August 2nd - St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Stephen I

August 2nd - St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Stephen I Aug 2, 2019 18:11:57 GMT

Post by Elizabeth on Aug 2, 2019 18:11:57 GMT

Saint Alphonsus Liguori
Bishop and Doctor of the Church
(1696-1787)

Saint Alphonsus was born of noble parents near Naples, in 1696. His spiritual formation was entrusted to the Oratorian Fathers of that city, and from his boyhood Alphonsus was known as a very devout little Brother of the Minor Oratory. At the early age of sixteen he became a doctor in civil law; and entering this career with ardor, he met great success and renown. A mistake, however, by which he lost an important case, showed him the vanity of human fame and glory. He decided to abandon the legal profession at the age of twenty-seven, to labor for the glory of God alone. Alphonsus' father long opposed his decision, but as a man of virtue consented at last.

Saint Alphonsus was ordained a priest in 1726, and he soon became as renowned a preacher as he had been a lawyer. His father stopped in a church to pray one day, and amazed, heard his son preaching; he suddenly saw clearly how God had marvelously elevated his son, and was filled with joy, saying: My son has made God known to me! As for Alphonsus, he loved and devoted himself to the most neglected souls in the region of Naples. He was a very perfect confessor, and wrote a manual which has been used ever since for the instruction of those who administer the sacrament of Penance. A musician of the first rank, Saint Alphonsus gave up his instruments to devote himself more perfectly to his apostolic labors; he nonetheless composed joyous religious hymns for the poor folk he heard singing in the streets, that they might glorify God and not waste their voices and efforts in vain and worldly songs.

To extend and continue his work, he later founded the missionary Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, for the evangelization of the poor. At the age of sixty-six he became Bishop of Saint Agatha, a suffragan diocese of Naples, and undertook the reform of his diocese with the zeal of a Saint. He made a vow never to waste a moment of time, and, though his life was spent in prayer and work, he also composed a vast number of books. These volumes were filled with such great science, unction, and wisdom that in 1871 he was declared by Pius IX a Doctor of the Church. Saint Alphonsus wrote his first book at the age of forty-nine, and in his eighty-third year had published about sixty volumes; at that time his director forbade him to continue writing. The best known of his books is his volume entitled The Glories of Mary, by which he exalts the graces and narrates the wondrous deeds of mercy of the Mother of God for those who invoke Her.

Very many of these books were written in the half hours snatched from his labors as a missionary, as a religious Superior, and finally as a Bishop, often in the midst of unrelenting bodily and mental sufferings. With his left hand he would hold a piece of marble against his aching head, while his right hand wrote. Yet he counted no time lost which was spent in charity. He did not refuse to maintain a long correspondence with a simple soldier who asked for his advice, or to play the harpsichord in his declining years, while he taught his novices to sing spiritual canticles. He lived in times of religious laxity, and met with many persecutions and disappointments. During his last seven years he was prevented by constant sickness from offering the adorable Sacrifice, but he received Holy Communion daily, and his love for Jesus Christ and his trust in Mary's prayers sustained him to the end. He died in 1787, in his ninety-first year.

Saint Stephen I
Pope and martyr
(† 257)

Saint Stephen was by birth a Roman. After being promoted to Holy Orders, he was made Archdeacon of Rome under the holy Popes Saint Cornelius and Saint Lucius. When these had both suffered martyrdom, Saint Stephen was elected Head of the Church in the year 254.

Controversy concerning the rebaptizing of heretics gave Saint Stephen much trouble. The heretics themselves were rebaptizing Catholics who left the orthodox faith to join them; certain oriental bishops decided then to rebaptize those who returned to it from their errors, and some African bishops joined them in this practice. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church, however, that baptism given with natural water and in the name of the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity is valid, even if conferred by those in error. Saint Stephen suffered patiently when accused of favoring heresy by ratifying such baptisms; he did not doubt that the great men in whom a mistaken zeal seemed to obscure the truth would, when the heat of the dispute had subsided, calmly open their eyes to the truth. Thus by his zeal he preserved the integrity of the Faith, and by his toleration and forbearance saved many souls.

When the persecutions grew violent, he assembled the faithful in the underground tombs of the martyrs, going from one catacomb to another to baptize neophytes, celebrate Mass and exhort them to remain true to Christ. After twelve members of his clergy were martyred, he himself was arrested; but he was set free when a violent storm so frightened the soldiers and executioners sent to put him to death, that they fled. Nonetheless, he was followed to a catacomb by the emperor's satellites, and on August 2, 257, while seated in his pontifical chair, he was beheaded. The chair, stained with his blood, was placed with his relics in the Church which he had built and is still shown in the same church, today Saint Sylvester in capite.