On the fourth of July, most Americans have their minds on picnics, fireworks, and other ways of celebrating American independence. But on the calendar of the universal Church, the day has a different meaning, and it’s one worth recalling this year in particular.
July 4 is also the memorial of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian man beatified in 1990 by Pope John Paul II. Though only recently brought to the attention of the faithful in this way, Pier Giorgio has quickly taken a place as a popular patron of young people. In fact, his remains were transported earlier this summer from Italy to Sydney, Australia, to be present there for this month’s celebration of World Youth Day.
So who was Pier Giorgio Frassati, and why should you know about him?
Early Grace
He was born in 1901, into a rich and influential Italian family. His father was the owner and editor of one of Italy’s most important newspapers, La Stampa. He also served periods as a senator and as Italy’s ambassador to Germany. His parents had little interest in religion or in fostering any kind of faith in Pier Giorgio and his sister.
Somehow, by the working of grace, he managed from a young age to develop a faith and an attitude toward life that was very different from the environment in which he was being raised.
Though his family was rich and blind to the struggles of poverty, he became interested in caring for the poor. Despite his parents’ indifference to religion, even as a child, he found himself on fire with faith and love for God. At the age of 7, he was invited by his parish priest to receive Communion on a daily basis, something that was very rare at the time.
As a teenager and into his 20’s, he began to actively serve the poor in and around Turin. He joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society. He made visits to slums, hospitals, homes for the elderly, and jails. He took food from his family’s well-stocked kitchen and distributed it to many hungry families.
His parents responded to this mainly with irritation. They were initially opposed to his daily reception of Communion, and his mother once asked the parish priest to encourage Pier Giorgio to spend less time saying rosaries. Pier Giorgio’s sister has written that when he was 17, “at home, everyone wished he was different.”
It was during Pier Giorgio’s late teens that his father was appointed to be ambassador to Germany, so the entire family moved to Berlin. During this time, he got to know the young Karl Rahner, just a few years his senior, who was just about to join the Jesuit order. Rahner went on to become one of the most significant Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, known particularly for his work as a theological expert at the Second Vatican Council.
One might wonder whether a young man of Pier Giorgio’s faith ever considered the priesthood. In fact, he did. He ultimately rejected the idea, though, because he wanted direct and personal contact with people, especially with the poor whom he felt particularly called to help, and he believed that being a priest would get in the way of that.
Pier Giorgio’s promising life, however, was cut short when he died suddenly in 1925, at the age of 24, from polio. But his death provided a remarkable moment of evidence for the holy life he had been leading.
Dramatic Witness in Death
As word spread around Turin that Pier Giorgio had died, crowds of people, mostly the poor and the sick whom he had spent so much of his time helping, began to gather at the Frassati home, where his body lay. They asked permission to enter, and soon a line of mourners, all of them strangers to his parents, began filing into the house, wanting only to touch his body. They lined the street, too, when his body was transferred from the home, and crowded into the church as his funeral was celebrated.
His parents could only watch in awe at this testimony to the service he had been doing almost under their noses, but of which they had barely been aware.
Since his beatification, devotion to this young prophet of charity and justice has grown quickly. Frassati Societies, groups intended to help Catholic young people grow in faith and witness to it in their lives, have popped up in Catholic parishes, high schools, and college campuses. (See http://www.frassati.org/.)
Pier Giorgio is one of ten patrons for this summer’s World Youth Day, but the only one whose remains will be on site for the veneration of the young people present. And Pope Benedict XVI has publicly pointed out his important witness on several occasions during his pontificate.
Spirituality of Pier Giorgio Frassati
So what does Pier Giorgio have to offer Catholics today? What would be the most important parts of a spirituality based on his life and ministry? I’d suggest three essential ones.
God in the Poor
Pier Giorgio takes his place among a unique group of holy men and women who seem to have had the grace to encounter Christ in a particularly intense and literal way through the poor. Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Dorothy Day are two other examples of such an experience.
On one occasion, one of Pier Giorgio’s friends asked him how he could walk into the homes of so many poor people, when there was so often such an unpleasant smell inside. Pier Giorgio said that approaching the poor was approaching Christ. “Around the poor I see a special light, one that we do not have,” he said.
God in the Eucharist
Pier Giorgio’s apostolic life and prayer life was fueled by an intense love of the Eucharist. He made frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament when he was able, and these visits sometimes lasted entire nights. He wrote in a letter to a friend of being “consumed with eucharistic fire” that brought a happiness that nothing else in the world could offer.
God in Creation
Pier Giorgio was an enthusiastic outdoorsman, so much so that he has sometimes been proposed as a patron of the environment and environmentalism as well. He went on bicycle rides — up to 50 miles long! — and mountain climbing trips with friends.
But his love with the outdoors was not just about the beauty of nature. He wrote once in a letter to a friend that he enjoyed the mountain climbing expeditions because they were an opportunity for “contemplating the Creator’s greatness in that pure air.”
As we celebrate Pier Giorgio’s feast on July 4, and World Youth Day July 15-20, it’s a great opportunity to become better acquainted with this remarkable witness of faith, justice, and love.
