Pier Giorgio Michelangelo Frassati was born in Turin, Italy on April 6, 1901. His mother, Adelaide Ametis, was a painter and his father Alfredo, an agnostic, was the founder and director of the newspaper, “La Stampa,” and served as an Italian Senator and Ambassador to Germany. His parents did not approve of his religious devotion, but he remained faithful to daily Mass and rosary prayer. He was often late for meals at home but accepted the scolding because the reason for his tardiness was feeding the poor, running errands to purchase medicine for them or finding widows with children places to stay.
At an early age, Pier Giorgio showed his devotion to the Lord, joining the Marian Sodality and the Apostleship of Prayer. He obtained permission to receive daily Communion, which was unusual at that time. His spiritual life was focused upon his devotion to the Eucharist and to the
Blessed Virgin Mary. 
 
Realizing the importance of serving the Lord and others, 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 helping soldiers returning from World War I. Pers Giorgio was a member of a group of friends who jokingly referred to themselves as “the sinister ones.” They enjoyed time in the mountains hiking and fun trips. As a leader of the group he always made sure that Holy Mass was included in their activities. 

Finding school tedious, he nevertheless applied himself out of a sense of family honor. A true sportsman, he loved hiking, horseback riding, snow skiing, and mountain climbing. He adopted as a personal motto the phrase, verso l’alto!, which translates in English as “to the heights,” by which he meant not only the summit of a mountain, but Heaven. He told a friend that he was going to become a mining engineer, studying at the Royal Polytechnic University of Turin, so he could “serve Christ better among the miners.”
 
Socially and politically active, he joined the Catholic Student Foundation and the organization known as Catholic Action in 1919. Inspired by Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical letter, Rerum Novarum, which recognized the rights of the laboring class, he became an active member of the People’s Party, which promoted the Catholic Church’s social teaching.

 In 1921 he was active in Ravenna, where he was among those organizing the first convention of Pax Romana, an association that sought to unify Catholic students all over the world to promote universal peace. He loved art, music, theater and the poetry of Dante, which he could quote. He meditated on St. Paul’s “Hymn of Charity” from 1 Corinthians 13 and admired the writings of St. Catherine of Siena.
 
He was, like his father, strongly anti-Fascist and did not hide his political views. One biographer noted, “He physically defended the faith at times 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.”
Just before graduating from college, Pier Giorgio contracted polio, which doctors later guessed he contracted from the sick for whom he cared. He neglected his own health because of his concern for his dying grandmother. He passed away after six days of suffering. Pier Giorgio died at the age of 24 on July 4, 1925. Even on his deathbed, he found time to write a note to a friend asking him to bring medicine needed for injections to Converso, a poor and sick man he had been visiting.
 One biographer concluded: “Pier Giorgio’s funeral was a triumph. The streets of the city were lined with a multitude of mourners who were unknown to his family -- the poor and the needy whom he had served so unselfishly for seven years. Many of these people, in turn, were surprised to learn that the saintly young man they knew had actually been the heir of the influential and [wealthy] Frassati family.”
 
After visiting his tomb in Pollone in 1989, Pope St. John Paul II 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. When I was a young man, I, too, felt the beneficial influence of his example and, as a student, I was impressed by the force of his testimony." He was subsequently beatified by Pope John Paul II on May 20, 1990, on which occasion he referred to Pier Giorgio Frassati as “the “Man of the Eight Beatitudes.”
 
On March 31, 1981, his mortal remains were exhumed and found completely intact and incorrupt. They were moved from the family tomb in Pollone to the cathedral in Turin. Many pilgrims, especially students and the young, still come to the tomb of Blessed Frassati to ask for his intercession and for the courage to follow his example.

By Dr. Claude Sasso, Academic Dean

Heavenly Father,
Give me the courage to strive for the highest goals,
to flee every temptation to be mediocre.
Enable me to aspire to greatness, as Pier Giorgio did,
and to open my heart with joy to Your call to holiness.
Free me from the fear of failure.
I want to be, Lord, firmly and forever united to You.
Grant me the graces I ask You through Pier Giorgio's intercession,
by the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.