BELLUM CONTRA HÆRÉTICOS

https://defeatmodernism.podbean.com/e/on-god-s-anger-threats-and-mercy-by-st-alphonsus-sermons-on-various-subjects/

“After the love which we owe Jesus Christ, we must give the chief place in our heart to the love of His Mother Mary.” ~ Saint Alphonsus Liguori

Sancte Alphonse Maria de Liguori, Episcope Confessor et Ecclesiæ Doctor, ora pro nobis!

To obey his father, he embraced a career as a lawyer; and although he acquired great fame in this profession, nevertheless, after having experienced the dangers of it, he abandoned this profession by himself in 1723. Then renounced a brilliant marriage proposed to him by his father, abdicated his birthright and suspended his sword at the altar of the Virgin of Mercy, he consecrated himself to the divine ministry. Ordained a priest on December 17, 1726, he attacked the vice with such zeal in the exercise of his apostolic ministry, flying from one place to another, that he accomplished the conversion of innumerable lost men. Full of compassion above all for the poor and peasants, in 1732 he established the Congregation of Priests of the Most Holy Redeemer, who, following the Redeemer himself, evangelized the poor of the countryside, towns and villages. So that nothing might distract him from his resolution, he undertook a perpetual vow never to waste an instant. Then inflamed with zeal for souls, he studied to win souls to Christ, and to lead them to a more perfect life both by preaching the word of God and by writing works full of sacred erudition and piety. It is truly astonishing to see how many hatreds he extinguished, how many astray he brought back to the straight path of health. Very devoted to the Mother of God, he published the book of the "Glories of Mary", and preaching it at times with greater fervor, all the people observed his face shining with a marvelous light, projected on him by the image of the Virgin, and went away in ecstasy. An assiduous contemplator of the passion of the Lord and of the holy Eucharist, he spread the cult wonderfully. Praying at his altar, or celebrating the Holy Sacrifice, which he never omitted, the vehemence of love made him melt in seraphic ardor, or agitated him with extraordinary movements, or subtracted from his senses. Combining an admirable innocence of life, which he never stained with any mortal guilt, with equal penance, he chastised his body with abstinence, with chains, hair shirts and bloody flogging. Among others he had the gift of prophecy, the penetration of hearts, bilocation, and miracles. He always had an aversion to ecclesiastical dignities; but, forced by the authority of the Supreme Pontiff Clement XIII, he accepted the government of the Church of Sant'Agata dei Goti in 1762. As bishop, he changed only the external dress, but not the severity of his lifestyle: the same frugality, supreme zeal for Christian discipline, constant vigilance in repressing vice and destroying error, and in disengaging the other offices of the pastoral ministry. Liberal with the poor, he distributed to them all the revenues of his church, and, during a famine, his charity even made him sell the furniture of the house to feed the hungry. Becoming everything to everyone, he led the nuns back to a more perfect form of life, and founded a monastery of nuns of his congregation. Having left the episcopate due to serious and habitual illnesses, he had left his disciples poor and returned among them poor. Finally, broken in body by age, by fatigue, by prolonged gout and other very serious infirmities, but with an always alacritic spirit, he never ceased to speak or write about celestial things, until, when he was nonagenarian, on August 1 of the year 1787 he died very placidly in Nocera dei Pagani among the tears of his children. Illustrious for virtues and miracles, the Supreme Pontiff Pius VII enrolled him in the register of the Blessed on the 15th of September 1816; and, glorious for new prodigies, Gregory XVI on the feast of the Holy Trinity, 26th of May 1839, solemnly included him in the catalog of saints. Finally, the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX with decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, declared him Doctor of the Universal Church in 1871, while the Supreme Pontiff Pius XII made him Heavenly Patron of all Confessors and Moralists in 1950. His mortal body is venerated in the Pontifical Basilica of Sant'Alfonso Maria de' Liguori in Pagani (SA).

SAINT ALPHONSUS MARIA DE LIGUORI, BISHOP, CONFESSOR, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH Alfonso Maria de' Liguori, born on the 27th of September 1696 in Marianella di Napoli of noble parents, from an early age gave clear indications of holiness. He was still a child when, his parents introduced him to Saint Francis De Geronimo of the Society of Jesus, who, after wishing him well, declared that he would reach ninety years of age, that he would be raised to the episcopal dignity, and that he would do great good in the Church. Already abhorring from games from childhood, he trained noble children in Christian modesty by word and example. While he was young, having joined pious associations, he put his delights in serving the sick in public hospitals, staying long in prayers in churches, and frequenting the holy sacraments. He combined the study of letters so well with piety that he was barely sixteen, in 1713, he obtained a degree in canon and civil law at his home university.

JERUSALEM Two priests are spat at and harassed as the persecution of Christians in the Holy Land continues https://twitter.com/CatholicArena/status/1685959052264640512?t=TN0Fl4wICUZkZWT8RmllTA&s=19

Sancte Ignati de Loyola, ora pro nobis!

Finally, in Rome on the 31st of July 1556, at the age of sixty-five, he went into the embrace of his Lord, whose greatest glory he had always had in his mouth, and had sought everywhere, while his Company, scattered throughout the world already had twelve provinces and one hundred colleges. Illustrious in the Church for his great merits and miracles, Paul V enrolled him in the register of the Blessed on the 27th of July 1609 and Gregory XV in that of the Saints on the 12th March 1622. Pius XI, supporting the wishes of the Bishops, constituted him and declared him patron celestial of all the Spiritual Exercises on 25th of July 1922.

He then, in the famous Benedictine abbey of Montserrat, suspended his arms at the altar of the Blessed Virgin, and his generous soul, once eager for worldly glory, aspired only to the greater glory of the King whom he would now serve. On the night of March 25, in which the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word is celebrated, after the confession of his sins, he made his first vigil of arms and the Mother of God created him a knight of Christ and of the militant Church, her Spouse. Then dressed in sackcloth as he was, having first given his rich clothes to a beggar, he retired to Manresa, where he stayed a year, begging for the bread and water he fed on, fasting every day except Sundays, taming the flesh with a rough chain and with a hair shirt, sleeping on the ground and whipping myself to the point of blood, with an iron discipline, but comforted by God with such marvelous lights, that he used to say: Even if the Holy Scriptures did not exist, I would be no less ready to die for the faith for the things alone that the Lord revealed to me in Manresa. It was then that this completely illiterate man, guided by grace, composed that admirable book of the «Spiritual Exercises» - perhaps inspired by the practice of the Exercitatorium of the Benedictine Abbot Gisneros of Montserrat (year 1500) - which is recommended for the approval of the Apostolic See and for the good that everyone derives from it. However, to make himself more capable of winning souls, he resolved to enlist the assistance of letters, and began to study grammar with the children. Meanwhile, not neglecting at all what concerns the salvation of others, he is amazed to see how many hardships and challenges he had to endure everywhere, suffering the hardest trials, prison and beatings almost to the point of dying; however, this did not prevent him from longing even more for the glory of the Lord. Having united with him nine companions from different nations, belonging to the University of Paris, all masters in the arts and doctorates in theology, he laid there in Montmartre the first foundations of his order, the Society of Jesus, which he then established in Rome, adding to three ordinary a fourth vote concerning the Missions, and placing him under the strict dependence of the Apostolic See; and Paul III first admitted it and confirmed it with the bull Regimini militantis ecclesiae (27th of September 1540), and other Popes and the Council of Trent approved it. He then sent Saint Francis Xavier to preach the Gospel in the Indies and disseminated others in different parts of the world to spread the religion there, he declared war on paganism and heresy, and with such success, that, by universal sentiment, also confirmed by pontifical testimony, God wanted Ignatius and his company to oppose Luther and the heretics of the time (including the Jansenists), like other holy men in other times. But first and foremost, he had at heart the renewal of piety among Catholics. The splendour of the temples, the teaching of the catechism, the attendance of sacred meetings and the sacraments owe much to his action. He opened colleges everywhere to form young people in literature and piety: in Rome he founded the Germanic college, shelters for lost women and young women in danger, houses for catechumens and orphans of both sexes, and other works of piety attest to the his tireless zeal to win souls for God. More than once he was heard told that if given the choice, he would have preferred to live in uncertainty of beatitude, and meanwhile work for God and the salvation of his neighbor, rather than die immediately with security of the glory of heaven. He exercised an extraordinary empire over the demons. St. Philip Neri and others saw his face all radiant with heavenly light.