Los Angeles priest experienced miracle that paved way for Pier Giorgio Frassati’s canonization

CNA Staff, Dec 16, 2024 / 17:50 pm

When a seminarian was injured while playing basketball in 2017, he had no idea it would one day contribute to the cause for canonization of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.  

Father Juan Gutierrez, 38, then a seminarian at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, California, got an MRI and soon learned he had torn his Achilles tendon. Concerned about the long and painful recovery and expenses, Gutierrez headed for the seminary chapel the following day “with a heavy heart.” 

As he prayed, Gutierrez felt inspired to make a novena to Frassati. A few days into the novena, Gutierrez went into the chapel to pray when nobody was there. As he prayed, he recalled feeling an unusual sensation around his injured foot.

“I was praying, and I started to feel a sensation of heat around the area of my injury. And I honestly thought that maybe something was catching on fire, underneath the pews,” Gutierrez recalled at a Monday press conference at St. John the Baptist Parish in Los Angeles County, where he now serves as an associate pastor.

Gutierrez checked for a fire, but saw none, even as he still felt the sensation of heat on his injury. The seminarian remembered from his experiences with the Charismatic Renewal movement that heat can be associated with healing from God. He found himself gazing at the tabernacle, weeping. 

“That event touched me deeply,” Gutierrez said.

He was not only touched spiritually, but he was also healed physically. Incredibly, he was able to walk normally again and no longer needed a brace. When Gutierrez visited the orthopedic surgeon, the surgeon confirmed that he didn’t need surgery. The tear that had once shown up on an MRI scan was gone, something unheard of with this type of injury, the surgeon told him. 

“His healing was a miracle. His doctors could not explain it,” Los Angeles Archbishop José Gómez said at the press conference. “Of course, miracle is a word that gets overused in our culture; that is not well understood. But the Scriptures tell us that Jesus worked miracles on earth. … And we believe that Jesus continues to work miracles from heaven.”

“And we believe that Jesus hears not just our prayers but also the prayers that the saints make for us,” Gómez said. “Now we have a new saint who is watching over us from heaven.”

Gutierrez said his healing “reminds us that prayer works.” 

“The saints can help us to pray for our needs and that there is somebody listening to our prayers,” Gutierrez said. “God is always listening to our prayers.”

The surgeon’s confirmation was the beginning of a Vatican investigation into the miracle that ultimately led to Frassati’s canonization.

Monsignor Robert Sarno expressed his awe at “how this all came about,” noting that there were many odd connections that led to it all coming together. After retiring from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Sarno was teaching a class on causes of canonization at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, where he met none other than Gutierrez. The seminarian approached Sarno outside of class once and told him about the healing he had experienced.

“When I heard it, I immediately suspected that there might have been some substance to this case,” Sarno said at the press conference, tuning in remotely from New York.

With the approval of the Vatican and Gómez, Sarno began the canonical investigation into the healing. Only the final step remains — a “final consultation” of cardinals and bishops with the Holy Father to approve or disapprove the canonization. Sarno noted that “in a case like this, it’s really truly a formality.” 

Frassati is an example for young people, Sarno said. 

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“What we are called to do is to imitate the holiness of Pier Giorgio and pray for his intercession, especially for young people who are so confused today and so looking for answers, to life and to faith,” Sarno said. 

A friend in heaven  

Gómez called Frassati “a saint for our times.” Frassati was born to a wealthy Italian family but had a heart for the poor and the Eucharist. He was known for his good humor and love of hiking. 

“He was a young man who loved life and enjoyed life to the full,” Gómez said. “He was a good friend to others, a good son, and a good brother. And he was a man of deep prayer who taught us to find Jesus in the holy Eucharist and the face of the poor.” 

Frassati will be canonized a saint next year, 100 years after his death from polio at the age of 24 in 1925. 

“Some of his last words were this: ‘I will wait for them all in heaven,’” Gómez said. “I am confident through these prayers, Our Lord will lead many to follow him there.”

Gutierrez shared that he doesn’t know why he was chosen for this. 

“I will be the first one to recognize that God could have chosen a more charismatic, easygoing, and less trouble-stirring person. Trust me, I know, and my colleagues will be able to tell you how true that is,” Gutierrez said. “But as the Scripture tells us, it wasn’t us who chose the Lord. It was him who chooses us. And he has chosen us to bear fruit.”

Gutierrez described the events following the healing as a “roller coaster” of “excitement, anticipation, trepidation, and even fear.”

“There have been moments that left me thinking, how did I end up here? And what was I thinking when I got on this ride?” he said. “But at the end of the day, I am left with a heart filled with gratitude and with awe at what God does in our lives.”

“And I’m also left humbled by the fact that in Pier Giorgio, God has given me not only an intercessor but also a friend.”

“There’s a lot of similarities between Pier Giorgio Frassati and Juan, whether he knows it or not,” Sarno added. “Both of them were very athletic, very young, and involved in sports. And for this reason, Pier Giorgio Frassati was declared as one of the patrons of World Youth Day.”

Wanda Gawronska, the niece of Frassati, shared at the conference her excitement that her uncle will “finally” be canonized next year. Gawronska recalled the challenges that her mother faced as she advocated for his canonization beginning in the early 1930s.

Gawronska read a line from a letter that Frassati wrote exactly 100 years ago on Dec. 16, 1924, just six months before his death. 

“I hope with the grace of God to continue along the path of Catholic ideas and to be able one day, in whatever state God wills, to defend and propagate these rare and true things,” Frassati wrote. 

When asked by a parish school student attending the conference how it felt to be a part of the canonization process, Gutierrez said: “It’s crazy. But it’s a wonderful blessing.”

“Giorgio wanted to spread the faith in God, and this will allow for more people to hear his message that invites us to take our Catholic Christian faith seriously and to be willing to take it outside of the doors of the Church to influence the life of society — because that’s where the love of God, Jesus, and what he brought us is so desperately needed,” Gutierrez concluded.