Alphonse de Liguori

Alphonse Marie Antoine Jean As Damien Michel Gaspard de Liguori was born with the manor from his father, Marianella close to Naples, Tuesday September 27th 1696 and died in Nocera de Pagani, the 1787. He embraced the ecclesiastical state at 27 years and évangélisa the poor of the campaigns. resulting from the Neapolitan high society, endowed speaker, he always preached nevertheless without artifice oratory in order to be included/understood of all in particular of the least educated. Festival it.

Biography

Origins and youth

Its family was old and noble, though the branch to which it belonged was so rich only formerly. The father of Alphonse, Gift Joseph de Liguori, was naval officer and captain of the royal Galleons. His/her mother was of Spanish ascent and, insofar as the race explains the individual character, we can see in the Spanish blood of Alphonse an explanation of incredible tenacity to achieve its goal which distinguished it as of its first years. “I know his stubbornness, said of him his father when he was young man. Once its decision taken, it is inflexible ”. We hardly have details on the childhood of Alphonse. He was the elder one of seven children and the hope of his house. The boy showed himself well quickly shining and rapid and made great progress in all kinds of study. In addition his/her father made him practice the Clavecin three hours per day and, at the thirteen years age, he played with the facility of a Master. To travel and make fencing were its great distractions, with part of charts of the evening; he says to us that its bad sight had prevented it from being a good shot. At the beginning of its age of young man, it engoua of the opera, but he wanted only to listen to the music because, as soon as the curtain rose, he removed his glasses, in order not to see the actors distinctly. The Neapolitan theater of the time was brilliant, but the young Alphonse had felt as of the age to more tighten one ascetic loathing towards the theaters, loathing which it never lost. The childish fault that it reproached more all its life, it is to have too vigorously resisted his/her father who asked him to take part in a part represented in a living room.

Alphonse was not sent to the school, but was informed by tutors deprived under the eye of his father. At the sixteen years age, on January 21st, 1713, it started to study the Right, although the lawful age was fixed at twenty years. He told itself which it was then so small that it disappeared almost in his dress from doctor, which made laugh everyone. He thus began his studies and, as of the nineteen years age, followed his occupation in front of the courts. During the eight years when he was lawyer, in charge of many causes, he says of never to have lost only one. Even by making the share of the exaggeration (because which lawyer is able to always gain?), the tradition attests that its capacities were extraordinary and that it was often crowned success. In fact it seems that, in spite of its youth, he counted at the age of twenty-seven years among the tenors of the bar of Naples.

Alphonse, like so much of saints, had an excellent father and a holy mother. Don Joseph de Liguori had his defects; it was somewhat attached to the wordly goods and ambitious, in any case for his/her son, and it entered in anger when one opposed him. But he was a man of an undeniable faith and a piety and carried out an irreproachable life; he wanted that his/her son was like him. Even when he wanted to push it in the world by organizing for him a good marriage, it wished that Alphonse think initially of God, and each year the father and the son followed a retirement together in a religious establishment. Alphonse on this point did not disappoint his father. A pure and pure childhood prepared it with an irreproachable ripe age. One requested from one his companions, Balthasar Cito, become thereafter an eminent judge, if Alphonse had ever shown in his youth of the signs of lightness. “Never! It would be a sacrilege of speaking” differently answered it in a categorical way. Its confessor declared besides that it had preserved his baptismal innocence until death. He however a dangerous time ago.

It is not very doubtful that the young Alphonse with his qualities of spirit and his strength of character felt ardently attached to his profession and that it was in way to be corrupted by success and the fame which he brought. About the year 1722, whereas it had twenty-six years, it started to attend the world constantly, to neglect the pious prayer and practices which had occupied a big part of its life and to take pleasure to see the attention with which everywhere it was received.

Conversion

“the banquets, the entertainments, the theater, it wrote later, they are the bitter pleasure, but worldly pleasures like the bile and pointed like spines. Believe me: I tested them and I cry about it now. ” In all that it had no serious sin there there, but it did not take either the way of holiness. In 1723 took place a lawsuit between noble Neapolitan, whose name did not reach us and the large-duke of Tuscany, in which was concerned a property estimated at 500 000 Ducat S. Alphonse was one of principal lawyers, without one knowing for which part. When the day came, it made an inaugural speech shining and sat down trustful in its victory. But before it had called a witness, the lawyer of the opposing party says to him of a triumphing tone: “Your arguments, it is wind. You neglected a document which ruins the cause which you defend. - About which document is it? ” required Alphonse somewhat disconcerted. “here!” It was indeed an irrefutable part which had been given to him, that it had read and read again several times, but always in a direction opposed exactly so that it noted now. The poor lawyer fades. There remained deafened one moment; then declared known as of a broken voice: “You are right. I was mistaken. This document establishes your right good. ”

In vain those which surrounded it and to the judge on his seat tried to comfort it. It felt destroyed. He thought that its error would not be allotted to thoughtlessness, but that a deliberated fraud there would be seen. It had the impression which its career was ruined and it left the court the air absent while saying: “World, I know you from now on. Course, you will not re-examine me any more”. During three days it refused any food. Then it started to be calmed and foresee that its humiliation had been sent to him by God to cut down his pride and to tear off it in the world. Persuaded that some special sacrifice was required of its share, though it did not know yet which, it did not turn over to its profession, but spent its days in prayer, seeking to know which was the will of God. Soon - but we do not know exactly after how long - came to him the answer. August 28th 1723, the young lawyer left to carry out a remarkable act of charity by visiting the patients with the Old people's home of the Incurable ones. Suddenly it was surrounded by a mysterious light while the building seemed to waver and that an interior voice said to him: “Gives up the world and is given to me. ”

This experiment reproduced twice. Alphonse left the hospital then and went to the church of the Repurchase Prisoners. There it deposited its sword in front of the statue of Notre-Dame and took the solemn resolution to enter the orders and moreover to propose like beginner at the Fathers oratoriens. It knew which tests awaited it. His/her father, already dissatisfied after the failure with two projects of marriage for his son and exasperated in front of his enormous professional misconduct, could not miss being opposed vigorously to his will to leave the world. It is well what occurred and the young man lives himself persecuted for two months.

A compromise was found at the end. Don Joseph accepted that his/her son became priest, provided that it renonçât with his intention entering to the Oratoire and that it continued to live at the house. Alphonse agreed to it on the council of his director, the father Thomas Pagano, itself Oratorien. This solution left it free for what was to be its true work, the foundation of a new religious congregation. October 23rd 1723, the young man endorsed the church vestments. In September of the following year it accepted the Tonsure and shortly after joined the association of the secular priests missionaries whom one called Propaganda the “Neapolitan” , and where the entry did not imply the common life. In December 1724, it accepted the minor orders and the subdiaconate in September 1725. April 6th 1726, it became Diacre and shortly after pronounced its first sermon. December 21st of the same year, at the thirty years age, it was ordered priest. For six years, he had worked in Naples and around Naples, giving missions of Propaganda and preaching with the " Lazzaroni " of the capital. Using two Laic S, Peter Barbarese, a schoolmaster, and Nardone, an old soldier, whom it had torn off with a disordered life, it enlisted thousands of lazzaroni in a kind of fraternity called “Association of the Vaults” and which exists this day still today. At this point in time God called it with the work of his life.

The foundation

In April 1729, Matthieu Scraped, apostle of the China, had founded in Naples a college missionary, which one familiarly knew like the “College Chinese” .

A few months later, Alphonse who had left the house of his father went to live with Ripa, without however becoming member of his company. There it met a friend of its host, the father Thomas Falcoia , Congregation of the Pii Operarii (Working Piles) and tied with him the great friendship of its life. There was a difference in age considerable between the two men: born in 1663, Falcoia then had sixty-six years and Alphonse only had any thirty-three, but the old priest and the young person had hearts which resembled each other. Many years before, in Rome, a vision had shown in Falcoia a new religious family made up men and women and of which the particular goal would be the perfect imitation of the virtues of Our-Lord. He had even tried to form a branch of this institute by bringing together twelve priests leading a common life to Tarente, but the community had disaggregated soon. In 1719, with the Filangieri father, who also belonged him to the “Pii Operarii” , it had refondé a Conservatorium nuns with Scala, in the mountains beyond of Amalfi. But as it had laid down for them a rule formed on that of the nuns of the Visitation, it does not seem to have had then the clear idea to establish the new institute inspired by its vision.

In 1724, shortly after that Alphonse had given up the world, one postulating, Julia Crostarosa, born in Naples on October 31st 1696 and thus almost from the same age that Alphonse, had entered to the convent of Scala, being called in religion Marie-Celestial sister . In 1725, whereas it was still beginner, it had had a series of visions which showed him a new order (which was apparently made up only of nuns) and which resembled that which had been revealed in Falcoia many years before. Even its Rule had been detailed to him. One says to him to put all that in writing and to show it to the director of the convent, which was not other than Falcoia.

While affecting to treat the beginner with severity and not to make any case of his visions, the director was surprised to note that the Rule which it had laid down in writing was an implementation of what he had nourished so a long time in his spirit. He subjected this new rule to a certain number of theologists, who appreciated it and answered that she could be adopted in the convent of Scala, provided that the community accepted it. But when the question was put to the community, the opposition started. The majority were in favor of the adoption, but the higher found to repeat and called upon Filangieri, the colleague of Falcoia in the foundation of the convent and maintaining its superior as general of “Pii Operarii”. Filangieri was opposed to any change of rule and interdict with Falcoia to communicate with the convent. The business remained about it there during several years, but in 1729 Filangieri died and on October 8th 1730 Falcoia was devoted bishop of Castellammare di Stabia.

It was now free, subject to the approval of the bishop of Scala, to act with regard to the convent as it believed best. However it was that Alphonse, patient of overwork, had left for Scala at the beginning of the summer 1730, accompanied by certain companions. Incompetent to remain without anything to make, it had preached with the guards of goats in the mountains and with such a success that Nicolas Guerriero, bishop of Scala, had begged it to return and preach a retirement in his cathedral.

Falcoia, with this news, begged his/her friend to agree to direct at the same time a retirement for the nuns of sound Conservatorium . Alphonse approved the two requests and, in September 1730, got under way with his two friends, John Mazzini and Vincent Mannarini. The result of this retirement was that the young priest, to which reports/ratios arrived to Naples had given preventions against the new rule suggested, became a decided partisan about it and obtained even the permission of the bishop of Scala for this change.

In 1731, the convent unanimously adopted the new rule, which comprised clothing red and blue, traditional colors of the proper dress of Our-Lord. A branch of the new shown institute with Falcoia in its vision was thus established.

The other was not to be made wait a long time. Undoubtedly Thomas Falcoia had some hoped time that this young and burning priest, who was so attached to him, could under his direction become the founder of the new Order which was due to him in heart. A recent vision of Marie-Celestial sister seemed to indicate that such was the will of God: October 3rd 1731, the festival day before of Holy François d' Assise, the nun saw " Our-Seigneur" with Holy François on his right hand and a priest on his left hand. A voice says to him: “ It is him whom I wanted to be the head of my Institute, the general prefect of a new Congregation of men who will work for my glory. ” This priest, it was Alphonse .

A little later Falcoia announced with this last that it felt invited to leave Naples to establish in Scala an order of missionaries, who should work above all for the guards of goats in the mountains of which nobody occupied himself.

One year of problems and anxiety followed. The Superior of Propaganda and even the friend of Falcoia, Matthieu Scraped, were opposed of all their forces to this project but Alphonse accepted the support of his spiritual adviser, the Pagano Father, of the Père Fiorillo, Dominican preacher famous, of provincial the Manulio Father, of the Jesuits, and the father Vincent Cutica, Supérieur of the Vincentiens. November 9th 1732, therefore, the “Congregation of the Very Holy Redeemer”, or as one had called it for seventeen years, “Very Holy Saver” , began his existence in a small old people's home pertaining to the nuns of Scala. Although Alphonse was the founder and de facto the chief, it is the bishop of Castellamare which took care at the beginning of the head office as well as of the direction of conscience of Alphonse and it with died only of the bishop that, on April 20th 1743, a general chapter was held and elects officially general higher Alphonse.

In fact, at the beginning, Alphonse did not want to be Supérieur, judging that one of his/her companions, Jean-Baptiste Donato, was appropriate better for this station because it had already had a little experiment of the community life in another institute.

First years

The first years which followed the foundation of the new order did not promise anything good. Discords occurred, Vincent Mannarini, the former friend of the saint and his principal companion opposed in very him and Falcoia. April 1st, 1733, all the companions of Alphonse except a lay brother, Vitus Curtius, gave up it to found the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament which, limited to the kingdom of Naples, was removed in 1860 following the Italian Revolution. The disunions extended even to the nuns and Maria-Celestial sister itself left Scala to found with Foggia a convent where it was to die in odor of holiness on September 14th, 1755. She was declared worthy on August 11th, 1901.

Alphonse, however, held good; soon of other companions arrived and although Scala itself had been given up by the Fathers in 1738, in 1746 the new Congregation had four houses with Nocera dei Pagani, Ciorani, Iliceto (today Deliceto) and Caposele, all in the kingdom of Naples. In 1749, the Rule and the Institute of monk were approved by the Pope Benoît XIV and in 1750, the Rule and the Institute of nuns. Alphonse was lawyer, founder, superior, bishop, theologist and mystic, but above all he was a missionary and no true biography of the saint will neglect to insist on this quality. From 1726 to 1752, initially like member of the “Propaganda” Neapolitan then to the head of his own Fathers, it crossed the provinces of Naples during most of each year by giving missions even in more the small villages and by saving many hearts. A special characteristic of its method was the return of the missionaries, after an interval of a few months, at the place of their work to consolidate their work by what was called the “renewal of a mission. ”

After 1752, Alphonse made less missions. Its infirmities increased and it spent much time to write. Its promotion with the episcopate in 1762 caused a renewal of its missionary activity, but in a slightly different form. The saint had four houses, but during its life not only it became impossible in the kingdom of Naples to increase their number, but there was evil to obtain that those which existed were tolerated. The cause was the “regalism”, the all-powerful authority of the kings until in the spiritual businesses, which was the system of government in Naples as in all the States of the Bourbons. The direct person in charge of what was practically a persecution during all the life of the saint was the marquis Tanucci, who had entered to Naples in 1734. Naples had belonged to the Spanish possessions as from 1503, but in 1708, whereas Alphonse had twelve years the city had been conquered by Austria during the War of succession of Spain. In 1734, however, it had been taken again by Don Carlos, the young duke of Parma, great-grandson of Louis XIV and the kingdom bourbon independent of Deux-Siciles was established. With Gift Carlos or, as it is generally called, Charles III, from his last title as a king d' Espagne, came the lawyer Bernard Tanucci, who controlled Naples like Prime Minister and regent during the forty-two following years.

That was to be a considerable change for Alphonse. If the marquis Tanucci had arrived a few years later, the new government would have found a Congregation already authorized redemptorist and like the policy anticlerical of Tanucci consisted in prohibiting the creation of new natures rather than to remove the old ones (except for the Society of Jesus), the saint would have been free to make thrive his work in a relative peace. But, the things being what they were, one refused to him until the day of his death the royal Exequatur with the Bubble of Benoit XIV and the recognition by the State of his Institute like religious congregation. It whole years ago, indeed, during which the Institute appeared with two fingers of pure suppression and simple. One imagines the suffering that still caused at Alphonse, of which the sensitivity was extreme, worse, in the Order itself, the discipline slackened oneself, the vocations decreased. Alphonse, however, did not cease submitting his requests to the Court. Perhaps even it was even too anxious and, on an occasion, whereas it were overpowered by the dryness of a refusal, his/her friend the marquis Brancone, Minister for the ecclesiastical Businesses and man of a major piety, says to him gently: “One with the impression which you placed all your confidence ici-bas”; on what the saint recovered his interior peace. Last test to obtain approval royal, which one thought that at the end of the day it would succeed, was cause of the last sorrow of the life Alphonse: division and the ruin connect its Congregation and the dissatisfaction with the Holy See. It was in 1780, whereas Alphonse had eighty-three years. But, for the fact of telling the episode of the Regolamento , as it is called, it is necessary to speak about the period corresponding to the episcopate of the saint.

Its load of bishop

In 1747, king Charles of Naples wanted to make Alphonse archbishop of Palermo and it was only while insisting that it could avoid this load. In 1762, there was not average any more to escape from it and it was constrained by formal obedience with the pope to accept évêché of Holy-Agathe-of-Goths, a very small Neapolitan diocese with a few kilometers on the road of Naples to Capoue. It found 30 there; 000 faithful without education, a secular clergy of 400 people for the majority indifferent and sometimes carrying out a scandalous life, seventeen more or less slackened religious houses; it was a field if invaded bad grasses that it seemed that one could there nothing collect of other, it cried, requested and spent its days and its nights to be worked inlassablement during thirteen years. More once it was likely to be assassinated. At the time of a riot which occurred during the terrible famine which had fallen on Italy from the South in 1764, it saved the life of the syndic of Holy-Agathe by offering her life to crowd in the place of his. He nourishes the poor, taught the ignoramus, reorganized his Séminaire, reformed his convents, created a new spirit in his clergy, excludes the noble scandalous ones and the loose women with an equal impartiality, put in honor the study of theology and especially of moral theology and did not cease begging the popes who followed one another to allow him to resign of his station because he did not do anything for his diocese. To all its administrative work we must add its continual literary work, a great number of hours of daily prayer, terrible austerities and a tension due to its disease which made its life a martyrdom.

Eight times during its long life, without counting its last disease, the saint accepted the last sacraments, but the worst of all its diseases was a terrible attack of acute rheumatoid arthritis whereas he was bishop, an attack which lasted of May 1768 in June 1769 and left it paralyzed until the end of its days. It is that which gave him this provision of the head that we notice in its portraits. This provision was such at the beginning, that the pressure of its chin caused a dangerous wound on the chest. Although the doctors had succeeded in rectifying the neck a little to him, during the remainder of his life the saint had to drink his food by a tube. He could never again have said the Mass if a Augustin had not shown him to him how to be held on a chair so that with the assistance of an assistant he could carry the chalice to his lips. But in spite of these infirmities Clement XIII and Clément XIV obliged it to remain at its station. In February of 1775, however, one elected Pie VI pope and next in May it authorized the saint to leave his seat.

In July 1775, Alphonse returned to his modest cell of Nocera, to prepare, at least thought it, with a fast and happy death. Twelve years, however, still separated it from the moment when it would receive its reward, years which for the majority did not bring the peace but of the larger afflictions to him still than those that it had undergone. About 1777, the Saint, in addition to four houses with Naples and one in Sicily, had of it four others in Scifelli, Frosinone, Sant' Angelo has Cupolo and Bénévent, in the States of the Church. If the things would become desperate in Naples, it counted on these houses to maintain the rule and the institute. In 1780, a crisis emerges where they did it indeed, but in order to bring division in the Congregation and with its founder an extreme suffering and affronts. Here how the crisis emerges. Since the year 1759 two former benefactors of the Congregation, Baron Sarnelli and Francis Maffei, by one of these frequent changes in Naples, had become its sworn enemies, and made him in front of the courts a war which was to last twenty-four years. Sarnelli was almost openly supported by the Tanucci Almighty, and the removal of the Congregation did not appear any more but one question of the days, when on October 26th, 1776, Tanucci, which had offended the queen Marie-Caroline, fell suddenly from the capacity. The government of the marquis della Sambuca, who, although enthusiastic royalist, was a personal friend of the saint, promised better days and, in August 1779, Alphonse could start to hope with the publication of a royal decree who allowed to name him superiors in his congregation and to have a noviciate and a house of the studies. The government however, if he recognized the good effect of his missions, wished that the missionaries be secular priests and not members of an religious order.

The decree of 1779, however, seemed a great step ahead. Alphonse having obtained so much, hoped to obtain a little more and by his/her friend, Mgr Tested, the large Chaplain, to manage to even make approve its Rule. He did not ask, as in the past, a exequatur with the bubble of Benoît XIV, because the relations at that time were tended than ever between the courses of Rome and Naples; but he hoped that the king could give to his Rule an independent authorization, provided that he completely derogated from the legal right to have joint properties, which it was completely laid out to do. It was very important for the Fathers to be able to refute the charge to be an illegal religious congregation, because it was one of the principal allegations in the action of the baron Sarnelli who never had not been suspended and always threatened. It may be in any case that the tender of their Rule to a civil being wary and even hostile capacity was a fault. In any event, this attitude proved to be disastrous as for the result. Alphonse was so old and in such a state - at eighty-five years, it was estropié, deaf and almost blind man - which its only chance of success was to be accurately been useful by his/her friends and his subordinates and it was each time betrayed. His/her friend large the Aumônier betrays it; the Fathers Majone and Cimino, which it had sent to negotiate with the large Chaplain betrayed it, any general consulteurs who they were. Even its confessor, the Father Andrew Villani, general vicar in the government of his Kind, took part in the conspiracy. At the end the Rule was if changed that it became hardly recognizable about it, the wishes of religion themselves were abolished. In this faded Rule or “Regolamento”, as one came from there to call it, the too credulous saint was encouraged to put his signature. It was approved by the king and was imposed on the Congregation amazed by all the capacity at the State. The commotion was alarming. Alphonse himself was not saved. Vague rumors of an imminent treason had been transmitted to him, but he had refused to believe them. “You founded the Congregation and destroyed it to you”, tells him a Father.

The Saint was satisfied to cry in silence and vainly tried to imagine some means of saving his order. Best would have been to consult the Holy See, but in that he had been prevented. The Fathers in the Papal States, with a too hasty zeal, denounced as of the beginning in Rome the change of the Rule. Magpie VI, already deeply dissatisfied against the Neapolitan government, took the fathers in its own States under its special protection, and prohibits any change of rule in their houses, withdrawing them even from obedience towards their Neapolitan superiors, i.e. with Alphonse saint, until an investigation could be carried out. A long lawsuit followed in Court of Rome and, on September 22nd, 1780, a provisional decree, made final on August 24th, 1781, recognized the houses in the States Pontificaux like only constituting the Congregation redemptorist. The Francis father of Paula, one of principal appealing, was named like their general Superior, “ in the place of those , read one in the brief, which, being the supreme superiors of the aforesaid the Congregation with their disciples adopted a new system primarily different from old and gave up the Institute in which they had made profession, thus ceasing being members of the Congregation . ” Thus the Saint saw himself excluded from his own Ordre by the pope who was to declare it “Worthy”. It is in this state of exclusion that he lived more than seven years and that he died. It was only after its death, as he had prophesied, than the Neapolitan government ends up recognizing the original Rule and than the Congregation redemptorist was joined together under the same authority (1793).

Alphonse was to still face a last and terrible test before the end. Approximately three years before its death it had to pass by a true “Night of the Heart”. Alarming temptations against each virtue followed one another in front of him, at the same time as of the diabolic appearances, the illusions and the terrible scruples with temptations to despair, all that made its life a hell. Finally peace returned and, on August 1st, 1787, as sounded the Angelus of midday, the Saint accepted his reward peacefully. It had almost finished its four-twenty-eleventh year. He was declared “Worthy” on May 4th, 1796, was béatifié in 1816 and was canonized in 1839. In 1871, he was proclaimed Doctors of the Church.

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'' this article is a translation of the article “St Alphonsus Liguori” in Catholic Encyclopedia ''

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