Fearful temptations against every virtue crowded upon him, together with diabolical apparitions and illusions, and terrible scruples and impulses to despair which made life a hell. The traditional Stations of the Cross were written by St. Alphonsus Liguori, a bishop and Doctor of the Church, in 1761. This is a historic Catholic Church in mid-town St. Louis. " Wonderful worship experience ". The Saint's own letters are of extreme value in supplementing Tannoia. Theabbot of that monastery soon after visited it, and attempted to reform it, but he didnot succeed; and one day he saw a great number of demons entering the cells of all thenuns except that of Jane, for the heavenly mother, before whose image he saw herpraying, banished them from that. Believe me who have experienced it, and now weep over it." He had a love for the lower animals, and wild creatures who fled from all else would come to him as to a friend. To follow an opinion in favour of liberty without weighing it, merely because it is held by someone else, would have seemed to Alphonsus an abdication of the judicial office with which as a confessor he was invested. Very few remarks upon his own times occur in the Saint's letters. If any reader of this article will go to original sources and study the Saint's life at greater length, he will not find his labour thrown away. Besides his Moral Theology, the Saint wrote a large number of dogmatic and ascetical works nearly all in the vernacular. In April 1729, the Apostle of China, Matthew Ripa, founded a missionary college in Naples, which became known colloquially as the "Chinese College". St. Alphonsus Liguori Born at Marianella, near Naples, 27 September, 1696; died at Nocera de' Pagani, 1 August, 1787. Feast Day: August 1. "Banquets, entertainments, theatres," he wrote later on--"these are the pleasures of the world, but pleasures which are filled with the bitterness of gall and sharp thorns. He was somewhat worldly and ambitious, at any rate for his son, and was rough tempered when opposed. Author and Publisher - Catholic Online at last came peace, and on 1 August, 1787, as the midday Angelus was ringing, the Saint passed peacefully to his reward. It was approved by the king and forced upon the stupefied Congregation by the whole power of the State. Finally, St. Alphonsus was a wonderful letter-writer, and the mere salvage of his correspondence amounts to 1,451 letters, filling three large volumes. 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. It was this which gave St. Alphonsus the bent head which we notice in the portraits of him. St. Alphonsus was a brilliant, articulate, pragmatic preacher. Other personal friends of Alphonsus were the Jesuit Fathers de Matteis, Zaccaria, and Nonnotte. God, however, intended the new institute to begin with these nuns of Scala. 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. 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. He had nearly completed his ninety-first year. Alphonsus was a lawyer, and as a lawyer he attached much importance to the weight of evidence. Thank you. A companion, Balthasar Cito, who afterwards became a distinguished judge, was asked in later years if Alphonsus had ever shown signs of levity in his youth. When we cannot make it to daily Mass, however, we can still make an Act of Spiritual Communion. In 1780, Alphonsus was tricked into signing a submission for royal approval of his congregation. A year of trouble and anxiety followed. When he was preparing for the priesthood in Naples, his masters were of the rigid school, for though the center of Jansenistic disturbance was in northern Europe, no shore was so remote as not to feel the ripple of its waves. His very confessor and vicar general in the government of his Order, Father Andrew Villani, joined in the conspiracy. A centenary edition, Lettere di S. Alfonso Maria de'Liguori (ROME, 1887, 3 vols. 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. The immediate author of what was practically a lifelong persecution of the Saint was the Marquis Tanucci, who entered Naples in 1734. Addeddate There can be little doubt but that the young Alphonsus with his high spirits and strong character was ardently attached to his profession, and on the way to be spoilt by the success and popularity which it brought. Many Miracles are wrought through the intercession of Alphonsus. It was through Louis Florent Gillet, Redemptorist priest and co-founder of the Sisters of IHM that we have been gifted with the legacy of St. Alphonsus Liguori. In 1732 he founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, or the Redemptorists, at Scala. The "Moral Theology", after a historical introduction by the Saint's friend, P. Zaccaria, S.J., which was omitted, however, from the eighth and ninth editions, begins with a treatise "De Conscientia", followed by one "De Legibus". He continued to live with the Redemptorist community in Pagani, Italy, where he died on 1 August 1787. Under the government of the Marquis della Sambuca, who, though a great regalist, was a personal friend of the Saint's, there was promise of better times, and in August, 1779, Alphonsus's hopes were raised by the publication of a royal decree allowing him to appoint superiors in his Congregation and to have a novitiate and house of studies. More than once he faced assassination unmoved. The Holy Mass, Eugene Grimm ed., Benziger Brothers, New York, 1887, Liguori, Alphonsus. St. Alphonsus does not offer as much directly to the student of mystical theology as do some contemplative saints who have led more retired lives. His austerities were rigorous, and he suffered daily the pain from rheumatism that was beginning to deform his body. "What document is that?" To this altered Rule or "Regolamento", as it came to be called, the unsuspecting Saint was induced to put his signature. St. Alphonsus Liguori Catholic Church is known far and wide as "The Rock." The parish is staffed by the Redemptorists, making history in 1922 when it began the weekly novena in honor of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. Liguori wrote 111 works on spirituality and theology. In the minutes it was Three years later he published the first sketch of his "Moral Theology" in a single quarto volume called "Annotations to Busembaum", a celebrated Jesuit moral theologian. Neapolitan students, in an animated but amicable discussion, seem to foreign eyes to be taking part in a violent quarrel. Sarnelli was almost openly supported by the all-powerful Tanucci, and the suppression of the Congregation at last seemed a matter of days, when on 26 October, 1776, Tanucci, who had offended Queen Maria Carolina, suddenly fell from power. He finally agreed to become a priest but to live at home as a member of a group of secular missionaries. St. Alphonsus tell us: "Modern heretics make a mockery of wearing the Scapular, they decry it as so much trifling nonsense." Yet many of the popes have approved and recommended it. He was crushed to the earth. Alphonsus Liguori. Among his best known works are The Glories of Mary and The Way of the Cross, the latter still used in parishes during Lenten devotions. Psychologically, Alphonsus may be classed among twice-born souls; that is to say, there was a definitely marked break or conversion, in his life, in which he turned, not from serious sin, for that he never committed, but from comparative worldliness, to thorough self-sacrifice for God. The childish fault for which he most reproached himself in after-life was resisting his father too strongly when he was told to take part in a drawing-room play. If civil courts could not decide against a defendant on greater probability, but had to wait, as a criminal court must wait, for moral certainty, many actions would never be decided at all. He answered emphatically: "Never! But, before relating the episode of the "Regolamento", as it is called, we must speak of the period of the Saint's episcopate which intervened. He knew that trials were before him. It was this which made him the prince of moral theologians, and gained him, when canonization made it possible, the title of "Doctor of the Church". Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! He both made and kept a vow not to lose a single moment of time. His intercession healed the sick; he read the secrets of hearts, and foretold the future. St. Alphonsus Liguori, in full Saint Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori, Alphonsus also spelled Alfonso, (born September 27, 1696, Marianella, Kingdom of Naples [Italy]died August 1, 1787, Pagani; canonized 1839; feast day August 1), Italian doctor of the church, one of the chief 18th-century moral theologians, and founder of the Redemptorists, a St. Louis, MO 63106 | parish130@archstl.org | Tel: (314) 533-0304. Paths to Heaven; Revelations. Alphonsus being so old and so inform he was eighty-five, crippled, deaf, and nearly blind his one chance of success was to be faithfully served by friends and subordinates, and he was betrayed at every turn. His devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to Our Lady was extraordinary. Now the saint has a very great momentum indeed, and a spoiled saint is often a great villain. In 1762 he was appointed Bishop of Sant'Agata dei Goti. This is the great question of "Probabilism". 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. Alphonsus, assisted by divine grace, did not disappoint his father's care. In 1871, he was declared a Doctor of the Church. Bishop, Doctor of the Church, and the founder of the Redemptorist Congregation. I will love you all my life. He had a tender charity towards all who were in trouble; he would go to any length to try to save a vocation; he would expose himself to death to prevent sin. Suddenly he found himself surrounded by a mysterious light; the house seemed to rock, and an interior voice said: "Leave the world and give thyself to Me." Daily Reading for Sunday, March 5th, 2023, Continue reading about St. Alphonsus Marie Liguori, Almsgiving, Prayer, and Fasting: The Three Pillars of Lent. Pius VI, already deeply displeased with the Neapolitan Government, took the fathers in his own dominions under his special protection, forbade all change of rule in their houses, and even withdrew them from obedience to the Neapolitan superiors, that is to St. Alphonsus, till an inquiry could be held. But we must not push resemblances too far. Of extraordinary passive states, such as rapture, there are not many instances recorded in his life, though there are some. 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. (London, 1904). ); JOHNSTON, The Napoleonic Empire in South Italy, 2 vols. He was a lawyer by the time he was 16 years old! St. Alphonsus, after publishing anonymously (in 1749 and 1755) two treatises advocating the right to follow the less probable opinion, in the end decided against that lawfulness, and in case of doubt only allowed freedom from obligation where the opinions for and against the law were equal or nearly equal. He became very popular because of his plain and simple preaching. . Were the vehement things in his letters and writings, especially in the matter of rebuke or complaint, to appraised as if uttered by an Anglo-Saxon in cold blood, we might be surprised and even shocked.