Vigils Reading – St Alphonsus Ligouri

A reading by Jean Delumeau on

ST ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

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Alphonsus’ destiny was not an ordinary one. Born into the Neapolitan

nobility [in 1696], the son of a military man, a highly gifted student who was

drawn to music, painting, drawing, and architecture, he became a lawyer at

sixteen. Naples admired this brilliant young man…who mingled with the finest

intellects of the city. The Neapolitans were surprised when he became a priest

against the will of his authoritarian father, and utterly amazed when they

discovered him in the poorest neighborhoods, preaching to the illiterate in

remarkable evening sermons.

One day, to the surprise of nearly everyone, he fled from Naples on a

donkey to consecrate his life to preaching missions in the most abandoned rural

areas. But it was difficult to found a new religious congregation [since] there

were already too many secular and regular priests and too many convents in this

poor and badly administered country. He had to return to Naples far more often

than he wanted to plead as a lawyer for the survival of his fragile institution, [the

Redemptorists]. Badly shaved or unshaven, he argued endlessly, in his patched

cassock, with government ministers who respected him and considered him a

saint but who did not always give in to him.

[Once established in the rural areas, he found] that country-people, and

particularly those from the most backward regions, were under-Christianized,

[and he] decided to devote [his] life to them and forbade [his] disciples to

preach in the big cities. [He] did not neglect even the most modest hamlets and

eliminated all embellishments and complexities from [his] preaching. [He]

insisted more on catechism than on eloquence and aimed at simplicity with

simple people. This was the reason for [his] popularity.

Alphonsus’ originality lay in the fact that he was a musician, having

frequented as a boy the Oratorians in Naples who preserved and developed the

musical tradition started by Saint Philip Neri…

Two tragic paradoxes marked the last thirty-five years of his life. He had

sworn to himself that he would not become a bishop, but he had to accept the

nomination on direct orders from Rome, where echoes of his saintliness had

spread. Having finally succeeded in resigning from the bishopric for health

reasons, he had hoped to end his days peacefully among his [religious] “sons”.

By the time of his death [in 1787, at 91 years of age], he had been excluded,

together with his Neapolitan brothers, from the Congregation he had founded.

Rome recognized only the Redemptorists of the Papal States and excluded from

the Congregation those who continued to live and work further south.

It was not easy to be a saint, not easy to cut oneself off from a brilliant

social milieu, or to go against a father’s will, or to argue inch-by-inch with

Church and State. Above all it was not easy to fight against oneself as Alphonsus

did, for he was by nature quick-tempered and strong-willed. He was very hard

on himself, but his spiritual message to others was one of trust, hope and

moderation. He was tormented by scruples but he tried to preserve others from

them. He gained self-mastery through fasting, mortification, work, and lack of

sleep, so that he was generally seen by others as having a “heavenly face…gentle,

joyful, and kind.”