“Verso L’Alto” “Toward The Top!”
Lincoln laying in state
There are funeral processions and…
There are funeral processions!
Lincoln. John and Robert Kennedy. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Despite his roles as a head of state and leader of more than a billion Catholics worldwide, the funeral procession of Pope Francis was – there’s no other way to write this – so Francis. Sure, there were approximately 170 heads of state or government and 250,000 members of the public in attendance at the funeral, but it was the route that was important to/for Francis. At his instruction, Francis’ simple coffin was carried in a modified white Dodge Ram popemobile along a circuitous route through the streets of Rome – allowing the poor and ordinary people of the city to bid a final farewell. Arriving at the Basilica of St. Mary Major, and according to his written instructions, the pope’s coffin was welcomed by about 40 “poor people, homeless, prisoners, migrants and transgender individuals,” each of whom had been given a single white rose,” according to Auxiliary Bishop of Rome Benoni Ambarus. The bishop reported that Francis had met personally with almost all them on several occasions.
Why are we writing about funeral processions?
Because, the funeral procession for Pier Giorgio Frassati, who will be canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday, September 7, must have been a small marvel to behold.
In the quintessential description of Christian life, Jesus teaches the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12):
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the Children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you....
On May 20, 1990, approving the beatification – a crucial step toward being recognized (canonized) as a saint – of Pier Giorgio Frassati, Pope John Paul II referred to Frassati as “a man of the Beatitudes.” In his first public and official meeting with the cardinals of the Church, Pope Leo XIV set the date for Frassati’s canonization for September 7. This followed the recognition of a second and surprisingly simple miracle ascribed to the young man. (We’ll explain them at the end of this post.)
The son of the agnostic Italian senator and owner/founder of Italy’s influential La Stampa newspaper and an artist mother, Frassati was born on April 6, 1901.
"In this earthly life after the affection for parents and sisters,
one of the most beautiful affections is that of friendship;
and every day I ought to thank God
because he has given me men and lady friends
of such goodness who form
for me a precious guide for my whole life."
Pier Giorgio in a letter to his best friend, Marco Beltramo
Known to his friends as “Il Terrore” (“The Terror”) because of his fondness for practical jokes, his smiles, pranks and contagious laughter made him a magnet to his peers. Infamous for shortsheeting the beds of peers and priests on retreat, he once placed a donkey in the bed of an unstudious friend, a sign that the lazy youth was being an ass. Once, during an exam, he arranged for the custodian to deliver a mysterious package to the professor. The package began dripping - it was full of ice cream!
"There is a lack of Peace in the world which has distanced itself from God,
but there is also a lack of Charity; that is, true and perfect Love.
Maybe if all of us listened more to St. Paul,
human miseries would be slightly diminished."
Pier Giorgio in a letter to Marco Beltramo
When playing tricks, even from a distance, he wanted to know how they turned out and how others reacted and constantly playing tricks was an essential part of life for the Tipi Loschi, a group of his closest friends – both men and women – Frasatti organized to plan hikes or mountain climbing expeditions. "Tipi Loschi" can be translated to mean "swindlers and swindlerettes" or "shady characters" or "sinister ones." Pier Giorgio went so far as to type up a formal statute for the group, written rather tongue-in-cheek and filled with inside jokes.
He was well known for arriving later for family dinners – because he had to run home after giving his bus-money to a poor person - and regularly gave away his own clothes to someone in need.
Just 13 when World War I started, he once said to a friend, “Natalina, wouldn't you give your life to stop the war?...I would, I would today." When the War ended on November 4, 1918, he ran to the parish church of Pollone to ring the tower bell announcing the good news. In the aftermath of the war, the sight of wounded, unemployed and needy soldiers motivated him to join the St. Vincent de Paul Society, a Catholic organization dedicated to helping the poor.
"Governments today are not heeding the Pope’s warning:
'True peace is more a fruit of Christian love
for one’s neighbor than it is a fruit of justice,'
and they are preparing new wars
for the future of all humanity. ...
Peace cannot return to the world without God."
Pier Giorgio
When Pope Benedict XV reversed Church policy forbidding Catholic participation in politics, Pier Giorgio joined the Partido Populare Italiano because it was based on the Social Justice principles of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum. Despite his youth, he considered his participation in political issues an extension of his faith.
"I am reading Italo Mario Angeloni’s romance novel “I Loved That Way”
where he describes in the first part his love for an Andalusian
woman and believe me I am moved
because it seems like my own love story."
Pier Giorgio in a letter to his friend Isidoro Bonini
Less than a year before his death
Although she was three years older than Frassati and studying mathematics at the same Liceo Classico Massimo d’Azeglio, a public high school/college in Turin, it appears he first met Laura Hidalgo during a Spring 1923 ski holiday. He fell head-over-heels in love and she was instantaneously included in the Tipi Loschi, a community dedicated to “busting each other’s chops” – to use a American phrase.
Sources differ on the reasons he did not pursue the relationship as fully as he might have. Nonetheless, it appears that his parents’ marriage was moving toward dissolution and, out of respect for his mother and not wishing to make her life more difficult, he did not move forward in the relationship with Laura.
In a January 15, 1925 letter, he told his friend Isidoro Bonini “I would like us to pledge a pact that knows no earthly boundaries or temporal limits: Union in prayer.” In a speech to the Federation of Italian Catholic Students, he declared:
"Every one of you knows that the foundation
of our religion is charity.
Without it all our religion would crumble,
because we would not truly be Catholics
as long as we did not carry out
or rather shape our whole life by the two commandments
in which the essence of the Catholic Faith lies:
to love God with all our strength
and to love our neighbor as ourselves."
He copied and always kept with him St. Paul’s Hymn of Charity – 1 Corinthians 13
"With every passing day, I
fall madly in love with the mountains;
their fascination attracts me.”
Pier Giorgio
An exceptionally skilled mountaineer, he scaled many of Italy’s highest peaks and enjoyed the challenges of critical situations - a sleepless night in a hole dug in to snow or a descent in a snow storm. For him, the mountains represented the pleasure of testing his athletic body, filling his lungs before the strain of a skiing competition or a difficult climb. Mountain climbing was an opportunity to enhance cherished friendships. He took upon himself the burden of those who were a bit slower or tired. At times, he would say his foot hurt and he needed to stop and rest, to avoid humiliating those who really needed to do so. Or he would go back and forth between the mountains and the plain to lighten the backpacks of those who were a little weaker.
One of the most popular photographs of the new saint was taken by a fellow climber on June 7, 1925 – one month before his death. It shows Pier Giorgio climbing a mountain and gazing upward. On the back of the portrait, Pier Giorgio wrote his personal motto: “Verso l’alto,” literally “Toward the top.”
When a friend asked him how he could stand the smells and the filth of the slums, he replied, "Don't ever forget that even though the house is sordid, you are approaching Christ. Around the sick, the poor, and the unfortunate, I see a particular light, a light that we do not have."
Pier Giorgio Frassati
At 22 years old, he wrote to a friend:
“Since one does not know when Death will come to take him away, it is very prudent to prepare oneself every day as if one is going to die that same day; and so from now on I will try to make every day a little preparation for death, so that I shouldn’t find myself unprepared at the point of death and have to regret the beautiful years of youth, wasted from the spiritual side.”
It is believed that this incredibly kind and amazingly strong young man contracted polio while visiting the sick and poor in Turin’s “slum” areas. At the time, his parents were focused on the approaching death of his grandmother. He first became sick on June 29 and his condition deteriorated quickly. Even two days before his death, his mother scolded him for not helping her with what was happening with his grandmother.
Within a week, his healthy body was ravaged, and a lethal paralysis began to set in. On July 3, on his death bed, he did not forget his closest friends – the poor. He would normally visit them on Fridays, and he wanted the usual assistance brought to them. He asked his sister Luciana to remove a small packet from his jacket and, with a semi-paralyzed hand, he wrote a note to his friend Giuseppe Grimaldi: “Here are the injections for Converso. The pawn ticket is Sappa’s. I had forgotten it; renew it on my behalf.”
On July 4, embraced by his mother, he said “May I breathe forth my soul in peace with you.” Pier Giorgio Frasati died at seven o’clock in the evening.
He was 24 years old.
Pier Giorgio’s handwritten copy of 1 Corinthians 13
To the shock of his family and the amazement of his most intimate friends, his funeral procession was a triumph.
Thousands of the needy, destitute and forgotten of Turnin whom he had served for seven years came to bid farewell. Only then did his family and closest friends know the depth of his soul. His sister Luciana has reported that this display of emotion helped spark the reconciliation of his parents.
"He left this world rather young,
but he made a mark upon our entire century,
and not only on our century."
Pope John Paul II – May 20, 1990
On December 28, 1938, 40-year-old Domenico Sella, born with Pott’s disease - a tubercular disease of the spine - and days from death, was visited by a priest who gave him a small prayer card memorializing Pier Giorgio. He was miraculously cured and lived forty more years. The miracle received an official Vatican declaration of rapid, instantaneous and permanent healing due to the intercession of Pier Giorgio in 1989, opening the path to sainthood.
The second miracle seems designed by “Il Terrore” (“The Terror”) and his merry band of "shady characters" and "sinister ones." A seminarian for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles – who was ordained a priest in June 2023 – injured his Achilles tendon while playing basketball with other seminarians. After an MRI showed significant damage, surgery was recommended. According to Msgr. Robert Sarno, a former official of the Vatican Dicastery (“office” in normal people terms) for the Cause of Saints who examined the healing, “being very upset about the whole thing, [the seminarian] started a novena (nine days of prayers] to Pier Giorgio.
Funeral procession of Pier Giorgio Frassati
“Midway through the novena, he was in the chapel crying during his novena and he felt this tremendous warmth in his ankle. And then when he went to the orthopedic surgeon a week later, the orthopedic surgeon, after seeing the MRI and conducting physical investigations, said to him, ‘You must have someone in heaven who likes you.’”
The seminarian was able to immediately resume playing the sports that he loved without any difficulties. The healing was verified by a diocesan inquiry and the examination of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints’ medical board, and theologians.
There are funeral processions and…
There are funeral processions.
Pier Giorgio Frassati’s funeral procession, like that of Pope Francis a century later, reflected their dedication to “the sick, the poor, and the unfortunate,”
You will, we hope, pardon us for believing their funeral processions and the canonization of “The Terror” leader of "swindlers and swindlerettes," of "shady characters" and "sinister ones” give proof to the admonition of American author and humorist Mark Twain:
"Let us endeavor so to live
that when we come to die
even the undertaker will be sorry."
Pier Giorgio Frassati