Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Homily for Memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga

Homily for the Memorial
of St. Aloysius Gonzaga

June 21, 2023
Collect
St. Edmund, Edmonton

Today’s collect called our attention to St. Aloysius’s penitence and “wonderful innocence of life.”  The Gonzagas were a distinguished noble family, lords of the territory of Mantua in northern Italy for almost 400 years.  Born in 1568, Aloysius was trained for a courtly or a military life.  His Renaissance world has been characterized as one of “fraud, dagger, poison, and lust.”[1]

Statue of St. Aloysius
Church of St. Francis de Sales, Valdocco

Aloysius was repelled by that world and pursued a life of prayer and ascetical practices that we today consider harsh, and he taught catechism to younger children.  On becoming acquainted with the Jesuits, he determined to join them.  It took 4 years to overcome his father’s objections and to renounce his princely title and inheritance.  With the Jesuits he had to learn a new form of asceticism based on obedience, community life, and a balanced humanity.  He also had the distinct advantage of having as his spiritual director a saint, Robert Bellarmine.

An example of how Aloysius practiced this new asceticism as a Jesuit:  The young men in formation were taking recreation (whatever that meant in Rome ca. 1590) when someone asked Aloysius what he’d do if he knew that he was going to die in one hour.  He replied that he’d continue his recreation because that was what he was supposed to be doing at that moment.  His holiness was based on fulfilling God’s will, indicated by the duty of the moment.

So it is for us, too.  We prayed that we who are less innocent than Aloysius was might imitate his penitence.  Carrying out our responsibilities diligently is a form of penitence, whether at a given moment we should be doing house chores, helping kids with homework, taking a walk, going to church, or entertaining friends.

Finally, Aloysius became what the Church calls a “martyr of charity.”  When the plague struck Rome in 1591, Aloysius and other Jesuits cared for the sick, and he fell victim to the illness himself, dying at age 23 on June 21.  During the Covid pandemic there were similar martyrs among our front-line workers.  But heroic charity isn’t restricted to a plague or pandemic.  Each of us has numerous opportunities daily to practice charity toward our family members, neighbors, colleagues at work—e.g., by being patient and gentle, by being generous (as St. Paul urges the Christians of Corinth [2 Cor 9:5-11]), by lending a helping hand, by visiting someone who’s elderly or sick, and by praying for people in need whom we can’t assist directly.  Prayer, in fact, is an exercise of our Christian priesthood as followers of our Lord Jesus.



[1] https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-aloysius-gonzaga/

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