Today we remember the example of a young man who, like many saints, bucked his family’s expectations in order to follow Jesus and in the process may have brought his own father to salvation.
Luigi was the first-born son of Italian aristocrats. His father Don Ferrante, the Marquis of Castiglione, a military man himself, wanted Luigi to follow in his footsteps and so gave his four-year-old son a miniature pistol and canon when he sent him off to live among soldiers. Luigi learned very early on that military life required self-discipline, dedication to one’s superiors, vigilance, and the ability to cuss in new and interesting ways.
The young boy picked up on some of that and swore once in front of a tutor who scolded him immediately. Luigi repented and never swore again. The lad, from the beginning, wanted nothing more than to be good, so he took to regular prayer. At the age of seven he added to his morning and evening prayer the Office of Our Lady, the seven penitential psalms, and other devotions which he prayed while kneeling. He didn’t take to the military lifestyle, but he was drawn to the self-discipline and dedication the lifestyle encouraged. He just chose to direct it towards the spiritual life.
At eight years old he was sent to school in Florence to better learn Latin and Italian and serve in the Court of Francesco de Medici. He studied hard but also used his time to expand his devotional life, fasting three days a week and getting up in the middle of the night to pray. It was his twelfth year of life that was the most momentous. In it he received his First Communion at the hands of St. Charles Borromeo. Later, he came down with a terrible sickness that damaged his kidneys and made it difficult for him to eat normally. It also kept him out of the social requirements of his station which shielded him from the vices all around while giving him time to read the lives of the saints. And it was also this time that he was first exposed to the work of the Jesuits in India, which inspired his hope to become a missionary.
At the age of thirteen he moved to Spain with his father, who had joined the Royal Court of Empress Mary of Austria, regent of Spain. There, Luigi was pressed into the service of Prince Diego, son of King Felipe II. He served the prince well, but never gave up on his spiritual life, and always only made advancement after advancement so that, though at a tender age, he was determined to renounce his commission as marquis for his younger brother Ridolfo and become a Jesuit.
He excitedly told his mother of his desire, and she consented; but his father flew into a rage. He was no doubt disappointed, but he was also convinced that someone had brainwashed Luigi in order to get back at him for his many unpaid gambling debts. He threatened to beat his son, but many interceded for the clearly holy boy and Don Ferrante began to consider the possibility. Then, in 1582, Prince Diego died from smallpox, and Luigi and his brother were released and moved back to Castiglione with the whole family.
Back home, Luigi found that his father had changed his mind and all his other relations had banded together to make him give up on the idea of a religious life. Even local clerics of good repute were engaged by the family to try to convince the young man. But Luigi wasn’t brainwashed. The fact was that he loved Jesus Christ and wanted, like a good soldier, to give his life for his true King.
Luigi was seventeen when his family Don Ferrante his father relented. He traveled to Rome and was accepted as a Jesuit novice on November 25, 1585. Six weeks later his father died. Beautifully, in those weeks, his father reformed his life, gave up gambling, and dedicated himself to a life of spiritual devotion.
Over the following few years we don’t know much about what happened to Luigi except that he studied hard and that he struggled to obey his superiors who wanted him to pray less not more. He often sought opportunities for humility, volunteering for lowly jobs. The other novices would note how much the young Italian loved to meditate on the Lord, sometimes to the point of ecstasy. We also know that his regular confessor during this time was none other than St. Robert Bellarmine. Later, St. Robert would say that Luigi never committed a mortal sin in his life.
In 1591, an epidemic broke out in Rome, so the Jesuits opened a hospital to care for the many ill. Luigi asked to help, of course, and he worked with great zeal and eventually contracted the disease. He died on June 21st of that year.
Today, we know Luigi by the Latin version of his first name, and his last name is associated in the U.S. more with college basketball than with an austere devotion to Christ Jesus. Today, we know him as St. Aloysius Gonzaga. He was only twenty-three when he died and he was canonized just fourteen years after his death. In fact, in the year 1600 Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi who was a renowned mystic and who would eventually be canonized, related that St. Aloysius appeared to her in a vision and called him a “hidden martyr” for all his many sacrifices for God.
St. Aloysius [pronounced in English as "a-low-IH-shis"] is considered one of the many patrons of youth, of seminarians, and of those who work with plague victims.
I might suggest he could intercede too for any who struggle with their parents. His father’s plans for him to become a great soldier would be fulfilled in one sense, in the most important sense. St. Aloysius fought hard for the salvation of his father’s soul. And he won. He reminds us too that we ought only really have one king, one ruler, one great care in our lives: Jesus Christ.
So, let us pray that we too might show something of St. Aloysius’ self-discipline, dedication, and vigilance as we seek to serve Christ the King.
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