He was helped in this by his turn of mind which was extremely practical. Updates? But one may easily overcrowd a narrow canvas and it is better in so slight a sketch to leave the central figure in solitary relief. There he met Bishop Thomas Falcoia, founder of the Congregation of Pious Workers. His own prayer was perhaps for the most part what some call "active", others "ordinary", contemplation. His hymns are justly celebrated in Italy. A long process followed in the Court of Rome, and on 22 September, 1780, a provisional Decree, which on 24 August, 1781, was made absolute, recognized the houses in the Papal States as alone constituting the Redemptorist Congregation. 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. Educated at the University of Naples, Alphonsus received his doctorate at the age of sixteen. Believe me who have experienced it, and now weep over it." Don Joseph de' Liguori had his faults. Falcoia, hearing of this, begged his friend to give a retreat to the nuns of his Conservatorium at the same time. Liguoris extensive works fall into three genres: moral theology, best represented by his celebrated Theologia moralis (1748); ascetical and devotional writings, including Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, The True Spouse of Jesus Christ (for nuns), Selva (for priests), and The Glories of Mary, the latter of which became one of the most widely used manuals of devotion to the Virgin Mary; and dogmatic writings on such subjects as papal infallibility and the power of prayer. Alphonsus, like so many saints, had an excellent father and a saintly mother. Alphonsus, assisted by divine grace, did not disappoint his father's care. On 21 December of the same year, at the age of thirty, he was ordained priest. The Neapolitan stage at this time was in a good state, but the Saint had from his earliest years an ascetic repugnance to theatres, a repugnance which he never lost. At the age of sixteen, on 21 January, 1713, he took his degree as Doctor of Laws, although twenty was the age fixed by the statutes. St Alphonsus Mary Liguori and Prayer. Here he discovered more than thirty thousand uninstructed men and women and four hundred indifferent priests. He was ordained on December 21, 1726, and he spent six years giving missions throughout Naples. 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 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. In case things became hopeless in Naples, he looked to these houses to maintain the Rule and Institute. Its goal was to teach and preach in the slums of cities and other poor places. St. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori, Doctor of the Church . Nine editions of the "Moral Theology" appeared in the Saint's life-time, those of 1748, 1753-1755, 1757, 1760, 1763, 1767, 1773, 1779, and 1785, the "Annotations to Busembaum" counting as the first. Confident that some special sacrifice was required of him, though he did not yet know what, he did not return to his profession, but spent his days in prayer, seeking to know God's will. 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. He was not allowed to resign his see, however, until 1775. 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. [8] Moreover, Liguori viewed scruples as a blessing at times and wrote: "Scruples are useful in the beginning of conversion. they cleanse the soul, and at the same time make it careful". In the 12th and 13th centuries, the tradition of praying the stations of the cross began to develop. 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. She was told to write it down and show it to the director of the convent, that is to Falcoia himself. The saints are not inhuman but real men of flesh and . SVO), gives an extremely full and picturesque account of the Saint's life and times. A respected opponent was the redoubtable Dominican controversialist, P. Vincenzo Patuzzi, while to make up for hard blows we have another Dominican, P. Caputo, President of Alphonsus's seminary and a devoted helper in his work of reform. Although the doctors succeeded in straightening the neck a little, the Saint for the rest of his life had to drink at meals through a tube. His very confessor and vicar general in the government of his Order, Father Andrew Villani, joined in the conspiracy. 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. This is the great question of "Probabilism". Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. After 1752 Alphonsus gave fewer missions. In 1732, while he was staying at the Convent of the Consolation, one of his order's houses in the small city of Deliceto in the province of Foggia in Southeastern Italy, Liguori wrote the Italian carol "Tu scendi dalle stelle" ("From Starry Skies Descending") in the musical style of a pastorale. Tradues em contexto de "Mary of Liguori" en ingls-portugus da Reverso Context : The Holy Church honors the priest and the priest must honor the Church with the holiness of his life - proposed St. Alphonsus Mary of Liguori on the day of his Ordination - with zeal, with work and with decorum. He was baptized two days later in the church of Our Lady of the Virgins, in Naples. About the year 1722, when he was twenty-six years old, he began to go constantly into society, to neglect prayer and the practices of piety which had been an integral part of his life, and to take pleasure in the attention with which he was everywhere received. "Banquets, entertainments, theatres," he wrote later on--"these are the pleasures of the world, but pleasures which are filled with the bitterness of gall and sharp thorns. When the day came the future Saint made a brilliant opening speech and sat down confident of victory. Riding and fencing were his recreations, and an evening game of cards; he tells us that he was debarred from being a good shot by his bad sight. 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". Alphonsus, however, stood firm; soon other companions arrived, and though Scala itself was given up by the Fathers in 1738, by 1746 the new Congregation had four houses at Nocera de' Pagani, Ciorani, Iliceto (now Deliceto), and Caposele, all in the Kingdom of Naples. Here with 30,000 uninstructed people, 400 mostly indifferent and sometimes scandalous secular clergy, and seventeen more or less relaxed religious houses to look after, in a field so overgrown with weeds that they seemed the only crop, he wept and prayed and spent days and nights in unremitting labour for thirteen years. Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! 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. Omissions? 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". Mimoires sur la vie et la congrigation de St. Alphonse de Liguori (Paris, 1842, 3 vols.). It is not necessary to notice certain non-Catholic attacks on Alphonsus as a patron of lying. But when the question was put to the community, opposition began. What are Revelations? He opposed sterile legalism and strict rigourism. He did not, as in the past, ask for an exequatur to the Brief of Benedict XIV, for relations at the time were more strained than ever between the Courts of Rome and Naples; but he hoped the king might give an independent sanction to his Rule, provided he waived all legal right to hold property in common, which he was quite prepared to do. 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". In this state of exclusion he lived for seven years more and in it he died. St. Alphonsus Liguori's prayer to Jesus Christ to obtain His holy love comes from the "Rule of Life", a guide for growing in holiness. The Vicar General, Monsignor Onorati drew up the minutes of the diocesan trial which lasted two years from 1772 to 1774. [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. Born: September 27, 1696. The question as to what does or does not constitute a lie is not an easy one, but it is a subject in itself. This was in 1780, when Alphonsus was eighty-three years old. But as he drew up a rule for them, formed from that of the Visitation nuns, he does not seem to have had any clear idea of establishing the new institute of his vision. This combination of practical common sense with extraordinary energy in administrative work ought to make Alphonsus, if he were better known, particularly attractive to the English-speaking nations, especially as he is so modern a saint. As it was, he was refused the royal exequatur to the Brief of Benedict XIV, and State recognition of his Institute as a religious congregation till the day of his death. Alphonsus was not sent to school but was educated by tutors under his father's eye. 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). The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. 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." Addeddate In 1780, Alphonsus was tricked into signing a submission for royal approval of his congregation. Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Paul T. Crowley. Catholic Encyclopedia. It has a tendency at every moment to deflect, and if it does deflect from the right path, the greater the momentum the more terrible the final crash. There are two Sunday services, one at 8:15 and the second at 11. On 1 April, 1733, all the companions of Alphonsus except one lay brother, Vitus Curtius, abandoned him, and founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, which, confined to the Kingdom of Naples, was extinguished in 1860 by the Italian Revolution. Daily Readings for Friday, March 03, 2023, St. Katharine Drexel: Saint of the Day for Friday, March 03, 2023, Lenten Prayer: Prayer of the Day for Monday, February 27, 2023. 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. He was born Alphonsus Marie Antony John Cosmos Damien Michael Gaspard de Liguori on September 27,1696, at Marianella, near Naples, Italy. He was the eldest of seven children and the hope of his house. [5] He founded the Evening Chapels, which were managed by the young people themselves. Not less remarkable than the intensity with which Alphonsus worked is the amount of work he did. A justly celebrated life is the Vie et Institut de Saint Alphonse-Marie de Liguori, in four volumes, by CARDINAL VILLECOURT, (Tournai, 1893). In the eight years of his career as advocate, years crowded with work, he is said never to have lost a case. MIRACLES RELATED BY ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI from his book The Glories of Mary Some persons, boasting of being free from prejudices, take great credit to themselves for believing no miracles but those recorded in the holy scriptures, esteeming all others as tales and fables for foolish women. Alphonsus suffers great interior trials. When the Saint began to hear confessions, however, he soon saw the harm done by rigorism, and for the rest of his life he inclined more to the mild school of the Jesuit theologians, whom he calls "the masters of morals". The prayer he recommended to his Congregation, of which we have beautiful examples in his ascetical works, is affective; the use of short aspirations, petitions, and acts of love, rather than discursive meditation with long reflection. He felt as if his career was ruined, and left the court almost beside himself, saying: "World, I know you now. In 1871, Alphonsus was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX. 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 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. In theology Liguori is known as the principal exponent of equiprobabilism, a system of principles designed to guide the conscience of one in doubt as to whether he or she is free from or bound by a given civil or religious law. While affecting to treat the novice with severity and to take no notice of her visions, the director was surprised to find that the Rule which she had written down was a realization of what had been so long in his mind. He died on August 1 at Nocera. Thus was he left free for his real work, the founding of a new religious congregation. by S. HORNER (Edinburgh, 1858); VON REUMONT, Die Carafa von Maddaloni (Berlin, 1851, 2 vols. Imprimatur. St. Alphonsus Liguori was an Italian Catholic bishop, spiritual writer, composer, musician, artist, poet, lawyer, scholastic philosopher, and theologian. He was a lawyer by the time he was 16 years old! Very few remarks upon his own times occur in the Saint's letters. He was canonized in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1871. He was now free, subject to the approval of the Bishop of Scala, to act with regard to the convent as he thought best. First Station: Jesus is condemned to death, Saint of the Day for Saturday, March 4th, 2023, Sixth Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus, Eighth Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem. It was all-important to the Fathers to be able to rebut the charge of being an illegal religious congregation, which was one of the chief allegations in the ever-adjourned and ever-impending action by Baron Sarnelli. CARDINAL CAPECELATRO has also written a life of the Saint, La Vita di Sant' Alfonso Maria de Liguori (Rome, 2 vols.). He remained thunderstruck for a moment; then said in a broken voice: "You are right. New York: Robert Appleton Company. In all this there was no serious sin, but there was no high sanctity either, and God, Who wished His servant to be a saint and a great saint, was now to make him take the road to Damascus. Alphonsus was one of the leading counsel; we do not know on which side. In December, 1724, he received minor orders, and the subdiaconate in September, 1725. The Fathers in the Papal States, with too precipitate zeal, in the very beginning denounced the change of Rule to Rome. R. In the end the Rule was so altered as to be hardly recognizable, the very vows of religion being abolished. APA citation. He answered emphatically: "Never! He who ruled and directed others so wisely, had, where his own soul was concerned, to depend on obedience like a little child. Let's start with the saint. Don Joseph agreed to allow his son to become a priest, provided he would give up his proposal joining the Oratory, and would continue to live at home. In 1724, soon after Alphonsus left the world, a postulant, Julia Crostarosa, born in Naples on 31 October, 1696, and hence almost the same age as the Saint, entered the convent of Scala. His sermons were very effective at converting those who had been alienated from their faith. His promotion to the episcopate in 1762 led to a renewal of his missionary activity, but in a slightly different form. St. Alphonsus Liguori. Alphonsus was a lawyer, and as a lawyer he attached much importance to the weight of evidence. Sarnelli was almost openly supported by the all-powerful Tanucci, and the suppression of the Congregation at last seemed a matter of days, when on 26 October, 1776, Tanucci, who had offended Queen Maria Carolina, suddenly fell from power. 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. The eighteenth century was not an age remarkable for depth of spiritual life, yet it produced three of the greatest missionaries of the Church, St. Leonard of Port Maurice, St. Paul of the Cross, and St. Alphonsus Liguori. Could he have been what an Anglo-Saxon would consider a miracle of calm, he would have seemed to his companions absolutely inhuman. When he heard from her of the devotion of the Rosary, which she practiced, and the letter she had received, he ordered all the others to repeatit, and it is related that this monastery became a paradise. Saint Alphonsus Liguori. There can be little doubt but that the young Alphonsus with his high spirits and strong character was ardently attached to his profession, and on the way to be spoilt by the success and popularity which it brought. 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. Alphonsus' last illness and Deaths 548 CHAPTER XXXVII. He founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as the Redemptorists, in November 1732. He had a tender charity towards all who were in trouble; he would go to any length to try to save a vocation; he would expose himself to death to prevent sin. I will love you all my life. St. Alphonsus Liguori, in full Saint Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori, Alphonsus also spelled Alfonso, (born September 27, 1696, Marianella, Kingdom of Naples [Italy]died August 1, 1787, Pagani; canonized 1839; feast day August 1), Italian doctor of the church, one of the chief 18th-century moral theologians, and founder of the Redemptorists, a The Glories of Mary ( Italian: Le glorie di Maria) is a classic book in the field of Roman Catholic Mariology, written during the 18th century by Saint Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church . One of the most widely read Catholic authors, he is the patron saint of confessors. 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. It was through Louis Florent Gillet, Redemptorist priest and co-founder of the Sisters of IHM that we have been gifted with the legacy of St. Alphonsus Liguori. Except for the chances of European war, England and Naples were then in different worlds, but Alphonsus may have seen at the side of Don Carlos when he conquered Naples in 1734, an English boy of fourteen who had already shown great gallantry under fire and was to play a romantic part in history, Prince Charles Edward Stuart. Preaching, Eugene Grimm ed., Benziger Brothers, New York, 1887, Liguori, Alphonsus. Besides his Moral Theology, the Saint wrote a large number of dogmatic and ascetical works nearly all in the vernacular. According to him, those were paths closed to the Gospel because "such rigour has never been taught nor practised by the Church". To this altered Rule or "Regolamento", as it came to be called, the unsuspecting Saint was induced to put his signature. He was crushed to the earth. Revelations from God, the Saints, and the Angels through the Miracle of Saint Joseph, started in 1967 and continuing to this day. Lord, When Did We See You Hungry or Thirsty or a Stranger or Naked or Ill or in Prison? The Decree of 1779, however, seemed a great step in advance. He wrote sermons, books, and articles to encourage devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary. ); JOHNSTON, The Napoleonic Empire in South Italy, 2 vols. In liturgical art he is depicted as bent over with rheumatism or as a young priest. It happened that Alphonsus, ill and overworked, had gone with some companions to Scala in the early summer of 1730. 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 foundation of all subsequent lives is the Della vita ed istituto del venerabile Alfonso Maria Liguori, of ANTONY TANNOIA, one of the great biographies of literature. Bishop, Doctor of the Church, and the founder of the Redemptorist Congregation. 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. "St. Alphonsus Liguori." Three years later he published the first sketch of his "Moral Theology" in a single quarto volume called "Annotations to Busembaum", a celebrated Jesuit moral theologian. At the time of his death, there were 72, with over 10,000 active participants. I have been mistaken. 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. Author and Publisher - Catholic Online From the year 1759 two former benefactors of the Congregation, Baron Sarnelli and Francis Maffei, by one of those changes not uncommon in Naples, had become its bitter enemies, and waged a vendetta against it in the law courts which lasted for twenty-four years. This document gives you the case." [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. It survived a catastrophic fire and was completed refurbished. Alternate titles: Saint Alfonso Liguori, Saint Alfonso Maria de Liguori, Saint Alphonsus Maria deLiguori. The difficulty about strong wills and strong passions is that they are hard to tame, but when they are tamed they are the raw material of sanctity. From his earliest years he had an anxious fear about committing sin which passed at times into scruple. In February, 1775, however, Pius VI was elected Pope, and the following May he permitted the Saint to resign his see. Alphonsus's father, Don Joseph de' Liguori was a naval officer and Captain of the Royal Galleys. 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." He was born Alphonsus Marie Antony John Cosmos Damien Michael Gaspard de Liguori on September 27,1696, at Marianella, near Naples, Italy. The wine had changed into blood; clotted and separated into 5 different sized clots. Today I would like to present to you the figure of a holy Doctor of the Church to whom we are deeply indebted because he was an outstanding moral theologian and a teacher of spiritual . Among his best known works are The Glories of Mary and The Way of the Cross, the latter still used in parishes during Lenten devotions. Alphonsus Liguori. The fifth book has two treatises "De Actibus Humanis" and "De Peccatis"; the sixth is on the sacraments, the seventh and last on the censures of the Church. He was not afraid of making up his mind. Thank you. He became very popular because of his plain and simple preaching. In early manhood he became very fond of the opera, but only that he might listen to the music, for when the curtain went up he took his glasses off, so as not to see the players distinctly. Then God called him to his life work. 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. Dissensions arose, the Saint's former friend and chief companion, Vincent Mannarini, opposing him and Falcoia in everything. . Not many details have come down to us of Alphonsus's childhood. He was also a poet and musician. In 1949, the Redemptorists founded the Alphonsian Academy for the advanced study of Catholic moral theology. Even its Rule was made known to her. After practicing law for eight years, he was ordained a priest in 1726. Alphonsus was the oldest of seven children, raised by a devout mother of Spanish descent. See also HASSALL, The Balance of Power (1715-89) (London, 1901); COLLETTA, History of the Kingdom of Naples, 1734-1825, 2 vols., tr. a fresh vision of Sister Maria Celeste seemed to show that such was the will of God. He died peacefully on August 1,1787, at Nocera di Pagani, near Naples as the Angelus was ringing.