The memorial of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, religious, who, born of princely stock and most renowned for the innocence of his life, handed over his ancestral principality to his brother and joined the Society of Jesus at Rome; but, his strength broken while attending those infected with the plague, he met death while still a young man.
Lifespan: 1568–1591
Beatified: 19 October 1605 by Pope Paul V
Canonized: 31 December 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII, Vatican Basilica
Memoria liturgica: 21 June
“I seek salvation — seek it also!”
Aloysius Gonzaga
Aloysius Gonzaga was born on 9 March 1568 at Castiglione delle Stiviere, in the province of Mantua — the ancestral seat of his family. As with every firstborn of noble lineage, his life seemed already decided. So at least his father, the Marquis Ferrante, believed, raising him among arquebuses and suits of armour, while his mother nurtured him with witness of faith and prayer.
He would later describe his vocation as having matured very early. At five he was playing at war; at seven he was already kneeling several times a day to recite the penitential psalms; at ten he consecrated himself definitively to Mary, as she had consecrated herself to God.
At twelve he at last received his First Communion from the hands of Saint Charles Borromeo, who was making a pastoral visitation in that region. He soon confided his intentions to his mother, but his father opposed the choice with every means at his disposal. Even the wider family mocked him; he replied: “I seek salvation — seek it also!”
His father sent him to the Italian courts, hoping to distract him — perhaps even to see him fall in love — but achieved only the opposite: Aloysius grew ever more firm in his resolve to enter the Society of Jesus. In 1585 he signed the renunciation of his titles and inheritance in favour of his younger brother Rodolfo and set out for Rome. He was only seventeen.
Among the Jesuits, Aloysius distinguished himself by his fervour in the faith and his practice of penance and self-mastery. His superiors immediately recognized that they had in their hands a true spiritual jewel: after his death, the Superior General — the direct successor of Saint Ignatius of Loyola — would say that he had believed Aloysius would survive his illness, convinced that the Lord intended him one day to lead the Society of Jesus. In fact he spent only a few years among the Jesuits, studying theology but dying before he could take his vows.
While Aloysius was in Rome, a succession of calamities struck the city: first drought, then famine, then an outbreak of plague. Faithful to his motto “Like the others” — which meant setting aside alike his noble birth and any privileges his state of health might have claimed — he went among the plague-stricken to tend and assist them, working alongside Saint Camillus de Lellis.
Ti confiderò, o illustrissima signora, che meditando le bontà divine, mare senza fondo e senza confini, la mia mente si smarrisce. Non riesco a capacitarmi come il Signore guarda alla mia piccola e breve fatica e mi premi con il riposo eterno e dal cielo mi inviti a quella felicità che io fino ad ora ho cercato con negligenza e offra a me, che assai poche lacrime ho sparso per esso, quel tesoro che è il coronamento di grandi fatiche e pianto.
I confess to you, most illustrious Lady, that when I contemplate the divine goodness — a sea without bottom or shore — my mind loses itself. I cannot comprehend how the Lord looks upon my small and brief labours and rewards me with eternal rest, or how from heaven he calls me to that happiness which I have until now sought so negligently; or how he offers to me — who have shed so few tears for his sake — that treasure which is the crown of great toil and weeping.
From his last letter to his mother, 10 June 1591
One day he came upon a sick man lying abandoned in the street, at the point of death. He lifted him onto his shoulders and carried him to the hospital of the Consolata. It was there, in all likelihood, that he became infected; a few days later he died in the arms of his brethren, aged only twenty-three.
He was canonized in 1726 by Benedict XIII, who three years later proclaimed him protector of students. Pius XI designated him patron of Catholic youth in 1926, and John Paul II consecrated him patron of AIDS sufferers in 1991.