Saints and Social Justice: A Guide to Changing the World by Brandon Vogt

Author:Brandon Vogt [Vogt, Brandon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Our Sunday Visitor
Published: 2014-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

To the Heights!

Throughout his life, Pier Giorgio maintained a deep appreciation for skiing and mountain climbing. “Every day that passes I fall more and more in love with the mountains,” he wrote to a friend. “If it weren’t for my studies, I would spend entire days up in the pure mountain air, contemplating the greatness of the Creator.”80 For Pier Giorgio, the mountains offered an occasion to contemplate God and strengthen his spiritual life.

On June 7, 1925, he climbed a mountain for the last time. He had a friend take a picture near the top. On the back of the photo, Pier Giorgio wrote “Verso l’alto!” which means “Toward the top!” or “To the heights!” Little did he know how prophetic that message would become. Two weeks after the photo, Pier Giorgio contracted polio, likely through one of his poor or sick friends.

The disease acted quickly. In those days polio had no cure or vaccine, which led Pier Giorgio to experience severe, crippling pain and become essentially paralyzed within a few days. Yet even as he suffered, he kept the poor in mind. From his bed he asked his sister to deliver medicine to a sick friend and to renew a pawn receipt for a poor woman who had pawned her wedding ring.

Pier Giorgio passed away on July 4, 1925, in much agony. The loss was felt throughout Turin. When his family held the funeral, they were shocked to see thousands of people show up, including many of the poor families he had helped throughout his life.

Shortly after his death, friends and supporters gathered testimonies of his virtuous life. It wasn’t long before his cause for canonization officially opened, a process that required Pier Giorgio’s body to be exhumed. According to eyewitnesses, his body was found completely incorrupt. Finally, on May 20, 1990, Pope John Paul II, himself an avid mountain-climber and Pier Giorgio devotee, announced his beatification in front of over 50,000 people.

The announcement confirmed what many already knew, that while Pier Giorgio scaled many mountains throughout his short life, he had also reached the heights of sanctity.

St. John Paul II on Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati

“Certainly, at a superficial glance, [Bl. Pier Giorgio] 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. Entirely immersed in the mystery of God and totally dedicated to the constant service of his neighbor: thus we can sum up his earthly life!”

— St.

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