“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Corinthians 13:13
St. Carlo Acutis draws so many of the eyes and news but St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, though young, is a man’s saint. This young man lived the ideals of the Catholic faith preached by Jesus. He certainly stands with Christ at the judgment – he is someone we shoul led all venerate by our actions.
“Every one of you knows that the foundation of our religion is charity” – Pier Giorgio Frassati
Pier Giorgio Michelangelo Frassati was born in Turin, Italy on April 6, 1901.
Pier Giorgio Frassati was a handsome, fun-loving, athletic, courageous and devout Catholic born into a prominent Italian family. He died too soon at just 24 but has since become the model for lay people – and future popes! – all over the world.
He developed a deep spiritual life which he never hesitated to share with his friends. The Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin were the two poles of his world of prayer.
‘To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth, that is not living but existing” – Pier Giorgio Frassati
He decided to become a mining engineer, studying at the Royal Polytechnic University of Turin, so he could “serve Christ better among the miners,” as he told a friend.
Although he considered his studies his first duty, they did not keep him from social and political activism. What little he did have, Pier Giorgio gave to help the poor, even using his bus fare for charity and then running home to be on time for meals.
The poor and the suffering were his masters, and he was literally their servant, which he considered a privilege. His charity did not simply involve giving something to others, but giving completely of himself. This was fed by daily communion with Christ in the Holy Eucharist and by frequent nocturnal adoration, by meditation on St. Paul’s “Hymn of Charity” (I Corinthians 13),
Mountain climbing was one of his favorite sports. Outings in the mountains, which he organized with his friends, also served as opportunities for his apostolic work. He never lost the chance to lead his friends to Mass, to the reading of Scripture, and to praying the rosary.
Just before receiving his university degree, Pier Giorgio contracted poliomyelitis, which doctors later speculated he caught from the sick whom he tended. Neglecting his own health because his grandmother was dying, after six days of terrible suffering Pier Giorgio died at the age of 24 on July 4, 1925.
On May 20, 1990, in St. Peter’s Square which was filled with thousands of people, the Pope beatified Pier Giorgio Frassati, calling him the “Man of the Eight Beatitudes.”
His mortal remains were found completely intact and incorrupt upon their exhumation on March 31, 1981; they were transferred from the family tomb in Pollone to the cathedral in Turin following his beatification in 1990. Many pilgrims, especially students and the young, come to the tomb of Blessed Frassati to seek favors and the courage to follow his example.
“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13:1-3