There are two things that anyone who knows Pier Giorgio knows about Pier Giorgio: he loved God and he loved life.
What fewer people recognize about Pier Giorgio is that he also loved the late medieval poet Dante Alighieri, known primarily for his work, The Divine Comedy, which just happens to be one of the most formative works of poetry in Western civilization.
While this may not be surprising that the Italian boy was familiar with and loved the most famous Italian work of literature in the language’s history, consider that Pier Giorgio was not the greatest student in his short life and that many of his formative years were spent out of the country because of his father’s work as a diplomat.
However, once you really invest in reading and understanding Dante, especially the third portion of his Comedy, Paradiso, you will not be surprised by Pier's love for the poet and his most famous work.
The biography of Pier Giorgio’s life, A Man of the Beatitudes: Pier Giorgio Frassati, written by his sister Luciana, cites multiple examples of Pier signing (page 41), referencing (87 and 92), and celebrating Dante Alighieri (78). This is due to what Luciana describes as his “deep understanding of Dante” (46).
While one could attribute all of these to just a patriotic, well-read young man, one really should ask why Pier Giorgio continues to draw specifically from the well of Dante.
The beginning of this post made the obvious statement that Blessed Pier Giorgio loved God, loved life, and loved Dante. What is less obvious is that he loved these three things because they are all closely related.
God is the author of our individual lives and life itself.
Every good that is part of what it means to be alive is presented completely and perfectly in God. To say something is alive is to say it is more like God. When a person truly loves God, that person will love life itself even when that life involves difficulties.
Dante breathed life into everything he wrote because he often wrote about God, or things closely related to God, or tried to see God present in everything.
Pier Giorgio was famously called “a man of the beatitudes” at his beatification Mass by Pope Saint John Paul II. He made his journey on earth one of constant contact with and service for those in need wherever he was.
Fittingly, he also enjoyed the strenuous physical journey up the many mountains of Italy. Both of these elements of his life come together in Dante’s second leg of the Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, which sees a pilgrim climb up a mountain of purification from sin to virtue in order to be prepared for an eventual flight amongst the stars of heaven.
Pier Giorgio, like Dante, was scaling a much greater mountain than the Alps when he was here on earth, so that when he died, he would be ready for an even greater ascent.
The beatitudes themselves, found in Matt. 5:1-12, are so-called because those who live them out are truly “blessed” from God’s perspective. They subvert conventional wisdom about who is blessed and cursed, so in order to accept the beatitudes as true, one needs to accept the Source of them, Jesus Christ.
Dante imagines the life of the blessed in heaven in his final section of the Divine Comedy, Paradiso, and it is one of movement, which means that it is full of life.
Pier Giorgio was constantly moving because he was driven to serve by his love of Jesus Christ, which he found as much in the poor as he did in the Eucharist, and his generous spirit. Because he was so filled with life, the life of God by sanctifying grace, he wanted to share that life. He did this through his love.