Incorruptible body of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati will be featured in World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney
By bluepanjeet on Jul 9, 2008 in World Youth Day
Father Adrian Ckuj has one of the most unusual jobs of World Youth Day - flying with and accompanying a coffin halfway around the world on its first journey outside Italy. It is no ordinary coffin; it contains the mortal remains of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, whose brief but saintly life has inspired Catholics for almost a century and led to his beatification by Pope John Paul II in 1990. The coffin has never been outside Italy until now. It arrived today in Sydney, where it will take pride of place in St Mary’s Cathedral as one of the focal points for hundreds of thousands of pilgrims celebrating the church’s week-long WYD from July 15-20.
It is actually a coffin within a coffin, resting in a zinc-lined box which will remain closed throughout, its integrity protected by red wax seals affixed by the Archbishop of Turin. Though it is an object of deep reverence, church officials could see the wry side of having to explain to authorities in two countries why they wanted to transport a dead body from Turin to Sydney and back. “It had its lighter moments,” said Father Ckuj, the young Australian priest who is the coffin’s official minder.
“It also had its difficult moments. Italy is well known for its bureaucracy, and there was a lot of bureaucracy to go through.” The coffin will be subject to daily inspection by Australian quarantine officers, who were praised by WYD spokesman Father Mark Podesta for being “not too strict but wanting to care about our quarantine issues”. Fr Ckuj said the journey from Turin was a long but “particularly prayerful” one for him alongside the body of one so venerated by Catholics.
Blessed Pier Giorgio, dark, handsome and athletic, was born into the wealthy family that owned La Stampa newspaper, but devoted his time to helping the poor of Turin until his death from polio in 1925 at the age of just 24. “Around the sick, the poor and the unfortunate, I see a particular light, a light that we do not have,” he once said. “Suffering is a far different thing from sadness, which is the worst disease of all. It is almost always caused by lack of faith.”
Blessed Pier Giorgio was a keen mountain-climber whose motto “Verse l’alto” (to the highest) is inscribed on his coffin. The coffin was blessed with incense and holy water today before featuring in a mass at St Benedict’s at Sydney’s Broadway, where Father John Neil praised the beauty, courage and creativity of Blessed Pier Giorgio’s life. Fr Podesta said he had such a strong connection for young people because he was a “normal young man who did extraordinary things”.
“We often picture the great saints as being far removed and nothing like ourselves,” he said.
“But young people can look to his heroic achievements and think, ‘Maybe I can be called to be like that as well’.”
When Blessed Pier Giorgio succumbed to polio, Italian MP Alberto Falchetti remarked: “The best man in the world is dead.”
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4 Comment(s)
By Leap of Faith! on Jul 9, 2008 | Reply
Kapatid, ang galing naman ng kwentong ito. It must be so nice to see the body of a real blessed person. Thanks for sharing this.
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By bluepanjeet on Jul 9, 2008 | Reply
Keith, isa sa mga pangarap ko yan ang makapag tour sa europe at makita yung different incorruptible saints. Swerte ng aattend sa WYD kasi makikita nila in flesh si pier giorgo frasatti. Wala daw bahid ng decomposition eh.
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By Meeya on Jul 11, 2008 | Reply
parang di yata ako sang-ayon dito. ginawang showcase si blessed pier? di ba ang essence nga ng pilgrimage ay ikaw yung maglalakbay papunta sa kung nasaan yung relic, hindi si relic ang maglalakbay papunta sa iyo? hehe.
anyway, swerte na rin ng mga pupunta sa WYD kasi once in a lifetime chance ito na makakita ng buong katawan ng santo.
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By bluepanjeet on Jul 13, 2008 | Reply
That’s true. pero ginawa nila ata exemption ito kasi di lahat makakapunta kay blessed pier sa italy dahil nga sa Sydney ang WYD kaya sila ang nagdala dun. parang yung relics ni St. Therese of Liseux na inililibot sa buong mundo, ganun style nila. Nakilala kasi si Blessed Pier sa Toronto WYD noong 2002. May malaki silang tarpauline as in gigantic doon sa event site ng WYd. kasama dun yung blessed din natin si Pedro Calungsod na may tarpauline din. simula non naging tradition na sa WYD ang mag feature ng santo o blessed na namatay nung bata pa, Pero tama ka, swerte nila, once in a a lifetime dalawa agad ang pakay nila sa sydney, WYD at pilgrimage sa labi ni Bl. Pier
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