), was published by P. KUNTZ, C.SS.R., director of the Roman archives of his Congregation. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. His promotion to the episcopate in 1762 led to a renewal of his missionary activity, but in a slightly different form. To this Alphonsus by the advice of his director, Father Thomas Pagano, himself an Oratorian, agreed. Though St. Alphonsus was founder and de facto head of the Institute, its general direction in the beginning, as well as the direction of Alphonsus's conscience, was undertaken by the Bishop of Castellamare and it was not till the latter's death, 20 April, 1743, that a general chapter was held and the Saint was formally elected Superior-General. He often writes as a Neapolitan to Neapolitans. He both made and kept a vow not to lose a single moment of time. at last came peace, and on 1 August, 1787, as the midday Angelus was ringing, the Saint passed peacefully to his reward. The Saint's complete dogmatic works have been translated into Latin by P. WALTER, C.SS.R., S. Alphonsi Mariae de Liguori Ecclesiae Doctoris Opera Dogmatica, (New York, 1903, 2 vols., 4to). He continued to live with the Redemptorist community in Pagani, Italy, where he died on 1 August 1787. The English translation in the Oratory Series is also rather inadequate. At the time of his death, there were 72, with over 10,000 active participants. Catholic Encyclopedia. [4], Liguori learned to ride and fence but was never a good shot because of poor eyesight. For three days he refused all food. He had nearly completed his ninety-first year. The suffering which this brought on Alphonsus, with his sensitive and high-strung disposition, was very great, besides what was worse, the relaxation of discipline and loss of vocations which it caused in the Order itself. He was born Alphonsus Marie Antony John Cosmos Damien Michael Gaspard de Liguori on September 27,1696, at Marianella, near Naples, Italy. His spirituality was both affective and active, centered above all on the passion of Jesus Christ as the principal sign of our Savior's love for us. The Catholic Encyclopedia. But he overcame his depression, and he experienced visions, performed miracles, and gave prophecies. Had it happened a few years later, the new Government might have found the Redemptorist Congregation already authorized, and as Tanucci's anti-clerical policy rather showed itself in forbidding new Orders than, with the exception of the Society of Jesus, in suppressing old ones, the Saint might have been free to develop his work in comparative peace. 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. 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". Much of the material for a complete life of St. Alphonsus is still in manuscript in the Roman archives of the Redemptorist Congregation and in the archives of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars. 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. After a short interval--we do not know exactly how long--the answer came. He became very popular because of his plain and simple preaching. A fearful commotion arose. It saw only recently its first publication in translation, in an English translation made by Ryan Grant and published in 2017 by Mediatrix Press. In liturgical art he is depicted as bent over with rheumatism or as a young priest. 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." When we cannot make it to daily Mass, however, we can still make an Act of Spiritual Communion. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01334a.htm. Thus was he left free for his real work, the founding of a new religious congregation. 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". http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01334a.htm. In 1732 he founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, or the Redemptorists, at Scala. Dissension within the congregation culminated in 1777 when he was deceived into signing what he thought was a royal sanction for his rule. Many years before, in Rome, Falcoia had been shown a vision of a new religious family of men and women whose particular aim should be the perfect imitation of the virtues of Our Lord. The Holy Father addressed the faithful taking part in the General audience of Wednesday, 1 August [2012], in Piazza della Libert, the square outside the Papal residence in Castel Gandolfo. Blessed Clement Hofbauer joined the Redemptorist congregation in the aged Saint's lifetime, though Alphonsus never saw in the flesh the man whom he knew would be the second founder of his Order. Alphonsus the Patron. A prolific writer, he published nine editions of his Moral Theology in his lifetime, in addition to other devotional and ascetic works and letters. 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. Ultimately, however, anything merely human in this had disappeared. In 1762 he was appointed Bishop of Sant'Agata dei Goti. But when the question was put to the community, opposition began. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. Omissions? This involves expressing our faith in Christ and in His Presence in the Eucharist, and asking Him to unite Himself with us. He had even tried to form a branch of the Institute by uniting twelve priests in a common life at Tarentum, but the community soon broke up. Testa, the Grand Almoner, even to have his Rule approved. Neapolitan students, in an animated but amicable discussion, seem to foreign eyes to be taking part in a violent quarrel. His masterpiece was The Moral Theology (1748), which was approved by the Pope himself[5] and was born of Liguori's pastoral experience, his ability to respond to the practical questions posed by the faithful and his contact with their everyday problems. He was not allowed to resign his see, however, until 1775. There are two Sunday services, one at 8:15 and the second at 11. [10] He was proficient in the arts, his parents having had him trained by various masters, and he was a musician, painter, poet and author at the same time. 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). He could never have said Mass again had not an Augustinian prior shown him how to support himself on a chair so that with the assistance of an acolyte he could raise the chalice to his lips. Even when taking him into society in order to arrange a good marriage for him, he wished Alphonsus to put God first, and every year father and son would make a retreat together in some religious house. At his General Audience, 30 March 2011, in St. Peter's Square, the Holy Father presented Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor 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. Paths to Heaven; Revelations. He finally agreed to become a priest but to live at home as a member of a group of secular missionaries. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. After practicing law for eight years, he was ordained a priest in 1726. Office Hours: Mon - Fri: 8am-4pm, Saturday: 9am-12pm . It was this which gave St. Alphonsus the bent head which we notice in the portraits of him. Perhaps in any case the submission of their Rule to a suspicious and even hostile civil power was a mistake. In this state of exclusion he lived for seven years more and in it he died. "Alphonsus was of middle height", says his first biographer, Tannoia; "his head was rather large, his hair black, and beard well-grown." 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. 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. A strong defender of the Catholic Church, Liguori said: To reject the divine teaching of the Catholic Church is to reject the very basis of reason and revelation, for neither the principles of the one nor those of the other have any longer any solid support to rest on; they can then be interpreted by every one as he pleases; every one can deny all truths whatsoever he chooses to deny. The dissensions even spread to the nuns, and Sister Maria Celeste herself left Scala and founded a convent at Foggia, where she died in the odour of sanctity, 14 September, 1755. This submission altered the original rule, and as a result Alphonsus was denied any authority among the Redemptorists. Contact information. Copyright 2022 Catholic Online. In 1780, Alphonsus was tricked into signing a submission for royal approval of his congregation. So the Saint was cut off from his own Order by the Pope who was to declare him "Venerable". He lived his first years as a priest with the homeless and the marginalized youth of Naples. It is not necessary to notice certain non-Catholic attacks on Alphonsus as a patron of lying. That legacy is the participation in the redemptive mission of Jesus. Two days after he was born, he was baptized at the Church of Our Lady the Virgin as Alphonsus Mary Anthony John Cosmas Damian Michael Gaspard de' Liguori.
March 14, 2023