If there is one Dominican saint who wants to be your friend, it is St. Pier Giorgio Frassati.

While the Church raises up saints as models because of their “heroic virtue,” Christians can learn from St. Pier Giorgio how virtue is practiced in ordinary ways, like the witness of joy or simply a smile. 

St. Pier Giorgio (1901-1925) was a magnetic character, attracting a wide circle of devoted and loyal friends. Reading their letters to each other when he died suddenly at age 24 reveals just how much they were captivated by him: by his teasing, his antics, his kindness–and especially by his faith.

His faith was nurtured, in no small measure, by the witness of the Dominican Order. He made his profession as a Lay Dominican in 1922, at the young age of 21. St. Catherine of Siena–another Dominican known for cultivating a circle of devoted followers–inspired him, and he avidly read her Dialogue, a lengthy conversation between her and God the Father on Divine Providence. He also undertook a systematic study of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica. St. Pier Giorgio often carried a 15-decade Rosary, praying it loudly while walking around his hometown of Turin, Italy. 

He had a clear vision of his role in society. He spent countless hours visiting the needy, relieving their suffering–much to the frustration of his well-off and well-connected parents. Yet, for him, even his great charity was not enough. As the political situation of Italy deteriorated, St. Pier Giorgio was more and more intent on his work for social reform. He turned to the example of the preaching Dominican Friars for inspiration and nourishment, and courageously defended the Church’s social teaching as Fascism was on the rise in Italy. He did not hide his piety under a bushel basket.

“Yet piety did not stifle the flame of his glance, did not cloud his brow, did not extinguish the smile on his face,” wrote Bishop Martin Stanislaus Gillet, O.P., who was present when St. Pier Giorgio made his profession as a Lay Dominican and who later became Master of the Order. “On the contrary, everything about him shone with joy, because he let his beautiful nature flower in the sunlight of God.” 

His joy was evident to those he met. He dubbed the group of his most intimate friends the “Company of Shady Characters,” and they delighted in amusing each other–one writes to another about having Pier Giorgio “laughing like a crazy person”–with the farcical rules and regulations of the “Company.”

Frassati’s social bridge-building points to a higher goal on the ladder of friendship; not the lowest rung of pure pleasure, nor the middle rungs of social usefulness: St. Pier Giorgio was always aiming for the highest heights of union with God. 

His “Company of Shady Characters” was a case in point. His younger sister Luciana would write in I giorni della sua vita (The Days of His Life), that he “devised the group and created it as a way to do good without even the members of the group being fully aware of it.”

For instance, he would invite his friends for a hike–and then have them go to Mass as part of the deal, sometimes going so far as to arrange for a priest to meet them at a chapel along the route.

He “gathered everyone under the magical sign of his smile,” his sister explained, and his “preferred weapon,” was joy. “Only in this way was it possible to maintain such distinct individuals united.”

“What was important was to be together as much as possible, under the great banner of the faith,” Luciana wrote, and the testimonies of his friends confirmed this, as they remembered how one minute he was making them laugh, and the next minute was settling down to pray the Rosary. They spoke of the “miracle of sanctity” in him–a “joyful, unworried, innocent, and renewing” holiness, “like the waters of the mountain streams.”

His love of God consumed him so much that he seemed to forget himself. For instance, during Eucharistic Adoration, people observed hot wax dripping from a candle onto his suit without him noticing.

Such an all-consuming faith inspired and attracted more than just his peers.

Luciana remembered a priest close to the saint who said it was “‘a real spiritual joy to pray near him’ and that he considered a ‘miracle’ his way of attracting others to virtue by means of his many-sided and unique personality.”

In keeping with this unique character, he died a grace-filled and sacrificial death. While visiting the poor in late June 1925, he contracted polio, which caused debilitating pain. When his maternal grandmother died on July 1, he deflected attention from his own suffering. On July 3, he had his sister send medicine to the poor. He died a day later, comforted by the words of a priest who assured him he would still share his faith with his family from heaven, just as he did on earth.

The multitudes of the poor who turned up to his funeral showed that his friendship was extended to all. St. Pier Giorgio’s friends and even his whole city knew the treasure they had in him, though as is often the case, their affection became uniquely evident after his death. 

Luciana’s short biography of St. Pier Giorgio, titled A Man of the Beatitudes: Pier Giorgio Frassati, records the words of a journalist at his funeral: “This was the most moving and edifying funeral I have ever been to, either as a journalist or as a private person…nearly all common people, little people, little women and artisans, and lots of mothers with babies. The houses in Borgo Crocetta were emptied of all who were not at work. Few had known Pier Giorgio but they had heard of his faith, his works of charity, and they had come full of respect and admiration and from curiosity. They wanted to know more, they wanted to know everything about him, the young man who in death had become the friend, the brother, of each of them.”

As much as people wanted to know more about him in death, his parents–who were on the verge of separating at the time of his death–were probably most astounded by what they learned. They had no idea of the extent of his generosity and popularity, and they were shocked when thousands of people turned out to pay their respects on the day of his funeral. Moved by his saintly witness, his parents resolved their differences.

St. Pier Giorgio continued to inspire his friends after death. As Clementina Luotto wrote in a letter two days after his death, “He will give us the active love we ought to have, above all because he gave us the priceless gift of his friendship. Let us cling to the cross and love each other in his memory as if and more than if he were still with us. Perhaps that way we shall see his smile shine among us again.’”

And as if prescient of his own early departure for the Father’s House, he once wrote: “Unfortunately earthly friendships produce sorrow in our hearts because of the departure of those we love, but I would like for us to pledge a pact which knows no earthly boundaries nor temporal limits: union in prayer.”

Thankfully, as one of the Church’s newest saints, St. Pier Giorgio Frassati is united with us in prayer. From his heavenly vantage point, he can lead us again into an appreciation of the truth in friendship, to a deep resolve to take up his weapon of joy, and yes, to remember the power of a smile.

St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us!

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