The miracle accepted for Pier Giorgio Frassati’s canonisation is perhaps a little surprising. The miracle for beatification was dramatic; the healing of a man paralysed by tubercular disease of the spine; a man close to death.

The canonisation miracle was very different; at first glance almost anticlimactic.

In 2017, a Mexican seminarian from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Juan Gutierrez, tore his Achilles tendon playing basketball. An MRI showed a complete tear to the tendon and he was recommended to see an orthopaedic surgeon. Gutierrez suffered a good deal of pain and was also extremely upset by the whole thing, not just because it stopped him from playing sports but because he was afraid that, with possibly months of rehabilitation, it might delay the process of his ordination to the priesthood.

In his distress, he felt inspired to make a Novena to Pier Giorgio Frassati who he had heard about via YouTube, a man who, like himself really loved to play sports. He began the Novena on 1 November. “Lord, through the intercession of Pier Giorgio Frassati, I ask you to help me in my injury,” then he found himself adding, “and I promise if anything unusual happens I will report it to whomever I need to report it to.” Midway through the Novena, when he was praying in the chapel he began to feel a warmth in the area of his injured tendon. It started gently but increased to the point where he said, “I honestly thought something under the pew had caught fire.” Gutierrez remembered from his experience with Charismatic Renewal that heat can be associated with healing. Realising he had indeed been healed he began to cry, saying, “Lord, this can’t be true. Not because You don’t have the power to heal me but because I don’t have the faith for something like this.” He was able to walk normally without a brace. When he then saw the orthopaedic surgeon, the surgeon said, “Someone in heaven must like you. Your MRI showed a complete tear but now there is nothing at all.”

At first, Gutierrez told only his spiritual adviser what had happened. He then came across some flyers from an organisation dedicated to Pier Giorgio’s canonisation. He emailed them and felt he had fulfilled his promise though he never heard back. Since Gutierrez himself had not made a fuss about his injury or spoken publicly about his healing, the whole thing just ‘fell off the radar’ as one of his classmates put it. And that was that, until two years later he took a class on the phases of canonisation taught by Mgr Robert Sarno. Mgr Sarno had previously spent almost forty years serving in the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, the dicastery which oversees the process of canonisation and beatification. Gutierrez approached him after class.

“When I heard it, I immediately suspected there might be some substance to this case,” Mgr Sarno said. He also felt that Pier Giorgio had an important message for young people who “are so lost and looking for something to believe in.” When Mgr Sarno initiated the canonisation investigation, Gutierrez said he felt somewhat shocked.

Pope Francis recognised the miraculous healing in November 2024. He said of Frassati,

Pier Giorgio did not grow up wrapped in cotton wool. He did not lose himself in the good life because within him there was the lifeblood of the Holy Spirit and love for Jesus and for his brothers.

This miracle is perhaps not the one we would expect. In one sense, Juan Gutierrez did not really need a miracle.

It is likely his tendon would have healed. But, if we look at Pier Giorgio’s life, we see he lived his mercy and charity in a series of small actions, problems of the day not great earthshattering, future projects. Frassati also had a great love for the Eucharist and Gutierrez was studying for the priesthood. (He was ordained in 2022).

Gutierrez points out there were others who received miracles after invoking Frassati. His particular healing was the one which went forward not because it was somehow more worthy but because it had documented substance. And heavenly intervention it seems, since of all the teachers Gutierrez might have had, he was put in the way of someone who had been greatly involved in the canonisation process.

This also shows how much God cares for us. We are called to lift up to Him not only our acute sufferings and deep despair but our ordinary cares and worries of that day – asking for our ‘daily bread.’ We see that God is a Father who loves us not from afar but in our actual lives.

As Gutierrez says,

The saints can help us pray for our needs and see that God is always listening to our prayer… And I am also left humbled by the fact that, in Pier Giorgio, God has given me not only an intercessor but a friend.

Speaking of the miracle he said,

It’s not about me, it’s about God.… He has chosen us to bear fruit. This healing is meant to bear fruit… Pier Giorgio wanted to spread faith in God and this will allow more people to hear his message that invites us to take our Catholic faith seriously and be willing to take it outside of the doors of the Church to influence the life of society… As Albert Einstein used to say, “There are people for whom everything is a miracle and there are people for whom nothing is a miracle.” We need to choose the approach we want to take.

Pier Giorgio Frassati was canonised together with Carlo Acutis in a single ceremony on 7 September 2025.