When Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati died on July 4, 1925, of an aggressive form of polio, he was just 24 years old.<\/p>\n
Young people the world over know him well, because he is one of the youthful saints who has been featured by the Vatican at its World Youth Day events. He was a man of the 20th century, a robust young Italian who spent his life serving the poor, evangelizing for the Catholic faith, and earning a reputation as \u201cthe man of the beatitudes.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for many he is known for \u00adthe mountains he loved to climb with friends. The most popular image of the saint is the one that was unveiled at his beatification in St. Peter\u2019s Square in 1990 by St. John Paul II\u2014a picture of him standing on a mountain summit, his hands on his walking stick and a pipe in his mouth.<\/p>\n
Frassati, an avid mountain-climber, is forever associated with the high peaks of Northern Italy.<\/p>\n
In this he has a lot in common with a woman of the mountains, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth was born in 1776 in New York City, far from any mountain. But after establishing her religious community and school at the foot of St. Mary\u2019s mountain in Emmitsburg, Maryland, she wrote often of her love for the mountains in letters to friends, calling herself \u201cyour poor Mountaineer\u201d and speaking in awe-struck tones of the \u201cbeautiful mountains\u201d and \u201clovely mountains\u201d which surrounded the settlement and school.<\/p>\n
In fact, Elizabeth first fell in love with the mountains in her visits to Italy\u2014not too far from the mountains of Torino where Pier Giorgio Frassati was born and raised.<\/p>\n
Frassati was born on Holy Saturday, April 6, 1901. His father was the agnostic owner of the newspaper La Stampa <\/em>and his mother was an artist whose paintings were featured in exhibits and bought by royalty.<\/p>\n Frassati\u2019s childhood is replete with the kinds of stories that fill the lives of the saints; as a child he once removed his shoes to give to the son of a beggar woman; another time he talked his mother into inviting a drunk beggar to dinner. If he sounds too pious to be true, he was not only known for his holiness but for his good-natured practical jokes earning him the nickname \u201cThe Terror.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite being an average student academically, he loved the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Catherine of Siena and became a Third Order Dominican when he was 21.<\/p>\n He often took friends on trips to the mountain range that included the Alps, part of the range which Elizabeth Ann Seton had visited in 1803 when she had been in Italy with her dying husband.<\/p>\n She wrote often to the Filicchi family who had welcomed her and her husband and daughter into their home during her husband\u2019s fatal illness, fondly remembering \u201cyour mountains\u201d in her letters.<\/p>\n St. Elizabeth Ann Seton would have seen right away what Pier Giorgio Frassati meant, when he said, \u201cEvery day, my love for the mountains grows more and more. If my studies permitted, I\u2019d spend whole days in the mountains contemplating the Creator\u2019s greatness in that pure air.\u201d<\/p>\n Mother Seton was delighted to find a mountain home of her own for the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s she organized to serve the poor and establish schools.<\/p>\n \u201cThis pleases me for many reasons,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the first place I shall live in the mountains, in the next I shall see no more of the world than if I was out of it and have every object centered in my own family.\u201d<\/p>\n Clearly, love of the mountains for both Mother Seton and Frassati had become a symbol of their remarkable faith.<\/p>\n St. John Paul II, also a great lover of mountains, put it this way:<\/p>\n \u201cMountains are always able to fascinate the human spirit to the point of being considered in the Bible a favorite place for meeting God. They become the symbol of the ascent of the human person to the Creator.\u201d<\/p>\n A month before he died, Frassati and friends had faced a tough climb on which they had to use double ropes. A friend took a photo of Frassati holding a rock and gazing toward the summit. On the back of the photo, Frassati wrote the words, “Verso l<\/em>\u2019<\/em>alto”<\/em>\u2014to the heights.<\/p>\n It became a motto associated with his constant search for holiness, much as \u201cHazard forward\u201d \u2014 the call to risk for gain on the Seton coat of arms \u2014 is associated with Elizabeth Ann Seton.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes I get wearier, and even wish to be released\u201d from the struggle of life, she wrote from the midst of illness to a friend. \u201cThe mountain has been very hard to climb these few months past, which only makes me long more ardently for a haven of rest.\u201d<\/p>\n The greatest mountain Frassati climbed was the Mountain of the Beatitudes.<\/p>\n He joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society when he was 17 and aided orphans and wounded Word War I veterans. Never rich, he was always generous. He once gave his bus fare to charity and then ran home to keep from being late for supper; another time he refused to go on vacation, stating, \u201cIf everybody leaves Turin, who will take care of the poor?\u201d A German journalist described an incident at the Italian embassy on a freezing night when Frassati gave away his overcoat to a homeless man. \u201cHis father, the ambassador, scolded him, and he replied matter-of-factly, \u2018But you see, Papa, it was cold.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The Blessed Sacrament sustained both Pier Giorgio Frassati and Elizabeth Ann Seton in their ascent of the mountain of holiness.<\/p>\n Frassati received communion daily and often spent time with Jesus in the Eucharist late into the night. By being attuned to Jesus\u2019s Real Presence in the sacrament he became more attuned to seeing Jesus in the poor. \u201cRemember always that it is to Jesus that you go,\u201d he told a friend. \u201cI see a special light that we do not have, around the, sick, the poor, the unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n Elizabeth Ann Seton had the same holiness, delighting in God\u2019s presence in the sacrament and in those she served, despite the darkness she often felt from her trials.<\/p>\n Converted to a belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist when she was in Italy, she retained her love for the Blessed Sacrament for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n \u201cTomorrow, God at the altar \u2014 on the mountain!\u2014our God,\u201d she wrote to a priest friend who planned to visit. \u201cHis infinite goodness comes in silence and the sanctuary.\u201d<\/p>\n On another occasion, she saw the same luminosity that Frassati saw in those she served, \u201cOur mountains are very black but the scene below bright and gay, the meadows still green and my dear ones skipping upon them with the sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n The mountains, both literally and metaphorically, represented the heroic climb Mother Seton and Frassati made towards God and holiness.<\/p>\n As St. John Paul II put it, \u201cIn contact with the beauties of the mountains, in the face of the spectacular grandeur of the peaks, the fields of snow and the immense landscapes, man enters into himself and discovers that the beauty of the universe shines not only in the framework of the exterior heavens, but also that of the soul that allows itself to be enlightened, and seeks to give meaning to life. From the things that it contemplates, in fact, the spirit is lifting up to God on the breath of prayer and gratitude towards the Creator.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, let us also say, \u201cVerso l<\/em>\u2019<\/em>alto!<\/em>\"<\/p>\n TOM HOOPES<\/strong>, autor m\u00e1s reciente de El Rosario de San Juan Pablo II, es escritor residente en el Benedictine College de Kansas, donde imparte clases. Es anfitri\u00f3n de La extraordinaria Stor<\/a>y podcast sobre la vida de Cristo. Su libro Lo que dijo realmente el Papa Francisco<\/a> ya est\u00e1 disponible en Audible<\/a>. Antiguo reportero en la zona de Washington, D.C., fue secretario de prensa del Presidente del Comit\u00e9 de Medios y Arbitrios de la C\u00e1mara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos y pas\u00f3 10 a\u00f1os como editor del peri\u00f3dico National Catholic Register y de la revista Faith & Family. Su trabajo aparece con frecuencia en el Register, Aleteia y Catholic Digest. Vive en Atchison, Kansas, con su esposa, April, y tiene nueve hijos.<\/em>Imagen: Dominio p\u00fablico<\/em><\/p>\n Image: Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati in the Alps courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Both literally and figuratively, mountains were the means by which Pier Giorgio Frassati and Elizabeth Ann Seton scaled the heights of holiness and service to God and neighbor.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":109362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1187],"tags":[4063,4064],"class_list":["post-109327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seton-reflections","tag-blessed-pier-girogio-frassati","tag-mountain"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n