Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati Youth and Family Awards

The 70 Day Catholic Family Challenge

Why these awards? As Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, a Lay Dominican, is to be Canonised a saint by Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, on August 3rd, 2025.

Pier Giorgio Frassati was born in Turin, Italy on April 6, 1901. His mother, Adelaide Ametis, was a painter. His father Alfredo, was the founder and director of the newspaper, “La Stampa,” and was influential in Italian politics, holding positions as an Italian Senator and Ambassador to Germany.

At an early age, Pier Giorgio joined the Marian Sodality and the Apostleship of Prayer, and obtained permission to receive daily Communion (which was rare at that time).He developed a deep spiritual life which he never hesitated to share with his friends.

Mountain climbing was one of his favourite sports. Outings in the mountains, which he organised with his friends, also served as opportunities for his apostolic work. He never lost the chance to lead his friends to Mass, to the reading of Scripture, and to praying the rosary.

He often went to the theatre, to the opera, and to museums. He loved art and music.

Fondness for the epistles of St. Paul sparked his zeal for fraternal charity, and the writings of St. Catherine impelled him in 1922 to join the Lay Dominicans (Third Order of St. Dominic). He chose the name Girolamo after his personal hero, Savonarola. “I am a fervent admirer of this friar, who died as a saint at the stake,” he wrote to a friend.

He physically defended the Faith at times involved in fights, first with anticlerical Communists and later with Fascists. Participating in a Church-organized demonstration in Rome on one occasion, he stood up to police violence and rallied the other young people by grabbing the group’s banner, which the royal guards had knocked out of another student’s hands. Pier Giorgio held it even higher, while using the banner’s pole to fend off the blows of the guards.

Just before receiving his university degree, Pier Giorgio contracted poliomyelitis, which doctors later speculated he caught from the sick whom he tended. Neglecting his own health because his grandmother was dying, after six days of terrible suffering Pier Giorgio died at the age of 24 on July 4, 1925.

His last preoccupation was for the poor. On the eve of his death, with a paralyzed hand he scribbled a message to a friend, asking him to take the medicine needed for injections to be given to Converso, a poor sick man he had been visiting. Pier Giorgio’s funeral was a triumph. The streets of the city were lined with a multitude of mourners who were unknown to his family — the poor and the needy whom he had served so unselfishly for seven years. Many of these people, in turn, were surprised to learn that the saintly young man they knew had actually been the heir of the influential Frassati family.

The Awards

What is expected of those who take the 70-day challenge?

Requirements (up to 7yrs)

Prayer: Night prayer.

Work: Colouring Competition (colour in one or all of the Saints, different children in the home can colour in different Saints).

Requirements (8-13 yrs)

Prayer: Morning and Night Prayer (prayers of your choosing).

Study: Choose one of the following topics: The Life of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. The Life of St Catherine of Siena. The Life of St Martin De Porres.

Work: Complete 500 word essay, with a parent, on one of the above.

Requirements (14-17 yrs)

Prayer: Daily Morning and Night Prayer (prayers of your choosing); and for 10mins during the day, reading and reflecting on a Gospel passage daily.

Study: Complete one online course (See Teens study details here).

Work: Complete 500 word essay (without the help of a parent) on the subject matter of the on-line course

 

Please fill out the form below and receive the special award challenge book and begin the 70-day Family Challenge. Cost 25euro.