Post #6073

At this age he began to repress so strongly the other agitatations of the spirit, who then did not even feel the first motion. Even the senses, especially the eyes, restrained so well, that he didn’t even raise it to look in the face Mary of Austria, which he had to greet every day for several years, being one of the pages of honour of the infant of Spain, but he also kept them from considering the face of his mother: therefore deservedly called man without flesh, or, angel in flesh. At the age of 12 (1580) he received the Bread of Angels from the hands of St. Charles Borromeo for the first time. At the custody of the senses he added the mortification of the flesh. He fasted three days per week, and mostly with little bread and water only; rather, actually, his fasting in this time it seems to have been continuous, taking only one ounce per meal. He often still macerated himself with ropes or chains three times per day; sometimes, dog laces served as a discipline, and horse spurs as a cilice. Finding the bed too soft, he would secretly place pieces of wood in it to make it harder, and also to wake up more readily to pray; for he spent most of the night in the contemplation of divine things, even in the height of winter, covered with a single garment, kneeling on the ground or, when he was tired, stooped and stretched out. Sometimes he remained so still even three, four and five hours, until he had passed at least one without any distraction. The reward for such constancy was such stability of mind in prayer, that he was never distracted by it, rather than dwelling fixed in God almost in continuous ecstasy. Finally, in order not to think that he, having won his father's resistance after a very bitter three-year struggle, and renounced the right of the principality in favor of his brother, at the age of 17 (November 25, 1585) he entered in the Society of Jesus in Rome, to which a heavenly voice had called him in Madrid. A simple novice, he was already a master of every virtue. A very exact observant of even the smallest rules, he had a singular contempt for the world, an implacable hatred of himself; love for God, on the other hand, was so ardent that it gradually consumed his body as well. Consequently, forced to deviate his mind somewhat from divine things, he tried in vain to flee God who was everywhere present to him. Equally inflamed with admirable charity towards his neighbor, it was in the public hospitals, in which he served with zeal, that he caught a contagious disease (the plague). From which he slowly consumed, on the day he had predicted, June 21, 1591, at 24 years of age already begun, after having asked to be disciplined first and let him die on the ground, dressed in his innocence as in a nuptial garment, on which the pearls of his continuous tears shone, he went to heaven as a victim of his zeal for the plague victims, and went up the holy mountain to take part in the celestial banquet in which God welcomes those with a pure heart. God showed St. Maria Maddalena de 'Pazzi that he enjoyed as much glory as he could hardly believe there was in heaven; and she affirmed that he was of an extraordinary holiness and the charity of having made him an unknown martyr. He also shone with many miracles. For which juridically proven, Paul V declared him Blessed (October 19, 1605) and Benedict XIII inscribed the angelic young man in the glories of the Saints (December 31, 1726), and designated him as a model of innocence and chastity and as a protector especially to young students (1729). In 1926 he was proclaimed Patron of Catholic youth by Pope Pius XI. He is buried in Rome in the church of Sant'Ignazio di Campo Marzio.