A Saintly Friend for Children of Divorce (All Saints' Day Reflection)

Many adult children of divorce struggle to see God's Fatherly love for us, or in other cases, understand Our Lady's maternal love for us. I believe this is exactly where God's tenderness puts the saints. In the lives of the saints, we can find saints that are similar to us, share our crosses, and can lead us gently to seeing God's loving care for us. The saints can help us not feel alone in our struggles and trials. Instead, we can come to know that we have heavenly friends who have wrestled with the same things and achieved victory.  It's much easier to walk a dark path if you a friend beside you!

A great heavenly friend for adult children of divorce is Blessed Pier Giorgio.

When I first was badgered by multiple friends to get to know this saint, I avoided him, literally for years. It's a long story. I remember one of those friends saying, "I really think he wants to be your friend; he'll wait for you on the mountain path."

A few years later, I needed a Christmas gift for a guy friend.  I was getting a bit desperate to find the perfect thing when I came across an orange book in the store. There were not many orange books, so I picked it up. It was, A Man of The Beatitudes, Pier Giorgio Frassati by Luciana Frassati and thought, "Ah, this guy again, it really is like he keeps popping up in my life! But okay, cool, a young guy ‘blessed’ for a young guy friend. Plus everyone keeps recommending him so good, done!"

At that time, I was preparing to spend my first Christmas away from home and family, the third Christmas since my dad left. I was just feeling very alone. The orange book was just sitting there in my room and I finally thought, "okay, I'll just read a little." 

I stumbled across this snippet from Bl. Pier Giorgio's life. (You'll have to take my word for it, because the book is currently in a closet blocked by my son's racecar bed.)

Pier Giorgio (then in his twenties) and his mother have just attended Mass, and his mother is chatting with a friend of hers about how she is thinking of leaving her husband, Pier Giorgio’s father. Pier Giorgio walks over to a statue of our Lady, kneels, silently cries, and prays.

In that moment I felt a deep friendship with him. Here was a Blessed who knew the pain I had felt about my parents’ divorce. I'd never read a story of a saint who had experienced that. I finally felt like there was a blessed I could look to for direction with this particular cross. I devoured the rest of the book. (His parents didn't end up actually divorcing, but I still felt that he knew that anxiety, since they didn't end up resolving to stay together until later, after his death.)

Anyway, I ended up being able to say that he is a great heavenly friend. It helps to know that the thought of his parents’ divorce broke his heart, just like it broke mine when my parents did divorce. I never ended up giving that particular book to my friend (I write in books and couldn't help spilling my thoughts out in the margins as I read…) but I got him a different present and let him read this book, with all my notes.  I've lent out this note-filled book to various friends, and it's been a beautiful way to share our hearts with each other. That’s rather fitting, since Blessed Pier Giorgio was a good friend to his friends on Earth. He would encourage them to grow in holiness and play pranks on them. It's a great example of how our relationships with others, on earth and in heaven, can inspire us to reach for the heights of greatness.

I think Saints (and Blesseds of course) can be such an important part of the spiritual life for adult children of divorce. In a way, it's like knitting together a special heavenly family or close group of friends whom we can always ask for help and support.

All you holy men and women, pray for us! Bl. Pier Giorgio, pray for us!

———

Heather Strickland is a graduate of Christendom College. While there she spent a good deal of time in the Legion of Mary, where she learned a lot about looking at those suffering in the world through Mary's Motherly gaze. While at College she also met her husband, now happily married for five years. They have settled down in Northern VA with their son.