The Man of the Eight Beatitudes:  The Joy of Pier Giorgio Frassati

By Ben Hatke 

It was a rainy day in the city of Turin on June 6th, 1925 and there was a funeral Mass being celebrated in the parish church of the well-known Frassati family.  The family had lost their only son, 24 year-old Pier Giorgio, very suddenly just two days before.  The vibrant young man had contracted polio and the deadly disease had paralyzed and killed him over the course of six agonizing days.

Young Pier Giorgio's parents were, of course, grief stricken over the death of their son, as was his younger sister, Luciana, to whom he had always been close.  Worse yet, the crushing blow of pain and loss had come upon the Frassati family when it seemed at its weakest point.  Pier Giorgio's mother, Adelaide Frassati, had, within the course of just three days, lost both her own mother and her son.  As the family had struggled to stay close to the dying grandmother, no one had even realized that Pier Giorgio was mortally infected until just two days before his death.

Perhaps the worst blow to the family, the blow that would tear it completely asunder, was one that was still on the brink of crashing down.  Pier Giorgio's parents, Alfredo and Adelaide Frassati, in the years prior to his death, had been growing ever more distant from each other.  Just a few months before the young man's passing Alfredo and his wife had agreed to divorce.  Through death and emotional distance the Frassati family was crumbling.

Yet there was one thing still that could keep the Frassati family whole.  One card remained that no one had reckoned on.  The son of Alfredo and Adelaide was a saint, and even in death he proved to have the power to bring people together.

The somber funeral Mass was said by Monsignor Roccati, the very priest who had baptized Pier Giorgio just twenty-four years previous.  As the most holy of Sacrifices was offered, and the parents mourned the death of their only son, something remarkable happened in the Turin church.  The number of people attending the funeral began to grow.  The crowd within the church swelled and spilled out of the doors, and still more people came.  The immense number of those who came to the funeral of Pier Giorgio Frassati shocked his parents even as it increased the flow of their tears.  Soon the streets leading to the church were lined with people coming from far and near to pay the young man their last respects.

Alfredo Frassati had expected a large turnout for his son's funeral.   After all, the Frassati name was quite well known (in fact, even today it is one of the three most influential names in Italy).  Alfredo himself was a notable and distinguished man.  He had been the owner of a prominent newspaper and one of Italy's youngest senators.  He had even served several years as an ambassador to Germany for his country.  He had fully expected many of Turin's more prominent families to be in attendance.  However, the people that were showing up, now, to his son's funeral were from all walks of life.  Many of the mourners trying to press through the straining doors of the church were obviously quite poor.

Alfredo Frassati must have been baffled that day.  He knew his family was well known, but it seemed that all of Turin was trying to enter the church.

Through the course of the day, as events were recalled and stories of the young man were told, Alfredo began to see a new image of his son form before his eyes.  As Turin's poor, one by one, thanked him with tearful eye for the good works his son had performed for them, Alfredo Frassati caught a first glimpse of the secret life his son had been leading. 

At the time of his death, Pier Giorgio Frassati was supporting 25 families both with his own money and with works of charity.  In the end, nearly 10,000 people attended his funeral, most of whom were poor mourners that Pier Giorgio's parents had never met.  It is probably safe to say that nearly all of them had felt the effects, in some personal way, of the young man's charity and saintly love. 

His death, and more precisely his funeral, was a triumph.  Through it, and the revelations that took place there, his family was saved.  Alfredo and Adelaide Frassati never divorced; they stayed together to the end of their days.  They had learned that their son was a saint, and it strengthened and brought them closer together. 

Pier Giorgio Frassati's death was a mighty testament to his life, and that alone makes his story worth telling.  That he was beatified by the Catholic Church just 65 years later, places his story in the ranks of the Church's other holy ones, and makes it all the more worthy.

 At the very beginning of what has perhaps been mankind's most morally tumultuous century, Pier Giorgio was born.  God forever and indefatigably cares for his people through His divine providence.  Every Christian century is ripe with saintly examples of holiness and heroism, men and women whose lives are models for our own.  Though the Twentieth Century was to stand out from other centuries with its world wars, mass slaughters, revolutions, atrocities, grand scale moral depravation, abortion, and disintegration of the family, it has also seen some of history's most shining examples of courage, holiness, piety, love and heroic action.  The life of Pier Giorgio was filled with such qualities and his story is, today, a great asset to young people living in the modern world.  Those who are familiar with his life see before them a Twentieth Century model of how to live one's life "in the world, but not of the world."

 Throughout his whole life, Pier Giorgio had a great love for the poor.  His love and care for them began at a very early age, and there are many stories of Pier Giorgio as a young boy giving what he could to those in need with childlike simplicity.

 One story of Pier Giorgio tells of a hot summer day when he opened the front door of his family's home to find a poor woman standing there with several barefoot young children.  At this time Pier Giorgio was too young to have any money of his own in his pocket, but the woman had come to the house to ask for aid.  Pier Giorgio's mother had left the house that day on errands, and the servants of the house could not decide on such things.  The young boy thought over this problem for a moment, wondering how he could help the poor woman.  In a moment a solution presented itself.  With no further hesitation, Pier Giorgio took off his own shoes and socks and presented them to the woman for her little ones.

 Yet even as Pier Giorgio displayed a great love of Christ and the poor, from a very young age, he was, at the same time, a very normal and healthy young Italian boy.  He was happy and boisterous, with thick dark hair, dark eyes, and the usual assortment of scrapes and bruises that accompany boyhood adventures.  Like so many other boys he had his troubles in school, and difficult times with his young sister Luciana, who was a year younger than he. 

 One of the earliest letters of Pier Giorgio that has been saved was written when he was only five years old.  It is a letter to his father, and its words remarkably express both his great and simple love of Christ and the fact that he was truly a normal and occasionally troublesome boy.  An excerpt from the letter reads: "I will pray to the Child Jesus for you, and so that you are happy, I promise that I won't hit Luciana anymore."

 In June of 1910 and 1911 respectively, Pier Giorgio made his first Holy Confession and first Holy Communion. 

 The carefree days of early childhood soon gave way to the worries and struggles of grammar school.  In 1913 he was held back from going from second to third year.  He then left public school and began attending a private school, or "Social Institute," directed by the Jesuit Fathers.  It was here that he made the decision to begin the practice of attending daily Mass and Holy Communion.  With this decision he also began a struggle with his own family.

 Commenting on this practice, Father Robert Claude SJ, a biographer of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, notes that, "[in] his spiritual ascent Pier-Giorgio never relied upon himself but upon God.  Above all, he lived a Eucharistic life because he realized that all heroic souls, whether of bygone days, of present times or of the future, must be nourished by this Bread if they are to reach Heaven.1 " 

But Pier Giorgio's own family was a political one and in these days they were more concerned with social status than with a sincere practice of the Faith.  They intended for Pier Giorgio to follow in his father's footsteps and continue to add to the wealth and power of the Frassati name.  His mother and father did not want a son who was overly zealous for the Faith and certainly didn't want him entertaining notions of becoming a priest.  For many years, even until after his death, Pier Giorgio's parents would have a very difficult time understanding their son's great love for Christ.  In those days one had to fast from midnight until communion for a daily Mass, and so the practice could be quite a sacrifice, especially for a growing young boy.  Pier Giorgio's mother was reluctant to give her 12-year-old son permission to attend daily Mass, but in the end she let him do so.

 As the boy grew toward the first glimmerings of manhood his prayer life developed and flourished, as did his love of the poor.  Pier Giorgio considered aid to the poor as his special mission in life and he went about helping them, not in grandiose ways (as he did so many other things) but in quietly heroic ways.  Buying medicines for the sick, providing a meal for a poor family, or just visiting with the down and out and lending them some encouragement. 

It was this love of the less fortunate that lead him to the decision to pursue engineering as a course of university study.  He had a great love for the poor miners, and their day-to-day struggles.  Pier Giorgio had a great desire to use whatever talents he possessed to make life better for the miners, and he felt that studies in engineering would aid him to this end.  And so, in 1918, at the age of 17, he entered into the Faculty of Engineering at the Polytechnic. 

 These were happy days for Pier Giorgio.  They were times filled with study, friends, pranks, and one of the most beloved activities of his life: mountain climbing.  Yet all the while, his ministry to the poor only grew, as did his devotion to Christ and a life of prayer.  As often as he could, Pier Giorgio would plan Alpine mountain climbing excursions with his friends.  He had always been a strong and rugged youth, and the challenge of the mountain was perfectly suited to his personality.  The friends who accompanied him always fondly remembered the climbing expeditions.  Since most of these trips were taken over a weekend, Pier Giorgio would always be very careful about making certain that the adventurers could attend Mass.  He often arranged for a priest to accompany them so that they could have Mass on the mountaintop.  It was on the last of these expeditions that he coined his phrase "Verso L'alto" (toward the top), which was applicable to prayer life as well as mountain climbing.

 These were also highly political days for Pier Giorgio and all of Italy.  Mussolini was coming to power and it was necessary for all good Catholics to oppose the oncoming onslaught of Fascism that was spreading in their country.  It was not easy, in such a time, to live the life of a good Catholic.  With characteristic courage, Pier Giorgio joined a group called the Circle of Catholic Action, which was opposed to the Fascist government, and he proudly carried their banner in protest marches through the streets of Turin.  In several instances these protests actually led to violence in the streets as fascist police tried to silence the protesters.  Pier Giorgio always tried to defend the Faith in a polite manner but, nevertheless, he was not afraid to use his fists when necessary.  Nor was he unskilled at using his fists, for he once, single handedly, drove five fascist vandals from his home. 

 On one particularly noteworthy occasion, fascist police raided a protest march of the Circle of Catholic Action.  In this march, Pier Giorgio was proudly carrying the Circle's banner.  As the police tried to pull the banner from him he defended it vigorously with his fists and even the pole it was mounted on.  It was to no avail, though, and he and his friends were overcome and soon found themselves in jail.  When the questioning began, however, things changed quite suddenly.  Upon learning that they had hauled the son of Senator Frassati, the ambassador to Germany, into jail the police became red-faced and very apologetic.  We can well imagine the dialogue that took place.  Pier Giorgio was apologized to and offered immediate release. 

 "I'll go when you release the others." 

And so he remained there with his friends that afternoon and all the night that followed.  They prayed the rosary proudly and loudly in their torn clothes until they were released the next day.  They then marched proudly back to their campus waving what was left of their torn banner and proclaiming victory.

 Though there were a few exciting times like these for Pier Giorgio, his greatest love of all was found in giving himself in simple ways, and on a day to day basis.  He would spend much time praying before the Blessed Sacrament and encouraging his friends to do the same.  When test time came he would be the first to play pranks (even prank phone calls) in order to relieve the mounting stress.

 All this time his ministry to the poor grew. 

 Finally, when his days as a student were coming to a close, and he was very near to the completion of his engineering degree, Pier Giorgio contracted the deadly poliomyelitis virus.  Through the course of six very painful days the virus took the young man's life by slowly paralyzing him and sapping his strength.  Though he was dying at a young age, Pier Giorgio went joyfully to his eternal reward in Heaven.  Even with his last days he showed his care and regard for others.  On one particular day of life he scrawled out, in weak and shaky handwriting, instructions for getting vaccinations for a poor sick man he had been caring for. 

 Luciana Frassati later wrote a detailed moving account of the last days of the brother she loved so much and after his noted funeral Pier Giorgio's story began to spread.

 In 1990, in Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City, Pope John Paul II led the ceremony that publicly beatified Pier Giorgio Frassati.  The pope has for many years held a special love for Pier Giorgio.  In 1977 he called him "the man of the eight beatitudes" summing up the life of the joyful Italian saint by saying: 

 "Behold the man of the eight beatitudes who bears in himself the grace of the Gospel, the Good News, the joy of salvation offered to us by Christ."

  1 Robert Claude SJ, Pier Giorgio Frassati  (Spiritual Book Association Inc, New York, 1960), 56.