ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, VICTORIA
  • Home
  • About
    • Safe Environment
  • Worship
    • Holy Baptism
    • Confirmation
  • Ordinariate
  • Music
  • OLW
  • Blog

Angelic Youth

21/6/2018

 
Fr Lee Kenyon
‘​The people who mass-produce statues and holy cards have done St Aloysius Gonzaga no favours. The standard image of the saint as a frail, doe-eyed novice has given us the wrong impression. It may even be responsible for the decline in devotion to St Aloysius. Yet Aloysius deserves a revival, especially as the patron saint of teenagers.
 
The time and place where he grew up – 16th-century Italy – is not very different from 21st century America. It was a lax, morally careless, self-indulgent age. Aloysius saw the decadence around him and vowed not to be part of it. He did not, however, become a killjoy. Like any teenage boy, he wanted to have a good time, and as a member of an aristocratic family he had plenty of opportunities for amusement. He enjoyed horse races, banquets and the elaborate parties held in palace gardens. But if Aloysius found himself at a social function that took a turn to the lascivious, he left.
 
Aloysius did not just want to be good, he wanted to be holy; and on this point he could be tough and uncompromising. He came by these qualities naturally: among the great families of Renaissance Italy, the Medici were famous as patrons of the arts, and the Borgias as schemers, but the Gonzagas were a warrior clan. While most Gonzaga men aspired to conquer others, Aloysius was determined to conquer himself.
 
Aloysius wanted to be a priest. When he was 12 or 13, he invented for himself a programme he thought would prepare him for the religious life. He climbed out of bed in the middle of the night to put in extra hours kneeling on the cold stone floor of his room. Occasionally, he even beat himself with a leather dog leash. Aloysius was trying to become a saint by sheer willpower. It was not until he entered the Jesuit novitiate in Rome that he had a spiritual director – St Robert Bellarmine – to guide him.
 
Bellarmine put a stop to Aloysius’ boot camp approach to sanctity, commanding him to follow the Jesuit rule of regular hours of prayer and simple acts of self-control and self-denial. Aloysius thought the Jesuits were too lenient, but he obeyed. Such over-the-top zeal may have exasperated Bellarmine, but he believed that Aloysius’ fervour was genuine and that with proper guidance the boy might be a saint.
 
To his credit, Aloysius recognised that his bullheadedness was a problem. From the novitiate he wrote to his brother, “I am a piece of twisted iron. I entered the religious life to get twisted straight.”
 
Then, in January 1591, the plague struck Rome. With the city’s hospitals overflowing with the sick and the dying, the Jesuits sent every priest and novice to work in the wards. This was a difficult assignment for the squeamish Aloysius. Once he started working with the sick, however, fear and disgust gave way to compassion. He went into the streets of Rome and carried the ill and the dying to the hospital on his back. There he washed them, found them a bed, or at least a pallet, and fed them. Such close contact with the sick was risky. Within a few weeks, Aloysius contracted the plague himself and died. He was 23 years old.
 
In the sick, the helpless, the dying, St Aloysius saw the crucified Christ. The man of the iron will who thought he could take Heaven by sheer determination surrendered at last to divine grace’.

​Thomas Craughwell
O God, the giver of all spiritual gifts, who in the angelic youth of thy blessed Saint Aloysius didst unite a wondrous penitence to a wondrous innocence of life: grant, by his merits and intercession; that although we have not followed the pattern of his innocence, yet we may imitate the example of his penitence; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Divine Worship: The Missal.

Comments are closed.
    Fr Lee Kenyon

    Fr Lee Kenyon

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Andrew SDC
    Anglican
    Ascension
    Baptism
    Benedict XVI
    Bible
    Christmas
    Church
    Collect
    Discipleship
    Easter
    Ecumenism
    Epiphany
    Eucharist
    Faithful Departed
    Five Wounds
    Guéranger
    Holy Family
    Holy Name
    Holy Spirit
    Holy Week
    Hymnody
    John Paul II
    Knox
    Lent
    Liturgy
    Love
    Monarchy
    Music
    Nativity
    Newman
    Ordinariate
    Our Lady
    Parsch
    Passiontide
    Penance
    Pentecost
    Pilgrimage
    Poetry
    Prayer
    Precious Blood
    Pre-Lent
    Priesthood
    Resurrection
    Rogation
    Sacred Heart
    Saints
    Transfiguration
    Trinity
    Unity

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
    • Safe Environment
  • Worship
    • Holy Baptism
    • Confirmation
  • Ordinariate
  • Music
  • OLW
  • Blog