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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260801
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DTSTAMP:20260726T120218Z
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UID:15301-1785542400-1785628799@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - St Alphonsus Ligouri
DESCRIPTION:A reading by Jean Delumeau on \nST ALPHONSUS LIGOURI \n◊◊◊ \nAlphonsus’ destiny was not an ordinary one. Born into the Neapolitan \nnobility [in 1696]\, the son of a military man\, a highly gifted student who was \ndrawn to music\, painting\, drawing\, and architecture\, he became a lawyer at \nsixteen. Naples admired this brilliant young man…who mingled with the finest \nintellects of the city. The Neapolitans were surprised when he became a priest \nagainst the will of his authoritarian father\, and utterly amazed when they \ndiscovered him in the poorest neighborhoods\, preaching to the illiterate in \nremarkable evening sermons. \nOne day\, to the surprise of nearly everyone\, he fled from Naples on a \ndonkey to consecrate his life to preaching missions in the most abandoned rural \nareas. But it was difficult to found a new religious congregation [since] there \nwere already too many secular and regular priests and too many convents in this \npoor and badly administered country. He had to return to Naples far more often \nthan he wanted to plead as a lawyer for the survival of his fragile institution\, [the \nRedemptorists]. Badly shaved or unshaven\, he argued endlessly\, in his patched \ncassock\, with government ministers who respected him and considered him a \nsaint but who did not always give in to him. \n[Once established in the rural areas\, he found] that country-people\, and \nparticularly those from the most backward regions\, were under-Christianized\, \n[and he] decided to devote [his] life to them and forbade [his] disciples to \npreach in the big cities. [He] did not neglect even the most modest hamlets and \neliminated all embellishments and complexities from [his] preaching. [He] \ninsisted more on catechism than on eloquence and aimed at simplicity with \nsimple people. This was the reason for [his] popularity. \nAlphonsus’ originality lay in the fact that he was a musician\, having \nfrequented as a boy the Oratorians in Naples who preserved and developed the \nmusical tradition started by Saint Philip Neri… \nTwo tragic paradoxes marked the last thirty-five years of his life. He had \nsworn to himself that he would not become a bishop\, but he had to accept the \nnomination on direct orders from Rome\, where echoes of his saintliness had \nspread. Having finally succeeded in resigning from the bishopric for health \nreasons\, he had hoped to end his days peacefully among his [religious] “sons”. \nBy the time of his death [in 1787\, at 91 years of age]\, he had been excluded\, \ntogether with his Neapolitan brothers\, from the Congregation he had founded. \nRome recognized only the Redemptorists of the Papal States and excluded from \nthe Congregation those who continued to live and work further south. \nIt was not easy to be a saint\, not easy to cut oneself off from a brilliant \nsocial milieu\, or to go against a father’s will\, or to argue inch-by-inch with \nChurch and State. Above all it was not easy to fight against oneself as Alphonsus \ndid\, for he was by nature quick-tempered and strong-willed. He was very hard \non himself\, but his spiritual message to others was one of trust\, hope and \nmoderation. He was tormented by scruples but he tried to preserve others from \nthem. He gained self-mastery through fasting\, mortification\, work\, and lack of \nsleep\, so that he was generally seen by others as having a “heavenly face…gentle\, \njoyful\, and kind.”
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-st-alphonsus-ligouri-5/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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