Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

At the age of seven, he was so enlightened by the lights of heaven that he resolved from then on to renounce the love of the world, to dedicate himself entirely to divine love; ever since, he regarded this time as that of his conversion. Being at this tender age, he was among those present at the exorcism of a possessed person, which a religious of great holiness, of the Order of Saint Francis, had undertaken. The demons, having perceived him, whether they judged what he was to be one day by what they had already recognized in him, or whether God used them to make the merit of our Saint shine forth all the more, began to shout, pointing at him: "Do you see this child? He is destined for heaven, and a great glory is being prepared for him." He had his devotions regulated like a man already experienced in virtue. He said every day, on his knees, the seven penitential Psalms, the hours of Our Lady, and several other prayers he had prescribed for himself; he was so faithful in fulfilling this practice that one could not even make him interrupt it during a quartan fever that afflicted him for eight whole months; one only persuaded him that, when his weakness was excessive, someone would recite these prayers in his presence. Nor could one ever convince him to use a rug when he knelt.

At the age of eight, his father took him, with Rodolphe, his younger brother, to Francis de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to have them both raised at his court; but, far from letting himself be corrupted by such a contagious atmosphere, Louis always continued his same spiritual exercises there; and, to triumph more easily over the snares of the devil, the allurements of the world, and his own concupiscence, he took the Blessed Virgin as his advocate, placed himself under her protection, and made a vow to keep his virginity inviolably; this drew so many graces upon him that, thereafter, he felt no movement, nor was he attacked by any thought contrary to purity. Also, for his part, he did everything possible to avoid the occasions of it; for he never looked at women fixedly, not even the Marchioness his mother, nor the Empress Maria, in whose service he remained for a long time; and as long as he was at court, he did not allow young people to set foot in his room. He also avoided, as much as he could, being alone with them or speaking to them. His modesty was so great that, when he dressed, he did not dare to show the tips of his bare feet to his valet.

He began at the age of ten to lead a more retired life and to go to confession more often, without worrying about his companions who called him scrupulous and melancholy, and he made a general confession to the rector of the college of the Society of Jesus, in Florence, with admirable exactitude, and with such sorrow that he wept for his sins as if he had been the greatest criminal in the world. The church was the place where he went with the greatest inclination. He did not fail to go there in the morning to hear Mass, and in the evening to attend Benediction.

He was eleven or twelve years old when he left Florence to go to Mantua with Rodolphe, his brother, because the Marquis of Castiglione, his father, having been appointed governor of Montferrat by the duke of that name, wanted his children to remain at the court of his benefactor. But he became so infirm there, whether by the inconveniences that befell him or by the mortifications he practiced, that he resolved to lead a life withdrawn from the commerce and conversation of men: which gave him the means to apply himself to reading, particularly that of the Lives of the Saints, and to frequent only the churches and monasteries. It was then that he took the resolution to cede to his younger brother what belonged to him by right of primogeniture, although he had already been invested with it by the emperor, in order to embrace the ecclesiastical state and attend more freely to God; for he had no view toward the benefices or dignities he might hope for, as is quite ordinary for persons of quality; but he considered only the glory of Jesus Christ and his own perfection, which he believed he could find only by devoting himself to the worship of the altars and by trampling underfoot all the vanities of the century.

However, the pious young man was wasting away: he was considerably weakened, of extreme thinness, and his stomach refused even the lightest food; he had fallen into a state of languor that put his life in danger. The Marquis of Castiglione, being warned of this, ordered that his children be brought back to his castle, in the hope that the native air and the maternal care of Martha would restore his son's health. Back in Castiglione, he continued to work more and more at virtue. He usually locked himself in his room so as not to be interrupted in his prayers. His servants often saw him prostrate on the ground before a crucifix, his arms extended and raised to heaven or crossed on his chest, melting into tears and heaving sighs capable of touching the most hardened hearts. At other times, they saw him rapt in ecstasy and motionless as a statue. He became particularly attached to reading the book of Father Canisius, of the Society of Jesus, where he learned to pray; he also took pleasure in reading the accounts of the Indies, which made him affectionately inclined toward the society and led him to form the design of entering it to work for the salvation of souls and the conversion of idolaters. On Sundays and feast days, after attending the catechism, he would gather some children and explain to them the instruction he had heard; he added wise advice and pious encouragement to it.

At that time, Saint Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Mi lan, passed through Ca saint Charles Borromée Saint who executed donations in favor of orphans. stiglione; our Blessed one had the happiness of speaking with him several times, with such wit and edification that this great prelate could not tire of admiring the graces that Our Lord was bestowing upon this young man. He exhorted him to approach the Holy Communion often, and having learned from him that he had not yet received it, he gave it to him with his own hands. Since then, our Saint was always so devout toward the Most Holy Sacrament that he would melt into tears when he heard Holy Mass.

Having received an order from his father to come and meet him from Castiglione to Casal, he went there with diligence, always resolved not to abandon the path of virtue. Indeed, through his pious exercises and the frequent conversations he had with the Capuchins and the Barnabites, he made such progress there that he undertook to leave the world entirely and to add to the vow of virginity that he had already made in Florence, those of obedience and poverty. But as he was only thirteen years old, he kept this design secret until he was of an age to execute it; and, in the meantime, he practiced the same austerities and the same mortifications as the religious; he fasted three days of the week, and, on one of those days, he fasted on bread and water. Moreover, he ate so little that, without an extraordinary help from God, he could not have lived on the food he took; it barely amounted to the value of an ounce. He added to this abstinence the discipline unto blood. At first, he only gave it to himself three times a week; but, later, he gave it to himself every day, and finally three times in twenty-four hours. He cleverly slipped a board into his bed in order to sleep on the hard surface; and, instead of a hair shirt, he placed his spurs between his shirt, to be pricked by them at every moment. At night, when his servants were asleep, he would rise secretly, and, although in the heart of winter, he would remain in his shirt until the cold, seizing his whole body, made him fall to the ground from weakness.

In the year 1581, the Marquis, his father, took him with him to Spain, in the retinue of Empress Maria, daughter of Charles V; no sooner had he arrived than Philip II appointed him as a page to Prince Diego, his son. Amidst the distractions of the court, he did not fail to study philosophy, to approach the Sacraments frequently, and to practice the same exercises of piety as he had done before. When he reached the age of sixteen, he judged that the time had come to execute the plan he had formed to become a religious. But as he had not yet chosen a particular Congregation, he had recourse to the Blessed Virgin, his advocate, and, on the day of her Assumption, he received communion at the Jesuit college in Madrid, with extraordinary preparation and devotion, in order to learn what God asked of him. His prayer was immediately answered; for, while he was making his thanksgiving, a miraculous voice said to him distinctly: "that he should enter the Society of Jesus; that he had only to open his heart to his conf Compagnie de Jésus Religious order to which Peter Canisius belonged. essor, who was one of them, and that he would learn from him what he had to do for the accomplishment of this design." He executed this order from heaven at that very moment; and, having learned that it was necessary to have his father's permission, he asked for it with all possible insistence.

When the Marquis learned of his son's resolution, he was deeply moved and tried, by all sorts of means, to make him change it. At first, he used endearments, then threats; and, seeing that nothing was capable of bending his heart, he deferred his decision until his return to Italy, saying that he did not want him to become a religious in Spain. However, these were only artifices to dissipate Louis's design by constantly delaying the time; for, when he was in Italy, he was made to undertake several more journeys to neighboring princes to negotiate important and extremely thorny matters with them. He always concluded them successfully, and with the prudence of a man seasoned in politics. But however pressing they were, he never ceased, during his negotiations, to offer prayers, fasts, and mortifications to obtain from God that He might soften the heart of his father, who, finally, gave his consent and permitted him to go to Rome to enter the Society. Our Saint first renounced his estates in Mantua, with the agreement of the Emperor (because it was an imperial fief), in favor of Rodolfo, his younger brother. When he said goodbye to his subjects, who were melting into tears at losing such a good master, he addressed these beautiful words to them: "It is very difficult for great lords to be saved; for me, I seek only my salvation, and I advise you all to do the same."

Passing through Loreto, he received communion in that holy chapel with singular devotion and prayed to Our Lady to continue to be his protectress. As soon as he was in Rome, he visited the churches of the city, kissed the feet of Pope Sixtus V, and finally, after taking leav Rome Birthplace of Maximian. e of some cardinals of his house, he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, at Saint Andrew, in the year 1585, not yet having completed his eighteenth year, on the day of Saint Catherine, martyr, whom he took, because of this, as his patroness for the rest of his life. In the letter he wrote to his father to say goodbye, he used only these words from the Psalmist: "Forget your people and your father's house." And in the one he wrote to Rodolfo, his brother, he used only these words from the Wise Man: "He who fears God will do good works." Entering the cell that was assigned to him for his novitiate, he said with a transport of joy, as if he had entered a paradise: "This is my rest for all ages; I will dwell in this place, because I have chosen it."

Never was a novice seen to undertake the work of perfection with more fervor, nor to make such great progress in so little time. He surpassed all others, not so much by the nobility of his family as by the brilliance of all kinds of virtues: he was the most modest, the most sober, the most mortified, the most humble, the most affable, the most gentle, and the most obedient. He kept his eyes so restrained that, after three months of novitiate, he still did not know how the tables were arranged in the refectory. One day, he was ordered to go fetch a book from the rector's place; he was obliged to inquire where it was. The sacristan having given him the charge, on Holy Thursday, to stand in the chapel to trim the candles and torches lit before the Most Blessed Sacrament, he remained there for several hours on his knees, without ever raising his eyes to look at the ornaments and riches of this holy place, not believing that it was permitted for him to have any thoughts other than those that concerned his office. One would have easily been persuaded that he had entirely lost his sense of taste, seeing him eat without savoring the dishes and without examining whether they were good or bad. He once had a great scruple, thinking he had slightly cast his eyes to the side to see what a brother who was sitting at the table near him was doing; and, rendering an account of this scruple to the master of novices, he confessed to him that it was the first time this had happened to him. His ears were never open to news of the world, nor to useless things. He kept an almost continuous silence and, when he was obliged to speak, it was so appropriate and with such candor and simplicity that he banished from his speech all kinds of ambiguous words and dissimulation; he was accustomed to say that duplicity, artifice, or pretense in the world caused the security of human commerce to be lost, but that, in a community, it was a venom and a plague. He had such a horror of sensual pleasures that, so as not to feel the slightest touch of them, he never omitted the austerities that were permitted to him; it was in vain that they granted him some, he always desired greater ones. He was delighted when he was sent to ask for alms through the streets of Rome, poorly dressed and with a beggar's sack on his back; and as he was asked one day if he had any repugnance to this, he replied that he did not, because he imagined before his eyes Jesus Christ humiliated for the sins of men, and the eternal reward that He gives to those who lower themselves for His love. He also took pleasure in going, on feast days, to catechize the poor and the peasants, and to visit the hospitals, where he particularly attached himself to serving the most infected and the most miserable, giving everywhere examples of his humility and charity. He was so detached from flesh and blood that, in the third month of his novitiate, when he was told the news of his father's death, he was no more moved than if it had been very indifferent to him. His fellow students expressed their surprise to him. "I confess to you," he replied, "that if I considered only the death of my father, I would be deeply afflicted. But, recognizing that this death comes from the hand of God, I cannot be saddened. Can one be afflicted by a thing that one knows is pleasing to His divine Majesty? Everything that God does is good. I thank Him above all for the holy death of my father. He granted him a great grace there. I rejoice in the salvation of his soul. It is assured, and I give thanks to the divine Majesty for it." He also learned, without any emotion, that Monsignor de Gonzaga, his uncle, had been created a cardinal; for, as he was truly dead to the world, nothing was capable of touching him.

The exercises of the active life did not prevent him from applying himself to the contemplative life; for he was so devoted to prayer that one would have said it was his entire occupation. In this regard, he sometimes said that "he who was not a man of prayer would never arrive at a high degree of holiness, nor would he ever triumph over himself; and that all the cowardice and the lack of mortification that one sees in religious souls proceeded only from the fact that one neglected meditation, which is the shortest and most effective means to acquire virtues." One must not, therefore, be surprised if, being convinced of these truths, he placed all his delights in performing holy prayer, and if he took such care to keep his mind constantly in the recollection and tranquility necessary for this pious exercise, and to banish from it all thoughts that could have disturbed him there. "The soul that presents itself to prayer," he said, "must be absolutely free from all affection and all thought foreign to the subject that must occupy it; without that, it cannot be attentive to what it wishes to meditate upon, it cannot receive within itself the image of God in contemplation." He was such a master of his imagination that he confessed one day that, during the space of six months, all his distractions had not lasted the time of an Ave Maria. "I have as much difficulty," he said, "in distracting myself from God as others say they have in recollecting themselves; for the time that I use to manage to distract myself is a time of violence and great suffering. This interior combat is much more harmful to my health than the recollection to which I am accustomed and in which I find calm and peace." He also had much devotion during his vocal prayers, particularly when he recited psalms; for it was with such spiritual taste and interior sweetness that he could not even think of them or hear the word 'psalm' without being entirely transported with joy. He had a singular devotion to meditating on the passion of Our Lord, of which he could not think, any more than of the other mysteries of our redemption, without shedding torrents of tears and feeling tenderness and languor that cannot be expressed. It is also noted that he had a particular affection for the holy angels, and especially for the one to whose care divine Providence had entrusted him. He composed a pious meditation on this subject, which is seen printed with others by the Rev. Fr. Vincent Bruno, of the Society of Jesus, in the life he composed of our Saint. We have already said a word about his devotion toward the Most Blessed Sacrament of the altar; but we will add in this place that it was so cordial and so fervent that he never communicated without feeling an admirable joy and taste for the Holy Eucharist. The day before communion, he spoke only of this august mystery; he said things about it so beautiful and so touching that the priests tried to hear him on this matter, to excite themselves to fervor. Finally, he did not fail to visit this adorable Sacrament several times a day, as much to render profound respects to Jesus Christ there as to converse with Him familiarly about everything that concerned his perfection.

He was then so inclined to perform bodily penances that, if the superiors had not restrained him, he would undoubtedly have greatly shortened his days, fervor often leading him to mortifications that surpassed his strength. Many even blamed him for this and made it a matter of conscience for him, saying that he was killing himself; but he replied that after having exposed his desire to his superiors, he had no more reason to fear when they granted him what he asked for; and that, when they refused him what he wished, he was content to offer his good will to God. He also said very pleasantly to the Fathers who advised him to moderate his austerities that, since they themselves did not do so regarding themselves, he preferred to imitate their example than to follow their advice; that, being a hard and twisted iron, he had come into religion as to a furnace, to be softened and straightened with the hammer of mortification and penance; that the true time to do it was that of youth, man being healthy and with all his strength, whereas, in old age, he is usually so infirm and so weak that he can no longer do it. Thus, at the point of death, after having received the Viaticum, he declared, in the presence of several Fathers, that if he had any scruple, it was only for the penances that he had omitted and not for those that he had practiced, because he had done them by obedience, and not by the movement of his own will. When he was refused permission to perform some austerity, he tried to make up for it by other acts of virtue, or by procuring pain for himself through painful postures and through ways of walking, standing, or sitting that bothered his body.

This great exterior mortification was accompanied and supported by a perfect interior mortification of his passions and appetites. To succeed more easily, he examined all the movements of his soul so carefully that he hardly let any pass that were contrary to high virtue. However, when he noticed that he had fallen into some fault, he did not grieve excessively; but, humbling himself before the majesty of God, he asked Him for forgiveness with all his heart, and thus rose from his falls with a great resolution to do better than ever: "Because," he said, "he who becomes sad and discouraged when he has fallen shows that he does not know himself, and that he does not think that he is kneaded from a earth that produces only thistles and thorns." Hence it is that he was delighted when he was corrected for his faults: he even wished that he be reproved in public, and, in order to lead the superiors to do so, he gave them to them in writing.

Although he worked to mortify all his passions, he nevertheless applied himself particularly to overcoming that of pride and the desires for honor and esteem, which are so natural to man, and so delicate in persons of high birth: he embraced the study of humility with such ardor that he omitted nothing that he believed could contribute to establishing it solidly in his heart; thus, this virtue, which is the firm support of all the others, took such deep roots there that it seemed to be the principle that animated all his actions. Never did a single word come out of his mouth that was to his praise, and, by an industrious silence, he always covered what could be praised in him. One day, he had preached in the refectory to the edification of the entire community; as a Father spoke of him in his presence in advantageous terms, he remained completely confused and as afflicted to have heard good said of him as others are content to hear their praises published. To maintain himself in this spirit of humility and annihilation, he made a collection, which was found after his death, of the reasons man has to despise and lower himself. In the house, as well as outside, he always yielded the first place to his brothers. He could never suffer that, under the pretext of his illnesses and weaknesses, one would dispense him from the common life, whether for food, or for his room, or for his clothes. There was no office, however low it was, that he did not desire with more ardor than men of the world desire the most honorable dignities and charges. He served, on certain days of the week, in the refectory and in the kitchen, and gathered the leftovers there, which he then distributed with his own hands to the poor with much humility and charity.

This profound humility had produced in his heart an obedience so exact that his conscience never reproached him for having failed in the orders of his superiors, nor even for having felt repugnance and movements against what they prescribed to him. Their will was always the rule of his own, and, without seeking the cause of what they ordered, nor paying attention to whether they were learned or not, noble or commoners, he considered only the authority of God in them. He also obeyed with pleasure the brothers who, by their office, had some sort of authority over him, saying that he who obeyed in this manner was assured of the reward that God promises to the obedient. This submission, so respectful with regard to his brothers, far from finding it painful, he found it sweet and pleasant. "It is more consoling for me, I confess," he said, "to obey subaltern superiors than the first superiors. If one viewed obedience humanly, one could only very difficultly resolve to obey a man, much more so one who would be inferior to us in birth and knowledge; but to submit to a man to obey God, that is, on the contrary, a glory and a great glory. Nothing seems more beautiful to me, because there is nothing human in it."

Obedience was so dear to him that he never hesitated to sacrifice everything to it. One day, while he was folding linen with other novices, he remembered that he had not yet read a few pages of Saint Bernard, as he was accustomed to do each day; but, at the same instant, he said to himself: "I could leave this work, as some others have already done, since the time to be employed in it is not absolutely determined; but, if I left it to go read Saint Bernard, what would this reading teach me? That I must obey. Well! I must practice what Saint Bernard would teach me, and remain at this occupation by a spirit of obedience." And he continued to fold linen.

His zeal for the entire observance of the rule has not shone less in him than the other virtues of which we have just spoken: it is said that he kept it to the letter, and that he never violated any point of it, to the point that his roommate having asked him for a half-sheet of paper to write a letter, he doubted if he could give it to him without permission; that is why, leaving his cell, he went to ask for this permission. One day, Cardinal Gonzaga wanting to keep him for dinner with him, he replied that he could not, because the Rule forbade it; the cardinal was so edified by it that, since then, when he asked him for something, he always added: "If it is not against your Rule." Cardinal de la Rovère came one morning to speak to him in the sacristy. "My Lord, it is not permitted for me to speak," our Saint said to him. "God forbid that I should ever lead you to break the Rule," replied the cardinal; "but, the matter being important, I am going to ask the Father General to dispense you from silence at this moment." Louis bowed, without answering a syllable, and only conversed with him after having received permission from Father Aquaviva.

As for holy poverty, he loved it with more passion than the great ones of the world love their gold and their silver. All his pleasure was to desire nothing and to be destitute of all things, in order to possess God alone. He had no painting or figure to adorn his cell; but only two paper images: one of Saint Catherine, martyr, whom he had chosen, as we have said, for his patroness, because he had entered religion on the day of her feast; and the other, of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Having written a small work on some matter of theology, he later gave it to his superior; asked why he gave it to him when he needed to keep it, he replied that it was because he had some attachment to this treatise as to a thing that came from him. Having entered the Society, he no longer wanted to use the Breviary that he had in the world, because it was too richly bound. During his studies, he was presented with a Summa of Saint Thomas, which was gilded on the edges; but he had no rest until he had been allowed to get rid of it to have an old copy. The superiors wanting him to have a cell to himself, because of his indisposition, he managed to have them give him a narrow, dark, and low one, under a staircase, where he had difficulty standing upright, and which resembled a tomb for a dead person more than the dwelling of a living being. He never found anything to complain about regarding his clothes, nor anything that concerned him, considering himself happy when he was given the worst. Being at his mother's, during the rigor of winter, one could never win him over to take the things that were necessary for him; but he sent to ask the rector of Brescia for some old rag to cover himself, and it was with great difficulty that he was persuaded to receive from her some undergarment that she gave him as alms, as to a poor person. At the home of Alfonso de Gonzaga, his uncle, seeing that he was being lodged in a well-furnished room, he exclaimed, speaking to his companion: "May God wish to help us this night, my dear brother! Where have our sins not reduced us? Ah! how much better we would be in our poor beds!" It was the love he had for holy poverty that inspired these beautiful sentiments in him.

It was through all these virtues, practiced to a heroic degree, that our Saint rose to the perfection of charity, which, being the queen of the others, strongly attaches the soul to its sovereign good. Indeed, he was so intimately united to Him that he could not hear God spoken of without feeling in his heart inconceivable tenderness and transports that even appeared on his face. Being one day in the refectory, the reading that was done of a treatise on divine love inflamed him so much that he could not finish his dinner, having his chest and face all on fire and his eyes bathed in tears. During his studies, while he was at recreation, he ensured that they always spoke of spiritual things; and he did so much, by his example and his zeal, that this custom, so praiseworthy and so necessary for arriving at perfection, was maintained in the Company. This love for God produced in him that of his neighbor to such a degree that he would have gone very willingly to the Indies to work there for the conversion of souls, if his superiors had been willing to permit it. He often requested to be sent to the hospitals to serve the sick there. When he went there, he made their beds, gave them food, washed their feet, and swept their rooms. In the illness from which he died, and which he had caught while assisting the plague-stricken, having heard it said that that year it was feared that the contagion would enter Rome, he made a vow, with the permission of the General, to serve the poor plague-stricken there if he returned to health.

This love for his neighbor drew him from religious solitude to go to his relatives, in order to appease a great dispute that was in his family, between the Marquis of Castiglione, his brother, and the Duke of Mantua, for the fief of Solferino, which by right belonged to the Marquis, but of which Horace de Gonzaga, his uncle, had disposed, by his will, in favor of the Duke. It was therefore believed that one would never see the end of this affair except by putting it into the hands of our Saint: and everyone was so persuaded of his probity that no one doubted that he would prefer justice to all the interests he could have in it. When he arrived in the Marquisate of Castiglione, all the people went out to meet him and received him with a thousand testimonies of respect; many even knelt when he passed, honoring him as a Saint, and weeping for their misfortune in not having deserved such a lord; his mother, who was accustomed, from the time he was still a child, to call him her angel, considered him not only as her son, but as a person sent from heaven to bring peace to her family; indeed, he happily ended this great dispute to the satisfaction of all parties. It was by means of his prayers, rather than by the lights of his prudence, although it was admirable, given his young age, that he succeeded in everything he undertook; for he himself confessed that he had never recommended anything to God that he had not obtained a happy outcome for.

These affairs being finished, and God having revealed to him, at the college of Milan, that He would soon call him to Himself, he returned to Rome in the year 1591, very joyful at such pleasant news. Having found this city afflicted by the plague, he importuned his superiors so much that they permitted him to help the sick; but as his charity and fervor led him to serve particularly those who were in the greatest danger and attacked with the most violence, he himself was soon seized by the malady. He rejoiced in it extremely and thanked God for it, seeing himself thereby close to being delivered from the tiresome prison of this mortal body. It is true that the remedies that were prescribed for him relieved him for a time; but he was left with a slow fever that lasted three months, as if to give him the means to see the happy moment of his death approach with more gentleness and tranquility. During all that time he took a singular pleasure in hearing about God and the glory of the Saints. Our Lord having made known to him the day on which he would depart from this world, he sang the Te Deum in thanksgiving, then he told those present that it would be the day of the octave of the Most Holy Sacrament. This day arrived, the nurses finding that he was doing better, said to him: "You are not about to die today, since you are beginning to recover." But he answered them that the day was not yet over, and that he would die at night. Towards evening, the Father Provincial having come to visit him, asked him how he was doing: "We are leaving," he said to him, "my Father." "And where to?" resumed the superior. "To heaven," he added, "as I hope by the mercy of my God, if my past offenses do not prevent me." A little before dying, he wished to take the discipline once more, or at least, because he was too weak, that another should give it to him, and begged the Father Provincial that he be allowed to expire on the floor. When he received the blessing and the plenary indulgence that Gregory XIV sent him, he exclaimed: "Alas! Who am I? That the Popes deign to remember me, a wretched worm of the earth, who is dying." Finally, invoking the holy name of Jesus, he rendered his soul to God at the end of the day of the octave of the Most Holy Sacrament, which was then June 20, at the age of twenty-two years, three months, and eleven days. This was in the year 1592, and the sixth of his entry into the Company. After his death, his knees were found to be all calloused, from the great habit he had, from his childhood, of kneeling to pray to God. A copper crucifix was also found on his chest which he had always carried on him.

Finally, one must not omit here the advantageous testimony that Cardinal Bellarmine, who had been his confessor and had known him very particularly, gave of him. He assured that our Saint had never committed a mortal sin; that, from the age of seven, when he said he had converted to God, he had led a life so perfect and so mortified that he had not even felt the stings of the flesh; that he prayed without any distraction; that he was an accomplished model of all virtues, and that there was reason to believe that upon leaving the earth he had gone to enjoy eternal happiness in heaven. This is why this learned and pious cardinal had scruples about praying to God for him, fearing to do injury to the divine grace of which he had recognized so many wonders in his soul.

Often he is painted near him, or in his hand, a discipline, because of his almost excessive rigors against himself. He is sometimes represented fainting at the feet of his confessor, but especially making his first communion at the hand of Charles Borromeo. As he is the patron of young students, he has been painted more than once surrounded by schoolchildren who invoke him or whom he seems to instruct in the service of God. He is also represented carrying a lily, to mark that he preserved his virginity until death.

## CULT AND RELICS. — WRITINGS OF SAINT LOUIS GONZAGA.

The body of Saint Louis Gonzaga was transported to the Church of the Annunciation of the Roman College, and buried in the Crucifix Chapel. Soon the crowd flocked to his tomb, deposited offerings and ex-votos there, proclaiming him a Saint, rendering him a cult that it was impossible to stop in its excesses. It was not only in Rome that this devotion manifested itself: in Florence, in Milan, in Turin, in Ferrara, and especially in Castiglione, in all the places where he had been, he was openly honored, invoked, and everyone claimed to have experienced the effects of his protection.

In 1598, as there was fear for the body regarding the damage that could result from the overflowing of the Tiber which was flooding the city of Rome, the coffin was removed from the vault and examined with care; it was in the most satisfactory state, the water not having altered it. The Provincial Father, after taking some relics for himself, distributed them to all the Fathers who were present. Then the precious remains were placed in a box smaller than the coffin; it was sealed and then deposited in the vault; but placed as high as possible and fixed to the wall, so as not to be exposed to humidity, and so that the water could no longer reach it.

On June 8, 1602, the Father General, after numerous and striking miracles, believed he should give the holy relics of Louis Gonzaga a testimony of respect by removing them from the common burial; he ordered their translation to the sacristy of the college church, while waiting for the Roman court to allow the honors that public devotion was already demanding to be rendered to them. On the following July 1st, the box containing them was enclosed in a second one of lead, and this one in a third of wood, and placed under the step of the altar of Saint Sebastian.

In 1604, there was talk in Rome only of the miracles performed by Saint Louis Gonzaga. All the princes and bishops of Italy begged the Pope to proceed with the canonization; and all the dioceses of Lombardy, taking the lead, had just celebrated with pomp the anniversary of the death of the young wonder-worker. On June 21 of the same year, the church of the college of the Society of Jesus, in Brescia, was decorated as in its most beautiful feast days: the portrait of Louis Gonzaga was exposed there for public veneration, and the attendance was very considerable. The bishop, yielding to the general eagerness and his personal desire, had permitted the anniversary of the holy death of Louis to be celebrated solemnly in the college church, and the students, the nobility, the clergy, and the people had wanted to find a place at this feast. On July 28, a similar solemnity took place in Castiglione, in the midst of a large influx of faithful who regarded Saint Louis as the tutelary angel of Castiglione. On May 13, 1605, the relics of our Saint, which had been deposited under the step of the altar of Saint Sebastian, were transferred, with the authorization of the Holy See, to the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, and placed in the wall, on the Gospel side. In 1605, Cardinal Dietrichstein obtained from Pope Paul V that the portrait of Louis Gonzaga would be exposed in the college church with the attachment and the title of Blessed, and that the gratitude of the faithful would be left the freedom to manifest itself through ex-votos deposited in the chapel where the precious remains of the Saint were kept. The same year, the cities of Florence, Cremona, Padua, and others celebrated, with the greatest pomp, the feast of Louis Gonzaga. In Castiglione, everyone fasted on the eve. On October 10, 1605, Pope Paul V issued a decree declaring Louis Gonzaga Blessed, and ordered at the same time to print with this title the life of the young Saint, written by Father Cepari.

A chapel was erected in Mantua in the cathedral, and inaugurated on the day of the feast of Saint Thomas. Devotion to our Blessed one spread with great rapidity. From all parts of Europe, the richest gifts were sent to his tomb.

The village of Sasso, located in the province of Sondrio, in Lombardy, obtained an illustrious relic of the Saint, and this place became a famous pilgrimage.

Pope Gregory XV beatified him on October 2, 1621. Two chapels were erected in his honor at the Roman College, one in the room where he had died, and the other in the church. The first gave way to a church dedicated to Saint Ignatius, where, in 1640, his body was placed in a chapel that had been erected there in his honor. In 1699, an altar was raised there, and his precious relics were transported there. The cause for canonization, interrupted by the death of Clement XI, was resumed by Innocent XIII and completed by Benedict XIII. On April 26, 1726, he gave the canonization box, and the ceremony took place Benoît XIII Pope who established the Institute as a religious Order in 1725. on December 31 of the same year, in the Vatican Basilica.

On November 22, 1729, Benedict XIII gave Saint Louis Gonzaga as a special protector to youth, and granted a plenary indulgence to those who, after having confessed and received communion, would visit his altar. Pope Clement XIII granted the same favor on November 21, 1737. In 1762, he celebrated pontifically, at the Roman College, the mass at the Saint's altar, and declared this altar privileged in perpetuity in favor of any priest who would celebrate there. Pope Pius VII granted several indulgences for the recitation of a prayer to Saint Louis Gonzaga. In 1847, the sovereign pontiff Pius IX gave for the Saint's altar a chasuble in silver cloth, adorned with gold foliage, and, in 1861, a lily whose gilded silver stem divided into five open flowers and three buds of pure silver.

Mr. André Coppiardi, archpriest of Castiglione, donated precious relics of the Saint to the church of Le Forest, accompanying his shipment with this distich:

Militia ossa tut retinet Castilio : Sylva Non desit, elocres tradidit illo sacra.

The translation of these relics took place on May 15, 1864, in a reliquary given by Napoleon III.

In 1858, Pope Pius IX donated to the Society of Jesus a writing by Saint Louis Gonzaga: it was a treatise on scholastic theology. The complete works of the Saint have been piously collected and published in Latin in Ratisbon. A Jesuit Father translated them in Belgium. In France, they were translated by the Abbé Ant. Ricard. Paris, 1858.

This account is extracted from the life of our Saint, composed by the Rev. Fr. Virgile Cepari, of the Society of Jesus, according to the instructions he had gathered from those who had known him, and according to the procedures carried out in various places for his canonization.