I am in love with a dead man.
I know it sounds crazy but I didn’t choose the crazy life, the crazy life chose me. Moreover, Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati chose me. Brace yourselves because the story I’m about to tell you is gonna blow your mind.
I’ve always been a vivid dreamer. I don’t know what it is about my hyper-active mind that allows me to recall my dreams in such detail, even re-living the dream-induced emotions I experience whilst snoozing. Around three years ago I had a dream that can only be described as, well, straight-up bonkers. I remember waking up from said dream and feeling insane. I think part of what shook me in particular about this dream is that it was one of those dreams that seems so eerily real. I thought the dream was so crazy that I immediately wrote the whole thing down; which is probably why I still remember so many details.
I’ll spare you the pain of the details and give you a basic run down of what went down. The dream begins with me being on a retreat (no surprise there, I go on a lot of those). The girls were sleeping in this little chapel that had a balcony/choir loft of sorts. Up in the loft there was an incorruptible saint aka: a holy dead dude. (For those of you who are unawares, an incorruptible saint is a saint who’s body did not decompose).
Disclaimer: up until this point in my life I had never seen a dead person. I’ve never been to a funeral and in fact to this day the only dead people I have ever seen are incorruptible saints.
So there was this perfectly preserved dead body in a glass casket for the world to see and I was naturally terrified. To make a VERY long story short the saint comes back to life and starts walking among the land of the living again and the next thing I know, we are in a relationship. Yep, you read that right. I dreamed that I dated a dead saint.
After being slightly disturbed by my weird subconscious mind, I recorded the crazy dream, told a few of my friends who I knew would appreciate the absurdity of it all, and moved on with my life.
Two years later I found myself bored and alone— a dangerous combination for an extrovert like myself. As I sat in my friends’ apartment killing time before it was time to meander to class I decided to nonchalantly browse their bookshelf and ended up with a random book in my hands. Little did I know that orange little book would change my life forever.
Before I knew it I had read “A Man of the Beatitudes: Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati” in one short day. The biography written by Luciana Frassati, the saint’s sister, absolutely mesmerized me. I found myself captured by the story of this attractive young man who had so radically given his life to Christ. I literally couldn’t put the book down, and when I was done, I wanted to know more. As I devoured the pages of this book, his life spoke to me on so many levels and I inexplicably began to fall in love with the Man of the Beatitudes.
The following day after reading the entire book, I sat in the chapel musing at this man with the story of his life in my hands. I started to fan through the book and randomly opened up to the introduction. I hadn’t read the introduction (because who reads those anyways?) and much to my surprise I stumbled onto the page that mentioned Blessed Pier Giorgio is an incorruptible saint. It was as if time stopped in that moment as I realized he was the very saint I had dreamt about 2 years prior. I couldn’t believe it.
As if on cue, right as I am processing the incredulity of my revelation, my friend Annie walks into the chapel to take her usual spot next to mine. Annie, being the owner of the book, had to have been aware Bl. Pier Giorgio was an incorruptible and so I questioned her, “Annie, did you know Bl. Pier Giorgio is an incorruptible saint?” But before she let me divulge my new found realization to her she beamed, “Yeah! Just like that saint you dreamed about two years ago!” There was no room left for doubt now. This was him.
That my friends is why this blog, and really my entire life, are under his patronage. As Catholics we believe the saints can intercede for us in Heaven, but Bl. PG has truly gone above and beyond for me. Every novena, every prayer in his name, every favor asked—he has always pulled through for me. This man sought out my friendship and so far it’s been an honor to have him in my life. I always joke and tell people he’s my spiritual boyfriend, partly because of the weirdo dream that brought him to me before I even knew who he was, but mostly because he honestly holds a very special place in my life. He stole my heart and he takes me to the heights every day.
Catholic Realist 