Pier Giorgio Frassati (d.1925): heroic charity

Pier Giorgio Frassati was born in 1901 into an influential family of Turin, Italy. He was known for his contagious joy and his love of the mountains. In the simplicity of his life as a student, with his family and friends, Pier Giorgio focused his daily efforts on helping the poor and the sick. His life was both very short - he died at the age of 24 from a devastating form of polio contracted while serving the poor - and extraordinarily rich in spiritual fruits. For John Paul II, who beatified him in 1990, Pier Giorgio is the best example of how a young lay person can respond to Christ's call: "Come and follow me".

Pier Giorgio Frassati, aged 24, 1925 / © CC0/wikimedia

Reasons to believe:

The life of Pier Giorgio Frassati is well known thanks to his writings and those of his close ones, in particular the many letters he wrote (350 of his letters have been collated and published in French). His sister Luciana also compiled the testimonies of those who were close to him.

Pier Giorgio was an athletic, handsome young man from a wealthy upper middle class family. Everything predestined him for an easy and brilliant life. But his decision to join the Dominican Third Order and devote all his time and money to helping the underprivileged deeply challenges our heart and conscience.

In his daily life, Pier Giorgio looked for every opportunity to do good by following God's will. His concern for others was constant, spontaneous, and marked by self-denial. He not only gave material help and relief, but also gave of himself completely: such self-sacrifice is superhuman. "Always remember that you are going to visit Jesus": it was the love of Christ that motivated his actions.

The extend of Pier Giorgio's charity was unknown to those around him. Even those closest to him, such as his beloved sister, did not fully realise it until the day of his funeral, when thousands of people flocked to the church, particularly from the poorest neighbourhoods and low-income hospitals.

On 31 March 1981, during the process of beatification, in accordance with the usual procedures, the tomb where Pier Giorgio was buried in the Pollone cemetery was exhumed. Almost 56 years after his death, the Blessed's mortal remains were found incorrupt.

Summary:

Pier Giorgio Frassati was born in Turin in 1901, the son of Senator Alfredo Frassati and Adelaide Ametis, a well-known painter. His father founded the liberal newspaper La Stampa and was ambassador to Berlin between 1920 and 1922. Pier Giorgio had a sister, Luciana, a year his junior.

He received an austere and rather harsh upbringing , centered on discipline and obedience. His parents made no secret of their disappointment at not seeing him take the path that would allow him to take over his father's newspaper.

Luciana said of Pier Giorgio that, from an early age, he stood out as if he had a "third eyethat looked at things differently, an 'inclination for good', a desire to help and serve". An anecdote may illustrate this character trait: one day, when they were children, Pier Giorgio and Luciana were ice skating and saw that a little girl had fallen into a hole of frozen water. Without a moment's hesitation, Pier Giorgio dived in to help her out, even though he could have died in the icy water.

Pier Giorgio spent part of his studies at a school run by the Jesuits, the Istituto sociale in Turin. There he learned about the benefits of the Eucharist and wished to receive communion every day. He convinced his mother and the headmaster to allow him to do so, at a time when daily communion was rare and even not recommended for children. From that time on, Pier Giorgio took part in the mountain excursions that he loved so much ("I left my heart on the peaks") only if he could keep his commitment to go to daily Mass, even if it meant getting up at the crack of dawn.

When the First World War broke out, Pier Giorgio was deeply disturbed and moved by the misery caused by the conflict. He was radically in favour of peace, but felt powerless: "I would give my life for the war to end," he said gravely.

His friends admired Pier Giorgio's uprightness and purity. When a conversation got out of hand, he didn't hesitate to blow the whistle. His attitude contrasted with that of the other young people, inspiring respect and friendliness. At the age of 17, Pier Giorgio joined several Catholic charitable organizations: the Saint Vincent de Paul Society and the Student's Catholic Action (FUCI: Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana). He would explain: "In Holy Communion, Jesus comes to visit me every morning. I in turn visit him, in my own poor way, by visiting the poor."

With a few friends, he founded the "Company of Shady Types": this merry band aspired to a deep friendship based on prayer and faith ("I would like us to swear a covenant pact with no temporal or earthly limits: union in prayer"). At Pier Giorgio's instigation, the group went to help the destitute. Pier Giorgio wandered the streets of Turin, carrying a notebook in which he recorded the names of his "conquests": people he met who were in need, and how he could help them. He had a remarkable ability to involve other people in his charitable work. Even though he came from a wealthy family, his parents only gave him the bare necessities of life. So Pier Giorgio was creative, not hesitating to ask people around him or to go door-to-door to obtain a hospital bed, a place at school, such and such medicines, coal for heating, etc. Every penny of his personal income was immediately put to good use, even tickets for public transport, which he saved by running home. In addition to providing material help, he became the children's playmate and the parents' confidant, offering his sympathetic presence and listening ear ("The house may be squalid, but it's to Christ that we go. Didn't he say, 'If you do good to the poor, you do it to me'? Around the sick, around the unfortunate, I see a special light that neither the rich nor the healthy have").

In his pocket, Pier Giorgio kept a piece of paper with the words of St Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, on love. He constantly asked himself how to love the people around him. His attention to others was constant: "True good happens inadvertently, little by little, every day, in a familiar way," he says. But this inadvertence was imbued with vigilance, with a contemplative spirit that was always waiting for the opportunity to put itself discreetly at the service of others. Pier Giorgio cheerfully performed a thousand trivial services: "I am entirely at your disposal", he liked to say.

His devotion to the Virgin Mary was simple and upright. A follower of Saint Dominic, he prayed the 5-decade rosary daily and, towards the end of his life, the complete rosary.

At the age of 24, on July 4, 1925, Pier Giorgio died of a sudden illness, an acute formof poliomyelitis, which he most likely contracted while caring for the poor. The cause and severity of his illness were not immediately apparent: Pier Giorgio kept a low profile, as his grandmother was also dying in the next room. While he was suffering terribly, he was still thinking about the promise he had made to someone in need: he painstakingly wrote a note so that money would be sent to that person. His sister Luciana Frassati's account of Pier Giorgio's death was published in a book translated in multiple language. The English edition is Man of the Beatitudes: Pier Giorgio Frassati (Ignatius Press, 2000).

On the day of his funeral, a crowd of thousands of mourners, including many of the poor and needy he had helped, lined the streets of Turin, demonstrating Pier Giorgio's hidden greatness. "I don't know my son," murmured his impressed father. Alfredo Frassati then embarked on a path of conversion, inspired by the life of silent charity led by his son.

On May 20, 1990, Pope John Paul II declared Pier Giorgio blessed and described him as "the man of the eight beatitudes"He also placed the World Youth Days under his patronage. Pier Giorgio's body now rests in a chapel on the left side of the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Turin.

His canonization was announced in April 2024, for 2025.

Interview with Luz and Mary, collaborators of Wanda Gawronska, niece of the Blessed, for the Pier Giorgio Frassati Association.

Beyond reasons to believe:

"At first glance, the lifestyle of Pier Giorgio Frassati, a modern young man vibrant with life, may not seem very extraordinary. In him, faith and everyday events blend harmoniously, so that adherence to the Gospel translates into loving care for the poor and needy, in a continuous crescendo right up to the last days of the illness that would lead to his death. His earthly life can be defined as follows: immersed in the mystery of God and dedicated to the constant service of others" (Homily of John Paul II, 20 May 1990, for the beatification of Pier Giorgio Frassati).