Innocens manibus, et mundo corde (Vultus Christi)

A Saint for Schoolboys

When I was growing up, Catholic schoolboys were given a choice of two patron saints: Dominic Savio and Aloysius Gonzaga. In about fifth grade the biography of Dominic Savio by Saint John Bosco became a book that I read and reread. I confess to having found Saint Aloysius somewhat less appealing. I really didn’t know Saint Aloysius. Although Pope Benedict XIII named him the patron saint of youth in 1729, poor Aloysius was not always well served by those eager to promote devotion to him.

Pastel Portraits

Mass-produced holy pictures of Aloysius more often than not depicted him as a wan and wilting youth, looking impossibly fragile, listless and pale. At his feet lay the cast off crown of his noble rank and, over his head, rosy-cheeked angels hovered just waiting to crown him with heavenly glory. Clutching his lily and with eyes rolled heavenward, this representation of Aloysius rather suggested that holiness was somehow incompatible with wholesomeness or, at least, not something that people with just normal neuroses could hope to attain.

Passionate and Strong–Willed

The real Aloysius was energetic, strong-willed, virile, passionate, and dashing. He was also gentle, tender-hearted and capable of magnificent acts of self-sacrifice and abnegation. There is a splendid sculpture of him by Pierre LeGros (1666–1719) that shows Aloysius carrying a victim of the plague in his arms. I wish that you could all see a photograph of it. There is a Pietà-like quality to it: tenderness and strength all at once. Aloysius carries the full weight of the sick man’s body and the head of the sick man rests in the crook of Aloysius’ neck. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

A Little Boy Who Prayed

Aloysius (or Luigi, to call him by his proper name) gave up a life of princely opulence to live in The Company of Jesus — in both senses of the expression. His father had destined him for something entirely different. Even as a little boy Luigi was being groomed for a brilliant military career. Dressed in a tiny made–to–order suit of armour, he would march alongside the troops in military reviews. He did this to please his father. Small boys so want their father’s approval. All the while there was something else at work in little Luigi’s heart. More than anything else he was drawn to prayer.

Plotting, Sex, and Violence

Luigi began praying the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary when he was eleven years old. He took his life with God as seriously as any cadet takes his military training. His personal rule of life, even as boy, included daily Mass, weekly Holy Communion, and fasting three days a week. In a milieu where the sexual seduction of young boys by adult women and men was hardly a secret, Luigi kept a rigorous modesty of the eyes, determined to protect his innocence. He distanced himself from the plotting, sex, and violence that sizzled all around him. People didn’t know what to make of Luigi. In a wonderful essay Father William Hart McNichols says that Luigi has been called “the saint’s saint,” “an impossible prig, “a child prodigy, “not human,” and “an angel in human form.”

Public and Private Christians

Luigi’s piety was, in a sense, displayed for all to see. His long hours in prayer, his mortifications, and his modesty were remarked. Our Lord teachings in Matthew 6:1–8 on piety, almsgiving, fasting, and prayer have often been used to justify or promote the privatization of the faith. “The Father who seeth in secret” (Mt 6:4) is readily invoked by those who think that the life of faith is something best kept to oneself behind closed doors, drawn curtains, and shuttered windows. This mentality leads, of course, to the tired old argument often invoked by politicians: “In my private life I hold to the teachings of the Church, but as a politician I cannot let my faith influence public choices and decisions.”

The Divine Omnipresence of the Father

Does Our Lord really teach that piety is a private thing? Look closely at Matthew 6:1–8. The first thing that shines from this particular page of Saint Matthew is the glorious presence of the Father. The tone is almost Johannine in its repeated emphasis on the Father. “Your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 6:1). “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:4). “Your Father who is in secret” (Mt 6:6). This is Our Lord’s way of saying in Saint Matthew’s Gospel the very thing He says concerning His intimacy with the Father in the Fourth Gospel: “He who has sent me is with me; he has not left me alone” (Jn 8:29), and again, “If you knew me, you would know my Father also” (Jn 8:19). The liturgy of Easter morning expresses it in Psalm 138:

O Lord, Thou hast searched me and Thou knowest me,
Thou hast known my resting and my rising up,
Thou hast understood my thoughts from afar,
My path and where I recline Thou hast searched out.
All my ways lie open to Thee.
Before ever a word is on my tongue
behold, O Lord, Thou hast known it through and through (Ps 138:1–2).

Hidden in the Secret of the Father’s Face

The Father is everywhere present; the Father sees all; there is no place and no thing so secret as to be hidden from the eyes of the Father. Saint Aloysius intuited this mystery even as a boy. For Luigi to be with Christ and with His Blessed Mother was to be held in the Father’s gaze, hidden in the secret of His Face safe from the scandals and temptations and excesses that surrounded him on every side. Psalm 30 could be put in little Luigi’s mouth:

How great, O Lord, is the treasure of Thy sweetness
hidden away for those who fear Thee,
which Thou preparest for those who trust Thee
in the sight of the sons of men.
Thou hidest them in the secret of Thy face
from the disquiet of men:
Thou keepest them safe within Thy tent
from disputing tongues (Ps 30:19–20).

Childlike Purity of Intention

Our Lord is not at all critical of practicing piety before men; he condemns rather the practice of piety with impure motives. In the same Sermon on the Mount he says, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 5:16). Christ looks to the underlying motive, to what we call purity of intention. “Beware of practicing your piety before men,” he says, “in order to be seen by them” (Mt 6:1). Saint Aloysius practiced his piety in full view of a decadent aristocracy, but he did so with a childlike purity of intention, desiring to be seen by God alone.

For God Alone

Jesus is not opposed to almsgiving. Again, he looks to the motive. He condemns those who gives alms “that they may be praised by men” (Mt 6:2). He is not opposed to prayer in public and not opposed to prayer in the sight of others, but He condemns the prayer made by those who do it in order “to be seen by men” (Mt 6:5). Little Luigi’s prolonged devotions and downcast eyes were the talk of the town, but in the secret of his heart all that he did was done for God alone. Mystically configured to the Heart of Jesus he learned to say at every moment: “I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father” (Jn 14:31).

The Friends of Luigi

Luigi may well be the most loved Jesuit in history. He has hundreds of thousands of friends the world over. Some, following the initiative of several Popes, honour him as the patron saint of youth. More recently, he has become the protector of children at risk of sexual abuse, something that, as a page at court, he was obliged to confront and flee. Having cared for victims of the plague that devastated Rome in 1591, he is also the friend and patron of people with AIDS and of those who care for them.

A Eucharistic Death

Having contracted the plague from those whom he was nursing, Luigi foresaw his own death and asked to die within the Octave of Corpus Christi. He died, in fact, on the Octave Day of Corpus Christi with the name of Jesus on his lips. Luigi was twenty-three years old. The liturgy commemorates the Eucharistic glow surrounding Luigi’s death in today’s Communion Antiphon:

He gave them the bread of heaven:
men ate the bread of angels (Ps 77:24–35).

Blessed are those who are summoned to the Supper of the Lamb with Saint Luigi If we have not followed him along the path of innocence, there is always another path no less precious in the eyes of Christ: that of repentant love and reparation.