Frassati Chapel

Immaculate Conception Parish is pleased to dedicate our new chapel to the patronage of St. Pier Giorgio Frassati who will be canonized on August 3, 2025. Following reflection and prayer upon Frassati’s life and legacy, our parish has chosen him as the fitting patron of our chapel given the qualities exemplified by his earthly life. We pray that the same virtues and graces which animated his soul may likewise animate our parish and our city in this grace-filled year of his canonization.

Pier Giorgio Frassati was worthily praised as the “Man of the Beatitudes” by Pope St. John Paul II for having radiated supernatural qualities, particularly in his Christ-like compassion for the suffering and the poor. He was noted by many acquaintances for his exceptional purity, joy, and zeal for the Catholic faith. By the time he was only 21 years old, Frassati was supporting over 125 impoverished families out of his own efforts and resources, providing food, clothing, and funds for rent and children’s school tuition. Frassati not only attended to the temporal needs of poor families, but he also tended to their souls. He urged parents to pray and attend Mass as a family. He also ensured that children received the sacraments of the Church, and he himself often served as their godfather and sponsor. Given the prominence of his family name, Frassati conducted his charitable works under a pseudonym to avoid drawing further attention to himself.

As a young man, Frassati was filled with an abundance of life– as seen from the joy he took in the outdoors and athletics, especially rock climbing and championship skiing. Burning with zeal for souls, Frassati exerted himself to bring friends and peers closer to God. He desired to study engineering in order to serve as a missionary to mineworkers. Frassati was also socially and politically gifted and engaged. As a member of Catholic Action, he would lead tens of thousands of young people to rally against the perils of fascist regimes in Europe. Frassati’s zeal and personal radiance, however, was an effect of his devotion to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Besides being a daily communicant at Mass, he was known to frequently pass time in Eucharistic adoration, including hours in nocturnal adoration.

Frassati’s deep faith sustained him amid the tense familial and historical circumstances in which he found himself. Frassati’s father served in the Italian senate and was an ambassador to Germany in the early 20th century– a heightened geo-political moment– so Frassati’s home was certainly not spared from the heated trials of the Italian state. He also painfully witnessed his parents’ marriage dissolving– an experience that is unfortunately akin to many today. Frassati himself was unable to discern marriage with a young woman he grew to love due to complex socio-political restraints. Nonetheless, despite these painful crosses in his personal life, Frassati’s compassion for others and love for God only increased until his sudden death on July 4, 1925, at the young age of 24, after having succumbed to the polio virus which he caught while tending to the poor.  During life and after death, Pier Giorgio was and remains a model of prayer, charity, public service, and life fully-lived, particularly for young, professional Catholics for whom he was formally declared to be a special patron. 

2025 is a monumental year for the entire Church on earth. This year marks the opening of our long-anticipated new parish office space and chapel, the 100th anniversary of Pier Giorgio Frassati’s death, his elevation to the sainthood, and also the universal Jubilee Year of Hope declared by our late Holy Father, Pope Francis. It seems especially fitting that Frassati be welcomed into the heart of Washington, D.C. in this year which follows closely in the wake of the National Eucharistic Revival proclaimed by our country’s bishops. During this Jubilee year, we hope to increase in knowledge and love of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament who is now being made all the more present and available in the heart of our nation’s capitol.

We thus dedicate our parish chapel to the protection and intercession of St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, believing with heartfelt faith that he remains a living presence to each of us as a member of the communion of saints in heaven. We are privileged in a special way by his presence through a relic which will be permanently installed for veneration. It is our hope that Immaculate Conception’s new chapel, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, will be a powerful conduit of God’s grace in our parish, our city, our country, and the entire universal Church.

© Immaculate Conception Catholic Church