If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. The extreme difficulty of the lifelong work of fashioning a saint consists precisely in this, that every act of virtue the saint performs goes to strengthen his character, that is, his will. Could he have been what an Anglo-Saxon would consider a miracle of calm, he would have seemed to his companions absolutely inhuman. The Saint's mother was of Spanish descent, and if, as there can be little doubt, race is an element in individual character, we may see in Alphonsus's Spanish blood some explanation of the enormous tenacity of purpose which distinguished him from his earliest years. St. Alphonsus Liguori was an Italian Catholic bishop, spiritual writer, composer, musician, artist, poet, lawyer, scholastic philosopher, and theologian. APA citation. He founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists). His austerities were rigorous, and he suffered daily the pain from rheumatism that was beginning to deform his body. Here he discovered more than thirty thousand uninstructed men and women and four hundred indifferent priests. Alphonsus's father, Don Joseph de' Liguori was a naval officer and Captain of the Royal Galleys. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. In the second edition the work received the definite form it has since retained, though in later issues the Saint retracted a number of opinions, corrected minor ones, and worked at the statement of his theory of Equiprobabilism till at last he considered it complete. The differentia of saints is not faultlessness but driving-power, a driving-power exerted in generous self-sacrifice and ardent love of God. Educated at the University of Naples, Alphonsus received his doctorate at the age of sixteen. The boy was bright and quick beyond his years, and made great progress in all kinds of learning. After a short interval--we do not know exactly how long--the answer came. The immediate author of what was practically a lifelong persecution of the Saint was the Marquis Tanucci, who entered Naples in 1734. Tradues em contexto de "Mary of Liguori" en ingls-portugus da Reverso Context : The Holy Church honors the priest and the priest must honor the Church with the holiness of his life - proposed St. Alphonsus Mary of Liguori on the day of his Ordination - with zeal, with work and with decorum. (London, 1904). Preaching, Eugene Grimm ed., Benziger Brothers, New York, 1887, Liguori, Alphonsus. They followed this gifted preacher from church to church and town to town to hear him give a message of hope in Christ for all people. St. Alphonsus was so scrupulous about truth that when, in 1776, the regalist, Mgr. He came from a wealthy family in Naples, Italy, and had every advantage in life from the moment he was born in 1696. A religious founder, consummate theologian, and holy man of God, Saint Alphonsus never failed to utter a stirring word that draws out a lively penitence and redoubled dedication to the work of God from his congregation. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01334a.htm. It will be remembered that even as a young man his chief distress at his breakdown in court was the fear that his mistake might be ascribed to deceit. So many times I have sinned, but I repent sincerely because I love you. He was declared "Venerable", 4 May, 1796; was beatified in 1816, and canonized in 1839. The poor advocate turned pale. He is credited with the position of Aequiprobabilism, which avoided Jansenist rigorism as well as laxism and simple probabilism. When he heard from her of the devotion of the Rosary, which she practiced, and the letter she had received, he ordered all the others to repeatit, and it is related that this monastery became a paradise. The version with Italian lyrics was based on his original song written in Neapolitan, which began Quanno nascette Ninno ("When the child was born"). The Holy Mass, Eugene Grimm ed., Benziger Brothers, New York, 1887, Liguori, Alphonsus. In 1762 he was appointed Bishop of Sant'Agata dei Goti. St. Louis, MO 63106 | [email protected] | Tel: (314) 533-0304. Feast Day: August 1. There are two Sunday services, one at 8:15 and the second at 11. Other saints and servants of God were those of Alphonsus's own household, the lay brother, St. Gerard Majella, who died in 1755, and Januarius Sarnelli, Csar Sportelli, Dominic Blasucci, and Maria Celeste, all of whom have been declared "Venerable" by the Church. He was born Alphonsus Marie Antony John Cosmos Damien Michael Gaspard de Liguori on September 27,1696, at Marianella, near Naples, Italy. On 21 December of the same year, at the age of thirty, he was ordained priest. If in some things Alphonsus was an Anglo-Saxon, in others he was a Neapolitan of the Neapolitans, though always a saint. What are Revelations? Saint Alphonsus Liguori. Not less remarkable than the intensity with which Alphonsus worked is the amount of work he did. In addition his father made him practice the harpsichord for three hours a day, and at the age of thirteen he played with the perfection of a master. In fact, despite his youth, he seems at the age of twenty-seven to have been one of the leaders of the Neapolitan Bar. Though a good dogmatic theologian--a fact which has not been sufficiently recognized--he was not a metaphysician like the great scholastics. For six years he laboured in and around Naples, giving missions for the Propaganda and preaching to the lazzaroni of the capital. He was a lawyer, not only during his years at the Bar, but throughout his whole life--a lawyer, who to skilled advocacy and an enormous knowledge of practical detail added a wide and luminous hold of underlying principles. The Government throughout had recognized the good effect of his missions, but it wished the missionaries to be secular priests and not a religious order. They also fought Jansenism, a heresy that preached an excessive moral rigorism: "the penitents should be treated as souls to be saved rather than as criminals to be punished". There was a considerable difference in age between the two men, for Falcoia, born in 1663, was now sixty-six, and Alphonsus only thirty-three, but the old priest and the young had kindred souls. She became known in religion as Sister Maria Celeste. The Saint's confessor declared that he preserved his baptismal innocence till death. I have been mistaken. As it was, he was refused the royal exequatur to the Brief of Benedict XIV, and State recognition of his Institute as a religious congregation till the day of his death. In early manhood he became very fond of the opera, but only that he might listen to the music, for when the curtain went up he took his glasses off, so as not to see the players distinctly. Saint Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori, C.Ss.R. In the year 1747, King Charles of Naples wished to make Alphonsus Archbishop of Palermo, and it was only by the most earnest entreaties that he was able to escape. Father Francis de Paula, one of the chief appellants, was appointed their Superior General, "in place of those", so the brief ran, "who being higher superiors of the said Congregation have with their followers adopted a new system essentially different from the old, and have deserted the Institute in which they were professed, and have thereby ceased to be members of the Congregation." While the continual intensity of reiterated acts of virtue which we have called driving-power is what really creates sanctity, there is another indispensable quality. Ultimately, however, anything merely human in this had disappeared. In old age he was more than once raised in the air when speaking of God. Infidelity and impiety were gaining ground; Voltaire and Rousseau were the idols of society; and the ancien rgime, by undermining religion, its one support, was tottering to its fall. He opposed sterile legalism and strict rigourism. Dissension within the congregation culminated in 1777 when he was deceived into signing what he thought was a royal sanction for his rule. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Omissions? From the year 1759 two former benefactors of the Congregation, Baron Sarnelli and Francis Maffei, by one of those changes not uncommon in Naples, had become its bitter enemies, and waged a vendetta against it in the law courts which lasted for twenty-four years. In a civil action a serious preponderance of evidence gives one side the case. He submitted the new Rule to a number of theologians, who approved of it, and said it might be adopted in the convent of Scala, provided the community would accept it. Pure probabilism likens it to a criminal trial, in which the jury must find in favour of liberty (the prisoner at the bar) if any single reasonable doubt whatever remain in its favour. One of the most widely read Catholic authors, he is the patron saint of confessors. It is the following of Jesus as a community of disciples, aware that we are sent to be a clear . Resuming the General Audiences after the summer break the last was held on 27 June in the Vatican the Pope . In 1871 he was named a doctor of the church by Pope Pius IX. He knew that trials were before him. A year of trouble and anxiety followed. St Alphonsus Mary Liguori and Prayer. Printable Catholic Saints PDFs In the minutes it was The wine had changed into blood; clotted and separated into 5 different sized clots. The family was of noble lineage, but the branch to which Liguori belonged had become somewhat impoverished. On 28 August, 1723, the young advocate had gone to perform a favourite act of charity by visiting the sick in the Hospital for Incurables. It is a matter for friendly controversy, but it seems there was a real difference, though not as great in practice as is supposed, between the Saint's later teaching and that current in the Society. Patron saint of: people with arthritis, lawyers, vocations. One branch of the new Institute seen by Falcoia in vision was thus established. But one may easily overcrowd a narrow canvas and it is better in so slight a sketch to leave the central figure in solitary relief. Still there was a time of danger. Paths to Heaven; Revelations. In December, 1724, he received minor orders, and the subdiaconate in September, 1725. A centenary edition, Lettere di S. Alfonso Maria de'Liguori (ROME, 1887, 3 vols. Still it must in fairness be admitted that all priests are not great theologians able to estimate intrinsic probability at its true worth, and the Church herself might be held to have conceded something to pure probabilism by the unprecedented honours she paid to the Saint in her Decree of 22 July, 1831, which allows confessors to follow any of St. Alphonsus's own opinions without weighing the reasons on which they were based. [7] At 27, after having lost an important case, the first he had lost in eight years of practising law, he made a firm resolution to leave the profession of law. He had to endure a real persecution for two months. Alphonsus, assisted by divine grace, did not disappoint his father's care. "Let us have it." He said: "I have never preached a sermon which the poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand". Visiting the local Hospital for Incurables on August 28, 1723, he had a vision and was told to consecrate his life solely to God. The German life, DILGSKRON, Leben des heiligen Bischofs und Kirchenlehrers, Alfonsus Maria de Liguori (New York, 1887), is scholarly and accurate. Liguori wrote 111 works on spirituality and theology. Not many details have come down to us of Alphonsus's childhood. In addition, he published many editions of compendiums of his larger work, such as the "Homo Apostolicus", made in 1759. Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. While affecting to treat the novice with severity and to take no notice of her visions, the director was surprised to find that the Rule which she had written down was a realization of what had been so long in his mind. Actually, the document was a new rule devised by one of his enemies, thus causing the followers of the old rule to break away. Finally, St. Alphonsus was a wonderful letter-writer, and the mere salvage of his correspondence amounts to 1,451 letters, filling three large volumes. By age nineteen he was practicing law, but he saw the transitory nature of the secular world, and after a brief time, retreated from the law courts and his fame. I will love you all my life. Alphonsus was a devoted friend of the Society of Jesus and its long persecution by the Bourbon Courts, ending in its suppression in 1773, filled him with grief. In September of the next year he received the tonsure and soon after joined the association of missionary secular priests called the "Neapolitan Propaganda", membership of which did not entail residence in common. Beatified: September 15, 1816. Saint Alphonsus Liguori; Revelation Delivered Through Frances Marie Klug St. Alphonsus, however, did not in all things follow their teaching, especially on one point much debated in the schools; namely, whether we may in practice follow an opinion which denies a moral obligation, when the opinion which affirms a moral obligation seems to us to be altogether more probable. In February, 1775, however, Pius VI was elected Pope, and the following May he permitted the Saint to resign his see. In 1725, while still a novice, she had a series of visions in which she saw a new order (apparently of nuns only) similar to that revealed to Falcoia many years before. Even the baleful shadow of Voltaire falls across the Saint's life, for Alphonsus wrote to congratulate him on a conversion, which alas, never took place! It was comparatively late in life that Alphonsus became a writer. MIRACLES RELATED BY ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI from his book The Glories of Mary Some persons, boasting of being free from prejudices, take great credit to themselves for believing no miracles but those recorded in the holy scriptures, esteeming all others as tales and fables for foolish women. In 1949, the Redemptorists founded the Alphonsian Academy for the advanced study of Catholic moral theology. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Herbermann, Charles, ed. He knew how to reach ordinary people who had limited education and very real needs. The difficulty about strong wills and strong passions is that they are hard to tame, but when they are tamed they are the raw material of sanctity. Raised in a pious home, Alphonsus went on retreats with his father, Don Joseph, who was a naval officer and a captain of the Royal Galleys. [8] Moreover, Liguori viewed scruples as a blessing at times and wrote: "Scruples are useful in the beginning of conversion. they cleanse the soul, and at the same time make it careful". Deposed and excluded from his own congregation, Alphonsus suffered great anguish. [5], A gifted musician and composer, he wrote many popular hymns and taught them to the people in parish missions. This combination of practical common sense with extraordinary energy in administrative work ought to make Alphonsus, if he were better known, particularly attractive to the English-speaking nations, especially as he is so modern a saint. First Station: Jesus Is Condemned to Death V. We adore you, Christ, and we praise you. With the aid of two laymen, Peter Barbarese, a schoolmaster, and Nardone, an old soldier, both of whom he converted from an evil life, he enrolled thousands of lazzaroni in a sort of confraternity called the "Association of the Chapels", which exists to this day. Testa, the Grand Almoner, even to have his Rule approved. But as he drew up a rule for them, formed from that of the Visitation nuns, he does not seem to have had any clear idea of establishing the new institute of his vision. St. Paul of the Cross (1694-1775) and St. Alphonsus, who were altogether contemporaries, seem never to have met on earth, though the founder of the Passionists was a great friend of Alphonsus's uncle, Mgr. Alphonsus suffers great interior trials. Perhaps in any case the submission of their Rule to a suspicious and even hostile civil power was a mistake. . SVO), gives an extremely full and picturesque account of the Saint's life and times. In 1724, soon after Alphonsus left the world, a postulant, Julia Crostarosa, born in Naples on 31 October, 1696, and hence almost the same age as the Saint, entered the convent of Scala. But how was Alphonsus to grow in this so necessary virtue when he was in authority nearly all his life? He was named the patron of confessors and moral theologians by Pope Pius XII on 26 April 1950, who subsequently wrote of him in the encyclical Haurietis aquas. His system of moral theology is noted for its prudence, avoiding both laxism and excessive rigour. In 1762 he was appointed Bishop of Sant'Agata dei Goti. A respected opponent was the redoubtable Dominican controversialist, P. Vincenzo Patuzzi, while to make up for hard blows we have another Dominican, P. Caputo, President of Alphonsus's seminary and a devoted helper in his work of reform. In 1732 he founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, or the Redemptorists, at Scala.