He said himself that he was so small at the time as to be almost buried in his doctor's gown and that all the spectators laughed. Author and Publisher - Catholic Online [10] He tried to refuse the appointment by using his age and infirmities as arguments against his consecration. Tannoia was born about 1724 and entered the Redemptorist Congregation in 1746. He answered emphatically: "Never! It is true that theologians even of the broadest school are agreed that, when an opinion in favour of the law is so much more probable as to amount practically to moral certainty, the less probable opinion cannot be followed, and some have supposed that St. Alphonsus meant no more than this by his terminology. After practicing law for eight years, he was ordained a priest in 1726. 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. He was not afraid of making up his mind. 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. He was helped in this by his turn of mind which was extremely practical. In fact, despite his youth, he seems at the age of twenty-seven to have been one of the leaders of the Neapolitan Bar. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01334a.htm. In the eight years of his career as advocate, years crowded with work, he is said never to have lost a case. The English translation in the Oratory Series is also rather inadequate. His promotion to the episcopate in 1762 led to a renewal of his missionary activity, but in a slightly different form. 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. If civil courts could not decide against a defendant on greater probability, but had to wait, as a criminal court must wait, for moral certainty, many actions would never be decided at all. Alphonsus was preaching missions in the rural areas and writing. Castle, Harold. Cavalieri, himself a great servant of God. According to him, those were paths closed to the Gospel because "such rigour has never been taught nor practised by the Church". Quite recently, a duet composed by him, between the Soul and God, was found in the British Museum bearing the date 1760 and containing a correction in his own handwriting. 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". He said: "I have never preached a sermon which the poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand". Then the storm subsided, and he began to see that his humiliation had been sent him by God to break down his pride and wean him from the world. Not less remarkable than the intensity with which Alphonsus worked is the amount of work he did. 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. But in spite of his infirmities both Clement XIII (1758-69) and Clement XIV (1769-74) obliged Alphonsus to remain at his post. He was baptized two days later in the church of Our Lady of the Virgins, in Naples. It was comparatively late in life that Alphonsus became a writer. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. To this Alphonsus by the advice of his director, Father Thomas Pagano, himself an Oratorian, agreed. 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. The childish fault for which he most reproached himself in after-life was resisting his father too strongly when he was told to take part in a drawing-room play. 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. In addition, he published many editions of compendiums of his larger work, such as the "Homo Apostolicus", made in 1759. His hymns are justly celebrated in Italy. The immediate author of what was practically a lifelong persecution of the Saint was the Marquis Tanucci, who entered Naples in 1734. [9], In 1729, Liguori left his family home and took up residence at the Chinese Institute in Naples. Were the vehement things in his letters and writings, especially in the matter of rebuke or complaint, to appraised as if uttered by an Anglo-Saxon in cold blood, we might be surprised and even shocked. In the end a compromise was arrived at. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York. Very few remarks upon his own times occur in the Saint's letters. In a riot which took place during the terrible famine that fell upon Southern Italy in 1764, he saved the life of the syndic of St. Agatha by offering his own to the mob. 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. He was the eldest of seven children and the hope of his house. d.kellysaintalphonsus.com Website Website Website Website Website Alyce Gilarski Business Manager / Ministry of Care 847-255-7452, x143 a.gilarskisaintalphonsus.com Dr. Carol Holden DRE, Grades K-8 847-255-9490 x116 c.holdensaintalphonsus.com Dee Munroe Religious Education Administrative Assistant 847-255-9490 x104 d.munroesaintalphonsus.com Alphonsus, having got so much, hoped to get a little more, and through his friend, Mgr. Tannoia, also, through some mental idiosyncrasy, manages to give the misleading impression that St. Alphonsus was severe. The poor advocate turned pale. Even where he is not that, he may generally be trusted, as he was a Boswell in collecting facts. 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. 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. Alphonsus had still one final storm to meet, and then the end. 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. The impulse to this passionate service of God comes from Divine grace, but the soul must correspond (which is also a grace of God), and the soul of strong will and strong passions corresponds best. New York: Robert Appleton Company. In the second edition the work received the definite form it has since retained, though in later issues the Saint retracted a number of opinions, corrected minor ones, and worked at the statement of his theory of Equiprobabilism till at last he considered it complete. Even the baleful shadow of Voltaire falls across the Saint's life, for Alphonsus wrote to congratulate him on a conversion, which alas, never took place! St Alphonsus Mary Liguori and Prayer. Of extraordinary passive states, such as rapture, there are not many instances recorded in his life, though there are some. 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. Liguori suffered from scruples much of his adult life and felt guilty about the most minor issues relating to sin. 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. 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. It happened that Alphonsus, ill and overworked, had gone with some companions to Scala in the early summer of 1730. 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. Could he have been what an Anglo-Saxon would consider a miracle of calm, he would have seemed to his companions absolutely inhuman. A prolific writer, he published nine editions of his Moral Theology in his lifetime, in addition to other devotional and ascetic works and letters. As it was traditionally associated with the zampogna, or large-format Italian bagpipe, it became known as Canzone d'i zampognari, the "Carol of the Bagpipers". 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. He was somewhat worldly and ambitious, at any rate for his son, and was rough tempered when opposed. He was the eldest of seven children of Giuseppe Liguori, a naval officer and Captain of the Royal Galleys, and Anna Maria Caterina Cavalieri. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 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. [19], His Mariology, though mainly pastoral in nature, rediscovered, integrated and defended that of St Augustine of Hippo, St Ambrose of Milan and other fathers; it represented an intellectual defence of Mariology in the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment, against the rationalism to which contrasted his fervent Marian devotion.[20]. Whenthey had withdrawn into another room, the appearance of the youth changed, and Heshowed Himself crowned with thorns, His flesh torn, and said to her: Prayers in Times of Sickness Disease & Danger, True Devotion to Mary (St. Louis de Montfort), The Glories of Mary (St. Alphonsus Liguori), A young nobleman was reading one day, while at sea, an obscene book, in which he. His own prayer was perhaps for the most part what some call "active", others "ordinary", contemplation. The wine had changed into blood; clotted and separated into 5 different sized clots. Castle, H. (1907). Alphonsus Liguori was not a favorite with the windbags of his day. The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano took place in the 8th century: a Basilian monk, who had doubted the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist, was celebrating Mass, and at the consecration, saw that the Host had changed into flesh. Canonized: May 26, 1839. 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. [16] 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. Then God called him to his life work. 1. But Alphonsus's director, Father Pagano; Father Fiorillo, a great Dominican preacher; Father Manulio, Provincial of the Jesuits; and Vincent Cutica, Superior of the Vincentians, supported the young priest, and, 9 November, 1732, the "Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer", or as it was called for seventeen years, "of the Most Holy Saviour", was begun in a little hospice belonging to the nuns of Scala. Colletta's book gives the best general picture of the time, but is marred by anti-clerical bias. This was in 1780, when Alphonsus was eighty-three years old. The question as to what does or does not constitute a lie is not an easy one, but it is a subject in itself. Dedicated to Fr. He came from a wealthy family in Naples, Italy, and had every advantage in life from the moment he was born in 1696. 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.