St. Alphonsus Liguori
Conditions
Biography
St. Alphonsus was born in Naples in 1696. He was a brilliant lawyer but became a priest and founded the Redemptorists. When he was 66 years old, he was made a bishop. His health had always been poor, but just after he became bishop, he got a sudden severe attack of arthritis and sciatica. He had high fever and unbearable pain. The remedies at that time were also painful: poultices and blistering.
His right leg became paralysed. For some time, he could not visit the people of his diocese and could not preach. He recovered on that occasion, and got back to his hectic pace of work. But the arthritis never left him. The worst was not the pain but the fact that he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t find any position in which he was at ease. Yet his mind was as clear as ever. He dictated letters to a secretary. He wrote to all his penitents, as well as letters about diocesan and Redemptorist affairs. He continued writing books and getting them published. He never stopped working.
On 9 November 1732, Alphonsus founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, when Sister Maria Celeste Crostarosa told him that it had been revealed to her that he was the one God had chosen to found the congregation. He founded the congregation with the charism of preaching popular missions in the city and the countryside. Its goal was to teach and preach in the slums of cities and other poor places. They also fought Jansenism–a heresy that supported a very strict morality–declaring that "the penitents should be treated as souls to be saved rather than as criminals to be punished." He is said never to have refused absolution to a penitent.
In 1775, Alphonsus returned to Pagani, the mother house of the Redemptorists, where he spent the remaining 12 years of his life. Soon the terrible scruples he had overcome years earlier returned. He would constantly send for his confessor. Added to this mental suffering was his physical pain. He had to be lifted in and out of bed. He was put in a wheelchair, which he hated. Yet at least they could wheel him along the corridors and to the chapel. He spoke often of his approaching death.
However, before he died, he became peaceful and calm, and his terrible scruples disappeared. Finally, in 1787, the God whom he served so well called him home.
