A talk given at the Newman Centre on March 30th, 2011 by its former chaplain, CEO of Salt and Light Television, Fr. Thomas Rosica, C.S.B.
There is a perennial intrigue and ever growing interest in Pier Giorgio Frassati who Pope John Paul II called "the man of eight beatitudes," "of prophetic apostolic modernity," at his Beatification Ceremony in St. Peter’s Square twenty-one years ago. Let us look at some of the highlights of this young man’s life that combined in a remarkable way political activism, solidarity, work for social justice, piety and devotion, humanity and goodness, holiness and ordinariness, faith and life.
Pier Giorgio was born in 1901, at the turn of the last century in Turin, Italy. His mother, Adelaide Ametis, was a painter. His father Alfredo, an agnostic, was the founder and director of the liberal newspaper, "La Stampa", and was influential in Italian politics, holding positions as an Italian Ambassador to Germany. Pier Giorgio was educated at home with his sister Luciana, who was one year younger than him, before attending with her a public school and finally a school run by the Jesuits. There he joined the Marian Sodality and the Apostleship of Prayer, and obtained permission for daily Communion (which was rare at that time).
He developed a deep spiritual life which he never hesitated to share with his friends. The Eucharist and the Blessed Mother were the two poles of his world of prayer. At the age of 17, in 1918, he joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society and dedicated much of his spare time to serving the sick and the needy, caring for orphans, and assisting the demobilized servicemen returning from World War I. 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.
This spirit of selflessness was nurtured by daily communion with Christ in the Holy Eucharist and by frequent nocturnal adoration, by meditation on St. Paul's "Hymn on Charity" (I Corinthians 13), and by the writings of St. Catherine of Siena. He often sacrificed vacations at the Frassati summer home in Pollone (near Turin) because, as he said, "If everybody leaves Turin, who will take care of the poor?"
Pier Giorgio loved the poor. It was not simply a matter of giving something to the lonely, the poor, the sick - but rather, giving his whole self. He saw Jesus in them and to a friend who asked him how he could bear to enter the dirty and smelly places where the poor lived, he answered: "Remember always that it is to Jesus that you go: I see a special light that we do not have around the, sick, the poor, the unfortunate.” A German news reporter who observed Frassati at the Italian Embassy wrote, “One night in Berlin, with the temperature at twelve degrees below zero, he gave his overcoat to a poor old man shivering in the cold. His father, the Ambassador scolded him, and he replied simply and matter-of-factly, ‘But you see, Papa, it was cold.’” He embraced the Gospel of Life and the Culture of Life as he spent his life for others.
Pier Giorgio decided to become a mining engineer, enrolling in the Royal Polytechnic University of Turin, so he could "serve Christ better among the miners", as he told a friend. He would never complete his studies, and on the centenary of his birth in 2001, the University of Turin granted him his degree posthumously. Although he considered his studies his first duty, they did not keep him from social and political activism. Beneath the smiling exterior of the restless young man was concealed the amazing life of a mystic. Love for Jesus motivated his actions.
In 1919 he joined the Catholic Student Federation and the organization known as Catholic Action. In opposition to his father's political ideas, he became a very active member of the People's Party, which promoted the Catholic Church's social teaching based on the principles of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical letter, Rerum Novarum. He even thought about merging the Catholic Student Federation and the Catholic Workers' Organization. "Charity is not enough; we need social reform", he used to say as he worked for both. I personally think that Frassati was the first saint or blessed to live the meaning of Rerum Novarum.
Being the son of a diplomat, Pier Giorgio was entitled to the comfortable life on Embassy row. He shunned that lifestyle and while in Germany, on October 1, 1921, was introduced to a family by the name of Rahner. The mother of the family, Louise, a remarkable woman, showed Pier Giorgio affection and understanding and admired his simplicity of life. The Rahner family had seven children, including two sons named Hugo and Karl. We know that both brothers entered the Society of Jesus, and became great theologians of the Church. Biographers of Karl Rahner spoke of the deep impact that Frassati had on him in his youth.
Mountain climbing was one of his favorite sports. Outings in the mountains, which he organized with his friends, "The Shady Characters", [I Tipi Loschi] served as ideal moments for his apostolic work and ministry among them. He never missed an opportunity to bring them to Mass, to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, to the reading of Scripture, and to other forms of prayer. He often went to the theatre, to the opera, and to museums. He loved art and music, and could quote large sections of the poet Dante Alighieri.
Like his father, he was strongly anti-Fascist and did nothing to hide his political views. He was often involved in fights, first with anticlerical Communists and later with Fascists. Participating in a Church-organized demonstration in Rome on one occasion, he stood up to police violence and rallied the other young people by grabbing the group's banner, which the royal guards had knocked out of another student's hands. Pier Giorgio held it even higher, while using the banner's pole to fend off the blows of the guards.
Athletic, full of life, always surrounded by friends, whom he inspired with his life, Pier Giorgio chose not to become a priest or religious, preferring to give witness to the Gospel as a lay person. His friends remember him saying: "To live without faith, without a heritage to defend, without battling constantly for truth, is not to live, but to 'get along' (or exist); we must never just 'get along.' "
Just before receiving his university degree in mining engineering, he contracted poliomyelitis, which doctors later speculated he caught from the sick for whom he cared. His sickness was not understood. His parents, totally taken up by the agony, death and burial of his grandmother, had not even suspected the paralysis. Two days before the end, his mother kept on scolding him for not helping her in difficult moments. Not even in those desperate final days could he ever forget his closest friends, the poor. It was Friday, the day he visited them. While lying on his death bed he wanted the usual material assistance to be brought to them. He asked his sister to take a small packet from his jacket and with a semi-paralyzed hand he wrote the following note to Grimaldi: "Here are the injections for Converso. The pawn ticket is Sappa's. I had forgotten it; renew it on my behalf".
When the priest who was attending him asked 'What if your grandmother were to call you to heaven?, he replied "How happy I would be!" but he immediately added, "What about father and mother?" and the priest replied, "Giorgio, you will not abandon them; you will live in spirit with them from heaven. You will give them your faith and your self-denial, you will continue to be one family". These few words were enough to dispel Pier Giorgio's final human concerns and he smiled, nodded his head and said "Yes".
His sacrifice was fulfilled at seven o'clock in the evening of July 4, 1925. Pier Giorgio's funeral was a triumph. The streets of Turin were lined with a multitude of mourners who were unknown to his family: clergy and students, and the poor and the needy whom he had served so unselfishly for seven years.
At the end of the biography of her brother, Frassati’s sister Luciana, who is died several years ago in Pollone at the age of 105, wrote of the moment: “Amid sorrow and dismay, the tears of Father Righini, the exaltation of Father Ibertis, the sobs of Signora Converso, Albertini’s embrace of our father, the handkerchiefs, the rosaries, the crowds of poor people come to watch the coffin go by, I barely realized that a new message was being born.”
That message has had an impact on many students and young adults in North America and far beyond over the past years. While I was chaplain of the University of Toronto, and director of this very Newman Centre from 1994 - 2000, as a project for the Great Jubilee, we unveiled a series of new stained glass windows commemorating the heroes and heroines of our faith of the last century. Among the “cloud of witnesses” in the twelve new windows is the striking image of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. We were privileged to have present for the ceremony on the Feast of All Saints in November, 1999, Pier Giorgio’s niece and my dear friend Wanda Gawronska of Rome. Speaking of her uncle she said:
“God gave Pier Giorgio all the external attributes that could have led him to make the wrong choices: a wealthy family, very good looks, manhood, health, being the only heir of a powerful family. But Pier Giorgio listened to the invitation of Christ: "Come and follow me." He anticipated by at least 50 years the church's understanding and new direction on the role of the laity.”
Over the past eleven years, hundreds of students have come to pray before his image each day, because they see in him a call to heroic greatness and holiness. They find in this handsome young outdoorsman someone with whom they can identify. He shared with them all the problems they experience today: the duty of study; the threatening cloud always hanging over him of final exams; involvement in political debates and election propaganda, radical decisions to be made about one’s life; the difficulty of keeping a daily commitment to prayer; the pain of falling madly in love; a father and mother who were struggling in their own relationship. How many young people struggle with these same things everyday!
In beatifying Frassati alone in St. Peter’s Square on May 20, 1990, the Pope, who described Pier Giorgio as the “man of the eight beatitudes” said in his homily:
“…Certainly, at a superficial glance, Frassati's lifestyle, that of a modern young man who was full of life, does not present anything out of the ordinary. This, however, is the originality of his virtue, which invites us to reflect upon it and impels us to imitate it. In him faith and daily events are harmoniously fused, so that adherence to the Gospel is translated into loving care for the poor and the needy in a continual crescendo until the very last days of the sickness which led to his death. His love for beauty and art, his passion for sports and mountains, his attention to society's problems did not inhibit his constant relationship with the Absolute.
…By his example he proclaims that a life lived in Christ's Spirit, the Spirit of the Beatitudes, is "blessed", and that only the person who becomes a "man or woman of the Beatitudes" can succeed in communicating love and peace to others. He repeats that it is really worth giving up everything to serve the Lord. He testifies that holiness is possible for everyone, and that only the revolution of charity can enkindle the hope of a better future in the hearts of people. …He left this world rather young, but he made a mark upon our entire century, and not only on our century.”
What better model and guide could young people have been given to accomplish such lofty goals of living the Beatitudes other than Pier Giorgio Frassati! I grew close to him over the past twenty years… turning to him on countless occasions for intercession, inspiration, encouragement and example. His life has had a major impact on young people today, especially on the nearly 300 young adults who worked with me on the National Staff of World Youth Day 2002. How many times they would say of him: “This handsome, cool athlete is someone like us… he knows our struggles. He suffered with his family situation, and he struggled with personal relationships. He loved his friends and a good time. He was normal!”
Three key aspects of Frassati’s life are, for me, the key to understanding his profound culture of life and the reasons for his perennial intrigue to us today:
1) Pier Giorgio Frassati makes sanctity accessible for all people. Externally, his life was not unusual; in fact, it was regarded as altogether "normal," but it was inspired, to an extraordinary degree, by the spirit of the Gospel, translated into generous social and political commitment in favor of the poorest of the poor. Frassati was, and continues to be, a perfect model of daily sanctity within everyone's reach, a Christian layman on the fascinating road to sanctity.
2) Pier Giorgio Frassati reminds us poignantly of the need to develop a distinctly sacramental spirituality- so basic to Catholic Christianity- that links the spiritual and physical, action and presence. A truly sacramental spirituality (rather than a liturgical piety or a devotional piety) reminds us that our gathering for the Eucharist and our going out to the poor are intrinsic to each other. A truly sacramental spirituality helps us to avoid the great dichotomies and inconsistencies that often exist when devotion is treated as the enemy of liturgy and charity as the betrayer of justice, or when liturgy is reduced to private devotion and justice not recognized as constitutive to the Gospel.
3) Pope John Paul II called Frassati "the man of eight beatitudes." Having studied the Scriptures, and lived in the land of Jesus for a part of my studies, I learned Jesus’ own language and found that my understanding of Jesus’ teachings, especially the Beatitudes, was greatly enriched. And I have discovered that Frassati’s title of “man of the Beatitudes” may be even more significant than we think. Are we not accustomed to hearing the Beatitudes expressed passively: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.
Christianity is not passive but active, it is energetic, alive, youthful, always going beyond despair. It is a profound invitation into human solidarity, and to respect and love all human life. Herein lies the key to understanding Frassati’s secret: he lived the Beatitudes in a most active, creative, hopeful and forever youthful way.
Conclusion
Let me conclude by speaking for a few moments directly to Pier Giorgio.
Thank you, Pier Giorgio, for listening to Jesus’ words and making them your own. Your example has moved me and hundreds of thousands of others to translate the Beatitudes into Good News with our very lives. Be with us on this great expedition to heaven!
Pier Giorgio, help us to strive for simple hearts, attentive to the needs of others, and friendships based on that pact which knows no earthly boundaries or limits of time: union in prayer. If we do not know the road, and if we often abandon the path, show us the way “verso l’alto” upward to heaven!
If by being superficial we have not put in our knapsack all that we need for the climb, and if we never lift up our gaze because we do not want to take the first demanding steps to set ourselves on the way, show us the way “verso l’alto” upward to heaven!
If we lack the strength to overcome the most difficult passes, and if we have the strength, but prefer to use it to turn back, show us the way “verso l’alto” upward to heaven!
If we never pause to be nourished by the bread of eternal life, and if we do not quench our thirst from the fountain of prayer, show us the way “verso l’alto” upward to heaven!
When we do not know how to contemplate the beauty of the gifts we have received, and when we do not know how to offer ourselves for others, show us the way “verso l’alto” upward to heaven!
If we have committed many sins, show us the way “verso l’alto” upward to heaven!
If we lost hope, show us the way “verso l’alto” upward to heaven!
Pray for us, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. Show us the way “verso l’alto”, upward to heaven and deep into the heart of God. Teach us how to be Saints for the Church and for the world!
Amen.
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