From ChurchPOP
By Eleonora Vescovini
Gino initially had a very normal life. He studied at the Collegio San Giuseppe in Turin, directed by the Brothers of the Christian Schools, where he became an accountant.
He enjoyed football, basketball, skiing, and mountaineering. He then came into contact with Catholic Action, whose mission, “Prayer, Action, Sacrifice,” he immediately identified with.
Gino later became an animator of youth centers. He was also entrusted with the secretariat of the diocesan center, in close contact with the diocesan assistant and the management team, under whose eyes Gino Pistoni’s incredible closeness to holiness was evident.
“I offer my life, I offer myself, what I am, what I have become, and what I am still becoming in God’s loving embrace,” was his favorite prayer.
The last words of the Servant of God Gino Pistons in the war? “Long Live Christ the King!”
In 1944, he was called to military service, which soon turned into an evangelization opportunity, as he managed to involve the dormitory in the recitation of the rosary every evening.
A short time later, he decided to go to the mountains with the partisans, but without taking his rifle.
On July 25, 1944, during an attack by the German SS on the Trovinasse mountains, while all his armed comrades fled, he remained defenseless to help a wounded enemy soldier.
There, he was hit by a mortar shrapnel that severed his femoral artery. He died alone and bled to death, but he had time to write with blood-soaked fingers on the cloth of the haversack: “I offer my life for Catholic Action and for Italy, Long Live Christ the King.”
Next to his body was found, stained with blood, the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
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