Post #6173

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).