The other Saint who was canonized last Sunday was Pier Giorgio Frassati. He was born in Turin, Italy on April 6, 1901. The son of an artist mother and a journalist-politician father, Pier Giorgio joined the Marian Sodality and the Apostleship of prayer, and at an early age received permission to receive Holy Communion daily (which was rare at that time). At the age of 17, he joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society and dedicated much of his spare time to serving the sick, the poor, orphans, and servicemen returning from World War I. He studied mining engineering at the local university so that he could “serve Christ better among the miners.” While a student, Pier Giorgio joined the Catholic Student Foundation and Catholic Action. He was also very active in the People’s Party which promoted the Church’s social teaching based on the principles of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum.
Pier Giorgio was very generous to the poor, often using his bus fare for charity and then running home to be on time for meals. He often sacrificed his vacations at the family summer home outside Turin because, as he said, “if everybody leaves Turin, who will take care of the poor?”
This new Saint loved mountain climbing, and his numerous outings in the mountains with friends served as opportunities for his apostolic work. He led many of his friends to Mass, the reading of Scripture, and praying the rosary. His fondness for the letters of Saint Paul sparked his zeal for fraternal charity and his reading of the sermons of the Renaissance preacher and reformer Girolamo Savonarola impelled him to join the Third Order of St. Dominic.
Just prior to 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 intense suffering Pier Giorgio died at the age of 24 on July 4, 1925. On the eve of his death, he scribbled a message to a friend to take the medication Pier Giorgio needed to a poor sick man he had been visiting. In 1981 his mortal remains were found completely intact and incorrupt upon their exhumation; following his beatification in 1990 they were transferred from the family plot in Pollone to the cathedral in Turin. Many pilgrims, especially the young, come to visit his tomb.
St. Pier Giorgio, help us to be zealous disciples and conquer the mountains of challenge that come our way. Amen.
