Among the thirteen patrons of the next World Youth Day, to be held in Lisbon from 1 to 6 August 2023, three were members of the Order of Preachers. They are Saint Bartholomew of the Martyrs (1514-1590), Blessed Joan of Portugal (1452-1490) and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925).
Each of them lived their Christian life in a special way in the following of St Dominic.
Bartholomew, Archbishop of Braga, was one of the main exponents of the 16th century Catholic reform, so much so that even St Charles Borromeo elected him as his model. The times and challenges compared to Dominic’s were different, but both understood that any reform of the Church must first of all start with reforming ourselves, to re-form the image of Jesus in us.
Joan, daughter of King Alfonso V of Portugal, renounced the honours that would have been due to her lineage and retired to a convent. She was able to detach herself from her riches, making herself close to the needy. Like her, Pier Giorgio, who lived after almost 500 years, despite coming from a wealthy middle-class family, lived an intense life of faith and discreet charity, so much so that we only learn of the good he did after his death. How can we fail to see in Dominic, born into a wealthy family of Old Castile, the same ability to detach himself from riches, as when as a teenager he did not hesitate to sell his precious parchments for the benefit of the poor?
To Saint Bartholomew, to Blessed Joan, to Blessed Pier Giorgio we can then add a great student of the Dominican University of Rome, the Angelicum: Saint John Paul II, who studied at the Angelicum in the 1940s. To their intercession let us entrust the fruits of WYD, so that every young man may become “a man of all fire, completely dedicated to winning souls to Christ, preaching very often by word, always by example” (St Bartholomew of the Martyrs, Stimulus pastorum, II, 7).
By Daniele Prémoli,
Secretary of the Postulation Office
