.
What then can Pier Giorgio Frassati teach us? That a life of integrity is not naïve, but necessary. That one can climb with friends, laugh with joy, breathe in beauty and still walk firmly in the path of truth. That holiness is not detachment from the world but deeper immersion in it, refusing to let its darkness define us. To young Filipinos searching for hope, his story whispers: be restless, but for the right things. Be restless for justice, for honesty, for the care of the poor. Be adventurers not only of mountains but of moral courage. In a time when many climb only the peaks of wealth and power, dare instead to ascend the mountain of faith and justice.
It is no accident that both Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis are among the first saints of Pope Leo’s pontificate. Their canonizations are more than ceremonial acts; they are a statement of vision. To lift the young, the joyful, the socially engaged as models of holiness is to remind us that sanctity is not nostalgia; it is a present call.
It is timely, urgent, and worth emulating, especially now when we need living proofs that goodness is still possible.
For in the end, saints are not born; they are made by choices, often small, daily, unseen, that lead upward. Pier Giorgio Frassati shows us that sainthood is not an escape from the world but a way of standing tall within it.
And perhaps that is the challenge to us Filipinos today: to live as he lived, to dream as he dreamed, and to hold fast as he held fast. Not with despair, not with resignation, but with faith that the horizon is wider than corruption, brighter than greed, and higher than any power can reach.
Pier Giorgio Frassati is not merely a saint for the young; together with Carlo Acutis, he is a sign of what we Filipinos can and should be.
