Alphonsus Liguori

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Saint Alphonsus Liguori
St. Alphonsus Liguori, Founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer
Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church
Born	September 27, 1696, Marianella, Kingdom of Naples
Died	August 1, 1787, Pagani, Italy
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Beatified	September 15, 1816, Rome, Italy by Pope Pius VII
Canonized	May 26, 1839, Rome, Italy by Pope Gregory XVI
Feast	Traditional: August 2 Novus Ordo: August 1
Patronage	arthritis, confessors, moralists, theologians, vocations
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Saint Alphonsus Liguori (27 September 1696 – 1 August 1787) was a Roman Catholic bishop, spiritual writer, theologian, and founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as the Redemptorists, an influential religious order. He was canonized as a saint in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI and is a Doctor of the Church.

1 Biography
2 Overview and works
- 2.1 Mariology
- 2.2 Contributions
3 References
4 Books
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Biography

Saint Alphonsus Liguori was born in Marianella, in the Kingdom of Naples. He was the first born of seven belonging to the Neapolitan nobility. Two days after he was born he was baptized at the Church of Our Lady the Virgin as Alphonsus Mary Antony John Cosmas Damian Michael Gaspard de' Liguori^[1]. Liguori went to law school at age sixteen, becoming a very well-known lawyer. He was thinking of leaving the profession, (He 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. For myself, I will quit this career, which does not suit me; for I wish to secure the salvation of my soul.”) ^[2] when at age 27, after having lost an important case, he made up resolution to leave the profession of lawyer.

In 1723, after a long process of discernment, he abandoned his legal career and, despite his father's strong opposition (and reluctant consent), began his seminary studies in preparation for the priesthood in the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. He was ordained a priest on 21 December 1726, at the age of 30. He lived his first years as a priest with the homeless and marginalized youth of Naples. He founded the "Evening Chapels". Run by the young people themselves, these chapels were centers of prayer, community, the Word of God, social activities and education. At the time of his death, there were 72 of these chapels with over 10,000 active participants. His sermons were very effective at converting sinners.

In 1729 Alphonsus left his family home and took up residence in the Chinese College in Naples. 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.

On 9 November 1732 Alphonsus founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, when a nun named Sister Maria Celeste Castarosa (who would later be incorrupt) told him that it was revealed to her that he was the one God have chosen to create the Congregation. This order's goal was to teach and preach in the slums of cities and other poor places. They also fought Jansenism which was a heresy that denied humans free will and barred many Catholics from receiving the Eucharist. He gave himself entirely to this new mission. A companion order of nuns was founded simultaneously by Sister Maria Celeste.

Alphonsus was consecrated bishop of the diocese of Sant'Agata dei Goti in 1762. He tried to refuse the appointment because he felt too old and too sick to properly care for the diocese. During this time he wrote sermons, books, and articles to encourage the devotion of the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1775 he was allowed to retire from his office and went to live in the Redemptorist community in Pagani, Italy where he died on 1 August 1787. He was canonized in 1831 by Pope Gregory XVI, proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1871 by Pope Pius IX He was named Patron of Confessors and Moralists by Pope Pius XII in 1950, who also wrote an encyclical Haurietis Aquas on him.

[edit] Overview and works

Alphonsus was a proficient in the arts--his parents having made him being trained by various masters of the arts--being a musician, painter, poet and author at the same time. He put all his artistic and literary creativity at the service of the Christian mission and he asked the same of those who joined his Congregation. Hagiography says that, in his lay days, he liked to go to the local theater, which at the time had a very bad reputation; after being ordained, each time he attended the recitals Alphonsus simply took his optic glasses off and sat in the last row, listening to the music and not paying attention to anything else.

Alphonsus wrote 111 works on spirituality and theology. The 21,500 editions and the translations into 72 languages that his works have undergone attest to the fact that he is one of the most widely read Catholic authors. Among his best known works are: The Great Means of Prayer, The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, and The Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament. Prayer, love, his relationship with Christ and his first-hand experience of the pastoral needs of the faithful made Alphonsus one of the great masters of the interior life.

His best known musical work is his Christmas hymn Quanno Nascetti Ninno, later translated into Italian by Pope Pius IX as the well known carol Tu scendi dalle stelle (From starry skies Thou comest).

[edit] Mariology

In the field of mariology, Alfonsus Liguori wrote The Glories of Mary, Marian Devotion, Prayers to the Divine Mother, Spiritual Songs, Visitations to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Virgin Mary, The True Spouse of Jesus Christ, and other writings. He was of great influence on Mariology during the Age of Enlightenment. His often flaming Marian enthusiasm contrasted with the cold rationalism of the enlightenment. It is mainly pastoral in nature. His Mariology rediscovers, integrates and defends the Mariology of Augustine and Ambrose of Milan and other fathers and represents a intellectual defence of Mariology in the eighteenth century. ^[3]

[edit] Contributions

Alphonsus' greatest contribution to the Church was in the area of moral theological reflection with his Moral Theology. This work was born of Alphonsus' pastoral experience, his ability to respond to the practical questions posed by the faithful and from his contact with their everyday problems. He opposed the sterile legalism which was suffocating theology and he rejected the strict rigorism of the time, the product of the powerful theological and ecclesiastical elite. According to Alphonsus, those were paths that were closed to the Gospel because "such rigor has never been taught nor practiced by the Church". His system of moral theology is noted for its prudence, avoiding both laxism and excessive rigor. He is credited with the position of equi-probablism, which solved the problem of Jansenistic rigorism while also avoiding the laxness of simple probablism.