At the village of Gars near Munich in Bavaria, Germany, Blessed Kaspar Stanggassinger, priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, who, dedicated to the education of the young, offered them an example of joyful charity and constant prayer.
Lifespan: 1871–1899
Beatified: 24 April 1988 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 26 September
“I want to listen to everyone willingly, as if I had nothing else to do.”
Kaspar Stanggassinger
Kaspar Stanggassinger was born in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, on 12 January 1871, and was baptized the same day. At the age of ten he entered the seminary at Freising, already well disposed to his early priestly vocation; even at that age he distinguished himself by a rigorous programme of piety and study.
At sixteen he made a vow of chastity. At eighteen, following his recovery from a serious illness, he consecrated himself perpetually to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. At twenty-one, on 2 April 1892, he received the tonsure and the four Minor Orders, advancing his preparation for the priesthood.
In the summer of 1892, however, during a pilgrimage to a Marian shrine, he felt called to consecrate himself as a religious among the Redemptorists, founded by Saint Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori, who had already been guiding him spiritually.
Overcoming his father’s opposition, he entered the novitiate at Gars, with a rule of life summed up in the words: “I can, I will, I must make myself holy.”
On 16 June 1895 he was ordained a priest, adding to his rule this resolution: “All that I have — life, blood, health, voice — I must consecrate entirely to the salvation of souls, unto death, under the standard of Saint Alphonsus.”
To fulfil his desire to go as a missionary to Brazil, he was assigned to the missionary school at Dürrnberg. In the summer of 1899 this school was transferred to Gars, and he, though still very young, was appointed its director. But his brilliant course was cut short: a sudden acute peritonitis struck him down at barely twenty-nine years of age, on 26 September 1899.