Saint Luigi Gonzaga, Saint of the day for June 21st
(March 9, 1568 - June 21, 1591)
The story of San Luigi Gonzaga
The Lord can make saints everywhere, even in the midst of the brutality and license of Renaissance life. Florence was the "mother of piety" for Aloysius Gonzaga despite his exposure to a "society of fraud, dagger, poison and lust". Son of a princely family, he grew up in the royal courts and military camps. His father wanted Aloysius to be a military hero.
At the age of 7 Luigi experienced a profound spiritual acceleration. Her prayers included Mary's office, psalms and other devotions. At the age of 9 he came from his hometown of Castiglione to Florence to be educated; at the age of 11 he taught catechism to poor children, fasted three days a week and practiced great austerities. When he was 13, he traveled with his parents and the Empress of Austria to Spain, and served as a page for Philip II's court. The more Luigi saw about court life, the more disillusioned he became, seeking relief in learning about the lives of the saints.
A book on the experience of Jesuit missionaries in India suggested to him the idea of joining the Society of Jesus, and in Spain his decision became final. Now he has started a four-year race with his father. Eminent churchmen and lay people were put to service to convince Aloysius to remain in his "normal" calling. Eventually he prevailed, was allowed to renounce his right to succession and was accepted into the Jesuit novitiate.
Like other seminarians, Luigi had to face a new type of penance, that of accepting different ideas about the exact nature of penance. He was forced to eat more and have fun with the other students. He was forbidden to pray except at fixed times. He spent four years studying philosophy and had Saint Robert Bellarmine as his spiritual adviser.
In 1591, a plague struck Rome. The Jesuits opened their hospital. The superior general himself and many other Jesuits served personally. Since she nursed the patients, washing them and arranging their beds, Aloysius took the disease. After recovery, the fever persisted and he was so weak that he could hardly get out of bed. However, he maintained his great discipline of prayer, knowing that he would die in the octave of Corpus Christi, three months later, at the age of 23.
Reflection
As a saint who fasted, scourged himself, sought solitude and prayer and did not look in the face of women, Luigi seems an unlikely patron of youth in a society where asceticism is limited to the training camps of soccer teams and boxers and permissiveness sexual still has little to allow. Can an overweight, air-conditioned society deprive itself of something? He will do it when he discovers a reason, as Aloysius did. The motivation to let God cleanse us is the experience of God who loves us in prayer.