|
One day Monsignor was visiting one of his parishioners, and, asking about her teenage son, discovered that she was worried about what career he would choose. The priest said he could tell by a simple test. He put on the coffee table a Bible, a wallet, and a bottle of scotch.
“If he chooses the Bible,” the priest told her, “that’s a sign he’s destined for the priesthood. If he chooses the wallet, he’s called to be a banker. And if he chooses the bottle of scotch, he’s bound to become a Bowery bum.”
The teenager came in and the priest told him he could have any object on the table. The boy picked up all three.
“Oh no!” the priest exclaimed. “He’s going to be a Jesuit!”
The first day of summer presents itself as optimally suited for musing upon the mystery of vocation. Personally profound, indeed indelibly etched deeply upon one’s memory as if chiseled into granite , was one’s meditation difficultly discerning the true voice of the Divinity above a confusing and crushing cacophony that occurred on the feast of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga. Saint Aloysius, as we recount from approved sources, was the eldest son of Ferdinand Gonzaga, Marquis of Castiglione, and was born on the 9th of March, 1568. The first words he pronounced were the holy names of Jesus and Mary. In liege service to Philip II of Spain (after whom a vary tasty brandy is named after, by the way) his father destined little Louie for the military. At the age of five, Aloysius was sent to a military camp to get started on his career. His father was pleased to see his son marching around camp at the head of a platoon of soldiers. His mother was less pleased with the vocabulary he picked up there. At the age of 8, he was sent to receive further education and serve at the court of the Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici. While there, he fell ill with a disease of the kidneys, which was to trouble him throughout his life. While he was ill, he took the opportunity to read about the saints and to spend much of his time in prayer. When he was nine years of age he made a vow of perpetual virginity, and by a special grace was always exempted from temptations against purity. A few years later he received his First Communion at the hands of Saint Charles Borromeo. At an early age, even though he had been appointed a Page in the Spanish Court (pass the bottle of Felipe Segundo, please) he resolved to leave the world, and in a vision was directed by our Blessed Lady to join the Society of Jesus. The Saint’s mother rejoiced on learning his determination to become a religious, but his father for three years refused his consent. At length Saint Aloysius obtained permission and entered the novitiate on Saint Catherine’s Day, 1585. He pronounced his vows after two years, and studied, as was customary, philosophy and theology (Philip was by this time preoccupied with a little problem with Merry Ole England which is basically irrelevant to this story except as an excuse for another sip of brandy). A fervent penitent at all times, Aloysius was accustomed to say that he doubted whether without penance grace could continue to make headway against nature, which, when not afflicted and chastised, tends gradually to relapse into its unredeemed state, and thereby loses the habit of suffering. “I am a crooked piece of iron,” he said, “and have come into religion to be made straight by the hammer of mortification and penance.” During his last year of theology a pernicious plague broke out in Rome. The saintly scholastic offered himself for the service of the sick, and was accepted for the dangerous duty. Several of the religious contracted the frightful fever, and Aloysius was among them. He was at the point of death but recovered, only to relapse a little later into a slow fever, which after three months his fragile health could no longer resist. He died at the age of twenty-three, after receiving the sweet consolations of the Last Rites from the hands of Saint Robert Bellarmine, repeating the Holy Name of Jesus, a little after midnight between the 20th and 21st of June, on the octave day of Corpus Christi. During the Roaring Twenties Pope Pius XI declared Aloysius Gonzaga the celestial patron of all Christian youth.
Therefore we make our own the words of the liturgical collect supposing that most have not maintained his innocence,yet we may imitate his penance.
Guess one should also give back that bottle of scotch…..
Mr. Screwtape |
Related Articles
No user responded in this post