* Feast Day: July 4th
* “Man of the Eight Beatitudes”
* April 6, 1901 – July 4, 1925

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati is a saint for the modern world, and especially for young people of our time. Although only living til 24 years old, he lived it passionately and holy.

Pier Giorgio Frassati was born in Turin, Italy on April 6, 1901. His mother, Adelaide Ametis, was a painter. His father Alfredo, an agnostic, was the founder and editor-in-chief of a liberal newspaper, and was influential in Italian politics as a Senator and as well as Ambassador to Germany. Despite two unreligious parents who misunderstood and disapproved of his piety and intense interest in Catholicism, Pier Giorgio placed Christ first in all that he did. The misunderstanding of his parents were very painful to him and persisted until his death. However, he bore this treatment patiently, silently, and with great love.

He was educated at home with his younger sister Luciana, before attending a state school and finally a school run by the Jesuits. At the Jesuit school, he joined a Marian sodality and the Apostleship of Prayer and received a rare permission in those days to take communion daily; a practice he kept until the end of his life.

“Sometimes he passed whole nights in Eucharistic adoration.”

For Pier Giorgio, Christ was the answer. Therefore, all of his action were oriented and first comtemplated in Christ. In 1922 at the age of 21, he was drawn to the Fraternities of St. Dominic. In becoming a tertiary, Pier Giorgio chose the name “Girolamo” (Jerome) after his personal hero, Girolamo Savonarola, the fiery Dominican preacher and reformer during the Renaissance in Florence. Pier Giorgio once wrote to a friend, “I am a fervent admirer of this friar (Savonarola), who died as a saint at the stake.”

Pier Giorgio was handsome, vibrant, and natural. People were drawn to him because of his attractive characteristics. He had many good friends and shared his faith with them with ease and openness. He engaged himself in many different apostolates. Pier Giorgio also loved sports, an avid outdoorsman and loved hiking, riding horses, skiing, and mountain climbing. He was never one to pass on playing a practical joke, either. He enjoyed laughter and good humor.

As Luciana points out, “Catholic social teaching could never remain simply a theory with [Pier Giorgio].” He set his faith concretely into action through spirited political activism during the Fascist period in World War I Italy. He lived his faith, too, through discipline with his school work, which was a tremendous cross for him as he was a poor student.

Pier Giorgio prayed daily, offering, among other prayers, a daily rosary on his knees by his bedside. Often his agnostic father would find him asleep in this position. “He gave his whole self, both in prayer and in action, in service to Christ,” Luciana Frassati writes. Most notably, however, Pier Giorgio (like the Dominican St. Martin de Porres) lived his faith through his constant, humble, mostly hidden service to the poorest of Turin. Although Pier Giorgio grew up in a privileged environment, he never held his status of his wealth over anyone. Instead, he lived simply and gave away food, money, or anything that anyone asked of him. It is suspected that he contracted polio from the very people he was ministering in the slums.

As he lay dying, his final week of rapid physical deterioration was an exercise in heroic virtue. His attention was on the needs of others and never drew attention to his anguish, especially since his own grandmother was dying at the same time he was. Pier Giorgio’s heart was surrendered completely to God’s will for him. His last concern was for the poor. On the eve of his death, with a paralyzed hand, he scribbled a message to a friend, reminding the friend not to forget the injections for Converso, a poor man he had been assisting.

When news of Pier Giorgio’s death on July 4, 1925 reached the neighborhood and city, the Frassati parents, who had no idea about the generous self-donation of their young son, were astonished by the sight of thousands of people crowded outside their mansion on the day of their son’s funeral Mass and burial. The poor, the lonely, and those who had been touched by Pier Giorgio’s love and faithful example had come to pay homage to this luminous model of Christian living.

Pier Giorgio’s mortal remains were found incorrupt in 1981 and were transferred from the family tomb in the cemetery of Pollone to the Cathedral of Turin. Pope John Paul II, after visiting his tomb in Pollone in 1989, said:

“I wanted to pay homage to a young man who was able to witness to Christ with singular effectiveness in this century of ours. In my youth, I also felt the beneficial influence of his example, and as a student I was impressed by the force of his Christian testimony”.

On the 20th of May 1990, in St. Peter’s Square, filled with thousands of people, the Pope beatified Pier Giorgio Frassati, “Man of the Eight Beatitudes.” His mortal remains which were found incorrupt in 1981 were transferred from the family tomb in the cemetery of Pollone to the Cathedral of Turin.

For more information on Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, visit the Associazione Pier Giorgio Frassati www.piergiorgiofrassati.org or visit the Third Order of Saint Dominic, Fraternities of St. Dominic www.3op.org/frassati.php

**Information about Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati was collected from the above stated websites.