He was a born leader of men. [7] It was there that he began his missionary experience in the interior regions of the Kingdom of Naples, where he found people who were much poorer and more abandoned than any of the street children in Naples. Yet, to take anger alone, though comparatively early in life he seemed dead to insult or injury which affected himself, in cases of cruelty, or of injustice to others, or of dishonour to God, he showed a prophet's indignation even in old age. 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. 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. The rudder is humility, which, in the intellect, is a realization of our own unworthiness, and in the will, docility to right guidance. He came from a wealthy family in Naples, Italy, and had every advantage in life from the moment he was born in 1696. He is said never to have refused absolution to a penitent. Alphonsus was what we call a "gifted" student today. The days were indeed evil. More than once he faced assassination unmoved. Filingeri, was made Archbishop of Naples, the Saint would not write to congratulate the new primate, even at the risk of making another powerful enemy for his persecuted Congregation, because he thought he could not honestly say he "was glad to hear of the appointment." Believe me who have experienced it, and now weep over it." "You have founded the Congregation and you have destroyed it", said one Father to him. . A pure and modest boyhood passed into a manhood without reproach. The English translation in the Oratory Series is also rather inadequate. St. Louis, MO 63106 | parish130@archstl.org | Tel: (314) 533-0304. He both made and kept a vow not to lose a single moment of time. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. Feast day: August 1. He founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists). See also HASSALL, The Balance of Power (1715-89) (London, 1901); COLLETTA, History of the Kingdom of Naples, 1734-1825, 2 vols., tr. Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. Castle, Harold. About three years before his death he went through a veritable "Night of the Soul". He founded the congregation with the charism of preaching popular missions in the city and the countryside. Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! After 1752 Alphonsus gave fewer missions. He often writes as a Neapolitan to Neapolitans. He died on the very eve of the great Revolution which was to sweep the persecutors away, having seen in vision the woes which the French invasion of 1798 was to bring on Naples. Alphonsus himself was not spared. ), was published by P. KUNTZ, C.SS.R., director of the Roman archives of his Congregation. No doubt Thomas Falcoia had for some time hoped that the ardent young priest, who was so devoted to him, might, under his direction, be the founder of the new Order he had at heart. God, however, intended the new institute to begin with these nuns of Scala. There is a somewhat unsatisfactory French translation of Tannoia's work. In fact, despite his youth, he seems at the age of twenty-seven to have been one of the leaders of the Neapolitan Bar. At all events, it proved disastrous in the result. The priest was Alphonsus. Alphonsus Liguori, Saint, b. at Marianella, near Naples, September 27, 1696; d. at Nocera de' Pagani, . [7], On 9 November 1732, he founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer,[10] when Sister Maria Celeste Crostarosa told him that it had been revealed to her that he was the one that God had chosen to found the congregation. Even if there be some exaggeration in this, for it is not in an advocate's power always to be on the winning side, the tradition shows that he was extraordinarily able and successful. The saints are not inhuman but real men of flesh and . At his General Audience, 30 March 2011, in St. Peter's Square, the Holy Father presented Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church. Resuming the General Audiences after the summer break the last was held on 27 June in the Vatican the Pope . There are two Sunday services, one at 8:15 and the second at 11. My email address is webmaster at newadvent.org. By 1777, the Saint, in addition to four houses in Naples and one in Sicily, had four others at Scifelli, Frosinone, St. Angelo a Cupolo, and Beneventum, in the States of the Church. A piece of evidence was handed to him which he had read and re-read many times, but always in a sense the exact contrary of that which he now saw it to have. In 1723 there was a lawsuit in the courts between a Neapolitan nobleman, whose name has not come down to us, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in which property valued at 500,000 ducats, that to say, $500,000 or 100,000 pounds, was at stake. He said: "I have never preached a sermon which the poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand". In the end a compromise was arrived at. Tannoia was born about 1724 and entered the Redemptorist Congregation in 1746. In 1780, Alphonsus was tricked into signing a submission for royal approval of his congregation. But before he called a witness the opposing counsel said to him in chilling tones: "Your arguments are wasted breath. At three different times in his missions, while preaching, a ray of light from a picture of Our Lady darted towards him, and he fell into an ecstasy before the people. He answered emphatically: "Never! I have been mistaken. This has recently been translated into English with additions and corrections (Dublin, 2 vols., royal SVO); DUMORTIER, Les premihres Redemptoristines (Lille, 1886), and Le Phre Antoine-Marie Tannoia (Paris, 1902), contain some useful information; as does BERRUTI, Lo Spirito di S. Alfonso Maria de Liguori, 3 ed. a fresh vision of Sister Maria Celeste seemed to show that such was the will of God. 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. 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. 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. This is the great question of "Probabilism". APA citation. Shop St. Alphonsus Marie Liguori. Alphonsus Liguori, CSsR (27 September 1696 - 1 August 1787), sometimes called Alphonsus Maria de Liguori or Saint Alphonsus Liguori, was an Italian Catholic bishop, spiritual writer, composer, musician, artist, poet, lawyer, scholastic philosopher, and theologian. He fell into a clairvoyant trance at Arienzo on 21 September, 1774, and was present in spirit at the death-bed in Rome of Pope Clement XIV. To come to saints, the great Jesuit missionary St. Francis di Geronimo took the little Alphonsus in his arms, blessed him, and prophesied that he would do great work for God; while a Franciscan, St. John Joseph of the Cross, was well known to Alphonsus in later life. Dissension within the congregation culminated in 1777 when he was deceived into signing what he thought was a royal sanction for his rule. Stay up to date with the latest news, information, and special offers. In 1871, Alphonsus was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX. The favors and graces by which God attested his sanctity 526 CHAPTER XXXVI. Neapolitan students, in an animated but amicable discussion, seem to foreign eyes to be taking part in a violent quarrel. In vain those around him and even the judge on the bench tried to console him. St. Alphonsus as a moral theologian occupies the golden mean between the schools tending either to laxity or to rigour which divided the theological world of his time. 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. Vague rumours of impending treachery had got about and had been made known to him, but he had refused to believe them. 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. He is credited with the position of Aequiprobabilism, which avoided Jansenist rigorism as well as laxism and simple probabilism. Furthermore, St. Alphonsus was a great theologian, and so attached much weight to intrinsic probability. [5] He remarked later that he was so small at the time that he was almost buried in his doctor's gown and that all the spectators laughed. Soon after this the boy began his studies for the Bar, and about the age of nineteen practised his profession in the courts. The Saint only wept in silence and tried in vain to devise some means by which his Order might be saved. From 1726 to 1752, first as a member of the Neapolitan "Propaganda", and then as a leader of his own Fathers, he traversed the provinces of Naples for the greater part of each year giving missions even in the smallest villages and saving many souls. In 1762 he was appointed Bishop of Sant'Agata dei Goti. "St. Alphonsus Liguori." He was not allowed to resign his see, however, until 1775. In bestowing the title of "Prince of Moral Theologians", the church also gave the "unprecedented honour 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". 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 Vicar General, Monsignor Onorati drew up the minutes of the diocesan trial which lasted two years from 1772 to 1774. This Novena for the Holy Souls in Purgatory was written by St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), a bishop and founder of the Redemptorist order, and one of the Doctors of the Church. 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. An attack of rheumatic fever, from May 1768 to June 1769, left him paralyzed. He continued to live with the Redemptorist community in Pagani, Italy, where he died on 1 August 1787. In the end the Rule was so altered as to be hardly recognizable, the very vows of religion being abolished. It was this which gave St. Alphonsus the bent head which we notice in the portraits of him. In 1762, there was no escape and he was constrained by formal obedience to the Pope to accept the Bishopric of St. Agatha of the Goths, a very small Neapolitan diocese lying a few miles off the road from Naples to Capua. . The immediate author of what was practically a lifelong persecution of the Saint was the Marquis Tanucci, who entered Naples in 1734. Falcoia, hearing of this, begged his friend to give a retreat to the nuns of his Conservatorium at the same time. On 3 October, 1731, the eve of the feast of St. Francis, she saw Our Lord with St. Francis on His right hand and a priest on His left. He was thinking of leaving the profession and wrote to someone, "My friend, our profession is too full of difficulties and dangers; we lead an unhappy life and run risk of dying an unhappy death". (London, 1904). An English translation in five volumes is included in the 22 volumes of the American centenary edition of St. Alphonsus's ascetical works (New York). 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 spent several years having to drink from tubes because his head was so bent forward. 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. In April 1729, the Apostle of China, Matthew Ripa, founded a missionary college in Naples, which became known colloquially as the "Chinese College".
My Mister Ending Explained, Fictional Characters Named August, 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee Solenoid Wire, British Gymnastics Proficiency Awards Certificates, Mark Willard Obituary, Articles S