Aloysius Gonzaga

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Aloysius de Gonzaga, SJ (in Italian: Luigi Gonzaga; 9 March 1568 - 21 June 1591) was an Italian aristocrat who became a member of the Society of Jesus. While still a student at the Roman College, he died as a result of caring for the victims of a serious epidemic. He was beatified in 1605 and canonized in 1726.

Quotes

What God does is all well done: if He takes away from us what He had previously given us, He does it to secure it in an inviolable place.

Sanctuary dedicated to Aloysius Gonzaga.

Christ the Lord, because of the great love that his creatures bring to us, wanted particular memory to be made of certain Saints, so that they might be as our protectors; they would help us in our spiritual and material needs and give us occasion to imitate their virtues. [...] Having a desire for some virtue we must resort to the Saints: thus, wanting to obtain from God the fortress, we must ask for it from the Martyrs; wanting Penance, from the Confessors; for humility we must particularly resort to the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, as the most reported of the creatures excellent in this virtue.

Sanctuary dedicated to Aloysius Gonzaga.

I call upon you, my lady, the gift of the Holy Spirit and endless consolations. When they brought me your letter, they still find me in this region of the dead. But let us be animated and aim our aspirations towards heaven, where we will praise eternal God in the land of the living. For my part, I would have long wanted to find each other and, honestly, I had hoped to leave for it even before now. Charity consists, as St. Paul says, in «rejoicing with those who are in joy and weeping with those who are in weeping». Therefore, most illustrious mother, you must rejoice greatly because, through your merit, God indicates true happiness to me and frees me from the fear of losing him. I will confide to you, O most illustrious lady, that by meditating on divine goodness, a bottomless and borderless sea, my mind goes astray. I cannot understand how the Lord looks at my small and brief toil and rewards me with eternal rest and from heaven invites me to that happiness that I have so far sought negligently and offers me, which I have shed very few tears for it, that treasure that is the crowning achievement of great toil and weeping. O most illustrious lady, be careful not to offend the infinite divine goodness, weeping as dead those who live in the presence of God and who with his intercession can meet your needs much more than in this life. The separation will not be long. We shall see ourselves again in heaven and together united with the author of our salvation we shall enjoy immortal joys, praising him with all the capacity of the soul and singing his graces without end. He takes away from us what he had previously given us only to place it in a safer and more inviolable place and to adorn us with those goods that we ourselves would choose. I have said these things only to obey my ardent wish that you, O most illustrious lady, and the whole family, consider my departure as a joyful event. And you continue to assist me with your maternal blessing, while I am at sea towards the port of all my hopes. I preferred to write to you because I have nothing left with which to manifest to you more clearly the love and respect that, as a son, I owe to my mother.

From a Letter to His Mother Marthe Tana of Santena, 8 May 2016.

Quotes about

Very Reverend my Father,

Of good will I will satisfy at what V. R. seeks me, believing that it belongs to the glory of God Our Lord, to know the gifts granted by His Divine Majesty to’ his servants.

I have long confessed our most sweet and most holy brother Luigi Gonzaga, and once again I have generally confessed him of all my life, and he served me at Mass and practiced volunteers with me, dealing with the things of God. From the aforesaid confessions, and from the conversation I speak with all truth power to affirm the following things.

Before he has never caused mortal sin, and I hold this for certain at the time from the age of 7 until death, but as for the first years (of which’ he did not live with that knowledge of God, with which he later lived) I hold it by conjecture, because it is not truthful that in childhood he sinned mortally; maxims being preordained by God to such purity

Second, that from the seventh year of his life, in which (as it told me) he converted from the world to God, he lived a perfect life.

Third, that I have never felt carnal stimulation.

Fourth, that in prayer and contemplation (in which he mostly knelt on the ground without leaning) as an ordinary he did not suffer distraction.

Fifth, may it have been a mirror of obedience, humility, mortification, abstinence, prudence, devotion and purity.

In the last days of his life he had such excessive consolation in representing to him the glory of’ the blessed, which he thought had lasted less than a quarter of an hour, having however lasted almost the entire night.

In the same time the father died. Lodovico Corbinelli, and I told him what he believed about that soul, answered these words with great certainty: Only purgatory has passed. And considering his nature, which he was considered an overlord in speaking, and reserved in affirming doubtful things, I took it for certain that l’ had known by divine revelation: but I did not want to go any further, so as not to give him an opportunity for vainglory.

Many other things I could say, which I keep quiet about, because I don't make sure I remember them well.

In sum, I believe that it went straight to blessed glory, and I have always had scruples about praying to God for that soul, telling myself to do insult to the grace of God, which I have known in it. On the contrary, I have never had scruples in recommending myself to his orations, in which I trust greatly.

Your Reverence pray for me.

From the rooms of the Palace on 17 October 1601.

From a letter of Saint Robert Bellarmine addressed to Father Virgilio Cepari, S.J., quoted in Virgilio Cepari, S.J., Vita di San Luigi Gonzaga.

External links