Saint Alphonsus Liguori

Bishop and Doctor of the Church
(1696-1787)
Feast – August 2
Saint Alphonsus was born in Marianella, near Naples, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, in 1696. He was the eldest of seven children of Giuseppe and Anna Cavalieri Liguori. Two days after he was born, he was baptized at the Church of Our Lady the Virgin as Alphonsus Mary Anthony John Cosmas Damian Michael Gaspard de’ Liguori. The family was of noble and ancient lineage. Alphonsus’s father, Don Joseph de’ Liguori, was a naval officer and Captain of the Royal Galleys. His mother was of Spanish descent.

Saint Alphonsus, like so many saints, had an excellent father and a saintly mother. Don Joseph de’ Liguori had his faults. He was somewhat worldly and ambitious, at any rate for his son, and was rough tempered when opposed. However, he was a man of genuine faith, piety and stainless life, and he meant his son to be the same. 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. Alphonsus, assisted by divine grace, did not disappoint his father’s care. His spiritual formation was entrusted to the Oratorian Fathers of that city, and from his boyhood Alphonsus was known as a very devout little Brother of the Minor Oratory. A pure and modest boyhood passed into a manhood without reproach. A companion, Balthasar Cito, who afterwards became a distinguished judge, was asked in later years if Alphonsus had ever shown signs of levity in his youth. He answered emphatically: “Never! It would be a sacrilege to say otherwise.” The Saint’s confessor declared that he preserved his baptismal innocence till death. Alphonsus received his doctorate at the age of sixteen. When he was 18, like many other nobles, he joined the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mercy with whom he assisted in the care of the sick at the hospital for “incurables.”

Still there was a time of danger, by the age nineteen he was practicing law. There can be little doubt but that the young Alphonsus with his high spirits and strong character was ardently attached to his profession, and was on the way to be spoiled by the success and popularity which it brought. 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 received everywhere.

“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. Believe me who have experienced it, and now weep over it.”

A mistake, however, by which he lost an important case, showed him the vanity of human fame and glory. For three days, he refused all food. 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. 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. Visiting the local Hospital for Incurables on August 28, 1723, he had a vision and was told to consecrate his life solely to God.

He was ordained on 21 December 1726. He lived his first years as a priest with the homeless and the marginalized youth of Naples. He became very popular because of his plain and simple preaching. He said, “I have never preached a sermon which the poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand.” His father stopped in a church to pray one day, and amazed, heard his son preaching; he suddenly saw clearly how God had marvelously elevated his son, and was filled with joy, saying, “My son has made God known to me!”

As for Alphonsus, he loved and devoted himself to the most neglected souls in the region of Naples. He was a very perfect confessor, and wrote a manual which has been used ever since for the instruction of those who administer the sacrament of Penance. He founded the Evening Chapels, which were managed by the young people themselves. The chapels were centers of prayer and piety, preaching, community, social activities and education. At the time of his death, there were 72, with over 10,000 active participants. His sermons were very effective at converting those who had been alienated from their faith. A musician of the first rank, Saint Alphonsus gave up his instruments to devote himself more perfectly to his apostolic labors; he nonetheless composed joyous religious hymns for the poor folk he heard singing in the streets, that they might glorify God and not waste their voices and efforts in vain and worldly songs.

In April 1729, Alphonsus went to live at the “Chiflese College,” founded in Naples by Father Matthew Ripa, the Apostle of China. There he met Bishop Thomas Falcoia, founder of the Congregation of Pious Workers. This lifelong friendship aided Alphonsus, as did his association with a mystic, Sister Mary Celeste. With their aid, Alphonsus founded on November 9, 1732 the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer dedicated to evangelization of the poor.

He refused to become the bishop of Palermo, but in 1762 had to accept the see of St. Agatha of the Goths near Naples due to Papal command. He tried to refuse the appointment by using his age and infirmities as arguments against his consecration. At the age of sixty-six he undertook the reform of his diocese with the zeal of a Saint. He made a vow never to waste a moment of time, and thus his life was spent in prayer and work. 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 labor for thirteen years. More than once he faced assassination unmoved. 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. He addressed ecclesiastical abuses in the diocese, reformed the seminary and spiritually rehabilitated the clergy and faithful. He suspended those priests who celebrated Mass in less than 15 minutes. He sold his carriage and episcopal ring to give the money to the poor. He wrote sermons, books, and articles. These volumes were filled with such great science, unction, and wisdom that in 1871 he was declared by Pius IX a Doctor of the Church. Saint Alphonsus wrote his first book at the age of forty-nine, and in his eighty-third year had published about sixty volumes; at that time, his director forbade him to continue writing. The best known of his books is his volume entitled The Glories of Mary, by which he exalts the graces and narrates the wondrous deeds of mercy of the Mother of God for those who invoke Her. Very many of these books were written in the half hours snatched from his labors as a missionary, as a religious Superior, and finally as a Bishop, often in the midst of unrelenting bodily and mental sufferings. With his left hand he would hold a piece of marble against his aching head, while his right hand wrote. Yet he counted no time lost which was spent in charity. He did not refuse to maintain a long correspondence with a simple soldier who asked for his advice, or to play the harpsichord in his declining years, while he taught his novices to sing spiritual canticles.

His austerities were rigorous, and he suffered daily the pain from rheumatism that was beginning to deform his body. He spent several years having to drink from tubes because his head was so bent forward, so bent was it in the beginning, that the pressure of his chin produced a dangerous wound in the chest. Eight times during his long life, without counting his last sickness, the Saint received the sacraments of the dying, but the worst of all his illnesses was a terrible attack of rheumatic fever during his episcopate, an attack which lasted from May, 1768, to June, 1769, and left him paralyzed to the end of his days. It was this which gave St. Alphonsus the bent head which we notice in the portraits of him.

Saint Alphonsus suffered from scruples much of his adult life and felt guilty about the most minor issues relating to sin. Moreover, the saint 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.”

He lived in times of religious laxity, and met with many persecutions and disappointments. During his last seven years he was prevented by constant sickness from offering the adorable Sacrifice, but he received Holy Communion daily, and his love for Jesus Christ and his trust in Mary’s prayers sustained him to the end. He died in 1787, in his ninety-first year.

Alphonsus’ greatest contribution to the Church was in the area of moral theology. His masterpiece was The Moral Theology (1748), which was approved by the Pope himself and was born of Alphonsus’ pastoral experience, his ability to respond to the practical questions posed by the faithful and his contact with their everyday problems. A prolific writer, he published nine editions of his Moral Theology in his lifetime, in addition to other devotional and ascetic works and letters. 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.

He was canonized in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1871. One of the most widely read Catholic authors, he is the patron saint of confessors.

[1] “Saint Alphonsus Liguori – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_alphonsus_liguori.html. [Accessed 2 August 2017].
[2] “Alphonsus Maria de’Liguori,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonsus_Maria_de%27_Liguori. [Accessed 2 August 2017].
[3] “St. Alphonsus Marie Liguori,” Catholic Online, [Online]. Available: http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1284. [Accessed 2 August 2017].
[4] “St. Alphonsus Liguori,” New Advent, [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01334a.htm. [Accessed 2 August 2017].