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.
