SAINT ALOYSIUS GONZAGA
SAINT ALPHONSUS LIGUORI-Mystical
SAINT AMBROSE
SAINT ANGELA MERICI
SAINT ANTHONY OF EGYPT
SAINT ATHANASIUS-Defender
SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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SAINT ALOYSIUS GONZAGA-Self-sacrificing Youth and Exemplary 
Novice/1568-1591/Feast:June 21-#61

fr:Dear Saint,your life-situation was far above that of most Catholics 
and can scarcely be imagined by us.Your family (Gonzaga)was related 
to half the rulers of Europe in your time and you could have inherited 
all their pomp and power.Instead it repelled you.
*Devoted to Christ and to His truth,you gave up your inheritance.
You are thus the epitome of Christian manhood -- clear-headed,
unbribable,and completely selfless.Only your strength of character 
enabled you to overcome the host of worldly traditions that sought 
to draw you into a vain existence.

St:I realized that the society into which I was born could not be reformed 
from within.I sought to reform it through my membership in the 
Society of Jesus -- where I could follow poverty and chastity without 
being deluged with ecclesiastical dignities of all kinds.
*my dear mother soothed my father's anger over the loss of a favored 
son to religion and I joined the Society at the age of seventeen as a 
novice.I was fortunate to have as my spiritual director the saintly and 
learned Robert Bellarmine who helped me advance,with God's grace,
in the spiritual life.

fr:What has always stood out in your short life is your love of chastity 
coupled with heroic penance and assiduous prayer.This makes you 
an excellent model for youth -- but only if you are presented as you 
really were rather than as some cardboard figure without life.

St:Indeed,I was all too human.Without God's grace I could never 
have kept from sinning grievously.What drew me to the Jesuits was 
their happy blend of a Religious life and a ministry in the world.
*I was most happy during a severe plague in 1591 to be permitted to 
serve the sick in a hospital opened by the Jesuits.I came to realize 
how true are 
Christ's words:"There is greater happiness in giving than in receiving."

fr:You never minded what people said about you.
Your great desire was to follow the Divine Master Who chose to be 
crucified for us.You showed love for critics and enemies,and strove 
to follow the inspirations of the Spirit.
*You also had great devotion to Mary the Virgin Mother of God.
She became your Mother in the spiritual life.

pr:0 Holy Mary,my Lady,into your blessed trust and safekeeping 
and into the depths of rour mercy I commend my soul and body this 
day,every day of my life,and at the hour of my death.
To you I entrust all my hopes and consolations,all my trials and miseries,
my life and the end of my life.
By your most holy intercession and by your merits,may all my actions be 
directed and disposed according to your will and the 
Will of your Divine Son.

fr:Dear Saint,you know how badly our youth need real heroes.They are 
continually subjected to false leaders and false values.
*Teach them to follow you in strength of character,purity,and love for 
God and fellow humans.
Inspire some of them to join the Religious way of life and remain ever 
faithful to it.

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SAINT ALPHONSUS LIGUORI-
Mystical Writer,Moralist,and Doctor/1696-1787/

Feast:Aug.1-#67

fr:Dear Saint,what an extraordinary Religious life you led -- 
few persons have labored as much,either in word or in writing.
*Devout from early youth,you became in turn a Priest after the will and 
example of Christ,a praying theologian,a spiritual director through 
word and writing,and a most devoted Bishop,for many years bearing 
a heavy cross and following the suffering Christ.

St:I was blessed with a pious mother and father who helped me 
immensely.After becoming a lawyer,I was appalled by the lack of 
justice in the courts.
One day I lost a case and it turned out to be my gain.I decided to become 
a Priest and quit the bar.*Many years later,I felt the urge to found a 
Religious Congregation.After much prayer to the Holy Spirit I founded the 
Congregation of the Holy Redeemer,known as the Redemptorists.
Its purpose was to labor for the salvation of the most abandoned souls.

fr:It is well known that you met with great difficulties but you were a most 
patient man in the sense of one who accepts suffering for a religious cause,
for God's glory.You always labored prayerfully,and so work and prayer 
became spiritually one.

St:I did my best to help as many people as possible.When I could not reach 
them by preaching to them,I had recourse to writing.I saw the need for a 
Moral Theology -- so I wrote one.Many persons do not know how to pray 
properly -- hence I wrote about prayer,and so on.Ultimately,I had written 
about almost everything that was Christian.

fr:For more than one hundred years your works were read by countless 
Christians.
They provided good reading that nourished souls and led to true 
Christian perfection.
*The following prayer gives a goad example of how you helped 
Catholics in their payer life.

pr:0 Sacred Heart of Jesus living and life-giving fountain of eternal life,
infinite treasure of the Divinity,and glowing furnace of love,
You are my refuge and my sanctrarp.O adorable and glorious Savior,
consume my heart with that burning fire that ever inflames Your Heart.
Pour &own on my soul those graces.which flow from Your love.
Let my heart be so united with Yours that our wills may be one,
and mine may in all things be conformed to Yours.
May Your Will be the rule both of my desires and of my actions.

fr:Dear Saint,pray that Christians may once more read books like yours 
instead of being misled,de-Christianized,and demoralized by things 
they learn from books and other means of communication.
*Help us to treasure good reading as one of the most effective means 
of learning to follow Christ and His Divine Spirit.

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SAINT AMBROSE-
Inspiring Teacher and Convert-Maker/340-397/Feast:Dec,7-#26

fr:Dear Saint,how popular you became when you were Consular Prefect 
in Liguria.
The people came to realize how gentle,charitable,and honest you were
--and always ready to serve their best interests.
*It was quite natural,therefore,that after the death of 
Bishop Aurelius Arianus of Milan crowds clamored for you as their 
Bishop.
This was all the more remarkable since you were not even a Priest at
 the time.In fact,you were not even fully a Christian,since you were 
still a catechumen.

St:God works in strange and wondrous ways.
He gave me great love for the truth and led me to serve His Church.
He encouraged me to bring peace where there was dangerous discord,
and to practice patience with uncouth and unpleasant persons.
*I learned to appreciate the wonderful example we have in Jesus,
Who said that He had come to serve.We should constantly praise 
His generosity.He is the 
Lord of peace,the Teacher of Truth,and the manifestation that 
God is Love.

fr:Accordingly,dear Saint,you were baptized,and ordained a 
Priest and then Bishop of Milan.In this post you shone as a great 
leader and defender of the Faith,converting many heretics.Later,
you had the privilege of baptizing the great Augustine.
*You liked simplicity and taught the people simple religious chants.
Most of all,you sought God for yourself and to give Him to others--and 
you have left us this splendid prayer for seeking God.

pr:Lord,teach me to seek You,and reveal Yourself to me when I seek You.
For I cannot seek You unless You First teach me,nor find You unless 
You First reveal yourself to me.Let me seek You in longing,and long for 
You in seeking.Let me find You in love,and love You in finding.

fr:Dear Saint,one of the outstanding features of people of our day is that 
they are constantly seeking and questioning things.Unfortunately,
many seek for the wrong things or in the wrong places.
*Teach us to seek after God in the world and lead others to Him.
Let us never be discouraged in this glorious quest,but rather realize 
that the act of genuine seeking is itself a guarantee that we will 
ultimately find God.

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SAINT ANGELA MERICI-
Astute Foundress and Dedicated Teacher/1474-1540/
Feast:Jan.7-#49

fr:Dear Saint,you were one of the first to grasp the changed role of 
woInen in the society transformed by the Renaissance.
Your idea of a Religious Order without distinctive garb and without 
solemn vows and enclosure was also in advance of your time -- 
although your Order was obliged to adopt the canonical safeguards then 
required of all Nuns.
*Your Company of Saint Ursula (Ursulines) was the first teaching order 
of women.Much of the teaching took place in homes,for you hoped to 
effect an important change in social conditions.
You rightly believed that disorder in society is the result of disorder 
in the family.

St:I was orphaned at ten and cared for by an uncle.At twenty,
I joined the Third Order of Saint Francis and made my home into a 
small school for young girls.
Through a vision God led me to found a religious community of teachers.
*After founding a school in Brescia,I made a pilgrimage to the 
Holy Land and Rome,where Pope Clement VII was good enough to 
recognize my work.

fr:You renounced all your possessions so as to be freer to carry out 
your work.You also knew the value of lovingly receiving our 
Lord in Holy Communion,and your love for Him grew constantly.
Inspired by the Spirit,you drew others to you to teach children for 
the sake of Christ.

St:Worldly people are very unhappy because they seek happiness 
where it cannot be found.
Loving self-sacrifice for God's honor and Christlike charity toward those 
who are materially and spiritually poor is a source of true contentment.
*People speak of Christ as the Man of Sorrows and Mary as the 
Mother of Sorrows,but both were the happiest human beings on earth 
because they led a holy and most loving,self-sacrificing life.

fr:That is why people should meditate on the life of Jesus and 
Mary and also oil the lives of the Saints.It has been well said that a 
sad Saint is a sad sort of Saint -- and really no Saint at all.
*You,for example,loved to meditate on the Crucified Savior but that 
did not make you gloomy.
You often enjoyed an almost heavenly happiness.

pr:My Savior,illumine the darkness of my heart,and grant me 
the grace rather to die than to offend You again.
Guard my affections and my senses that they may not stray in any 
direction.Let me ever walk in the light of Your face,the satisfaction of 
every afflicted heart.

fr:Dear Saint,in our day we are deluged with all kinds of teachers and 
constantly bombarded with instruction in living.Most of it,however,
is given to gain selfish ends.
*Teach us to follow your example of selfless instruction so that we may 
learn for ourselves and impart to others the Science of the Saints,
the real science of living!

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SAINT ANTHONY OF EGYPT-
Founder of Monasticism/251-356/Feast:Jan.17-#18

fr:Dear Saint,model for religious whether they are hermits or live in 
common with others,you realized the great value of life in most intimate 
union with God,in assiduous prayer,work,mortification,and poverty.
*Unfortunately,there are some people today who regard time spent in 
contemplation,meditation,and oral prayer as time lost.Even Religious 
have sometimes become lost in feverish work performed on the purely 
human level.

St:Strange as it seems,there are even those who would criticize our 
Lord because He withdrew for forty days in the desert.They prefer not 
to recall that Jesus spent the whole night in prayer at times,and that 
He took His disciples apart to rest a while.
*Mind you,this was done by the Holy One Who was both Man and 
the all-knowing,all-powerful,and all-holy Son of God.Saints Peter and 
Paul also knew how to take time out for prayer.

fr:Dear holy Abbot,we know that thousands have been edified by your 
saintly solitary life.
Your Rule for monastic life must have been inspired by your living 
and loving association with the Divine Master.
*In solitude with God--after the example of the man so highly praised 
by Christ,His precursor,Joha the Baptizer--you grew in holiness and 
offered prayers such as the following one.

pr:Lord,You kwnow who I am,where I came from,and why I am here.
I know that I am not worthy to see You.Nevertheless,
I will not go away until I have Beheld You.

fr:Dear Saint,through your intercession enable morw and more human 
beings to be strengthened and comforted by means of meditative prayer.
*Teach us the value of time spent in prayer.Slow us down so that we 
will be able to give more time to our formation in Christ--which is our 
primary task on earth.

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SAINT ATHANASIUS-
Defender of the Faith and Exemplary Bishop/295-373/Feast:May 2-#19

fr:Dear Saint,our Divine Master told His Apostles that they had to be 
His witnesses; and most of them witnessed to the Savior by martyrdom.
In the fourth century you too witnessed to the Catholic Faith.
*You did it not through death but through your saintly life and your 
many sufferings incurred as a result of your constant battle against 
those who taught the heresy of Arianism.For that reason,you were 
exiled for sixteen of the forty-six years during which you were Bishop 
of Alexandria.

St:I lived in troublesome times,but I was not the only Catholic who 
suffered.
We did so because we bore testimony to Christ Who is the Way,
the Truth,and the Life--not merely a great Prophet but the only 
Son of God.Even in your twentieth century many have been persecuted 
because they wanted to live as followers of the Divine Master.
*Jesus was killed after going about doing good.He was executed like a 
criminal even though He had performed countless miracles,brought the 
Good News to the poor and the downtrodden,and shown great mercy to 
the sinful.He promised all who accepted Him as the 
Divine Messiah and served Him that they would enjoy a blessed life with 
God for all eternity.

fr:You insisted on the Divinity of each of the three Persons in one God.
So much so that for some ten centuries you were regarded as the author 
of the magnificent profession of Faith known as the "Athanasian Creed." 
*We know now that it was not written by you,but it was certainly a 
product of your inspiration with its emphasis on the divinity of all three 
Persons in God.

pr:We worship one God in Trinity,neither confounding the Persons,
nor dividing the Substance.For there is one Person of the Father,
another of the Son,and another of the Holy Spirit....The Father is God,
the Son is God,and the Holy SPirit is God.And yet they are not three 
Gods,but one God.

fr:Dear Saint,today as you well know there are many Christians who 
have no devotion to the Holy Spirit.They should have such a devotion 
inasmuch as 
He not only was especially sent to human beings in a spectacular way 
at the first Pentecost but also remains as the "Animator" of the Church 
and individuals.
*Obtain for us renewed devotion to the Spirit and unwavering Faith in 
the true 
Church of God,so that we may remain faithful followers of 
Jesus Christ till the end.

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SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO-
Wonderful Convert and Powerful Communicator/354-430/Feast:Aug.28-#29

fr:Dear Saint,you are one of the most famous people of all time and an 
outstanding thinker.In addition to your many great talents,
God also endowed you with a most holy mother.
*In spite of all that,you became involved as a young man in pernicious 
Manicheism,and your conduct became scandalous.But,prompted by 
your mother,you listened to the instructions of Saint Ambrose of Milan,
and at the age of thirty-two you became a member of 
Christ's Mystical Body,the Church,by receiving Baptism.

St:I returned to Africa and strove to live an edifying Christian life with 
the aid of 
God's grace.Bishop Valerius persuaded me to be ordained a 
Priest in 391 and in 395 he prevailed upon me to become his coadjutor 
Bishop.
*Upon his death,I became Bishop of Hippo--but with the express 
stipulation that I be permitted to continue to live a monastic common 
life with my clergy.
I did all I could to encourage the formation of Religious communities.

fr:How numerous,dear Saint,are your writings which manifest your 
love for God,your eagerness to learn,understand better,and then spread 
revealed truths.
How powerful was your refutation of heresies,and how inspiring were 
your autobiography (The Confessions),your sermons,and your religious 
treatises.
*You have influenced millions for the better since your death at the 
age of seventy-six at the time when the Vandals were overrunning your 
diocese..Great has been your admiration of God's grace and undying 
your gratitude for the way the Good Shepherd led you into the one true 
fold.
Your works are read more today than ever before because of your 
brilliance and your relevance.

St:What can I say in answer to your nice words except:"The mercies of 
the Lord 
I will sing forever," for it was His grace and His gifts that enabled me
 to grow both humanly and supernaturally.*I see clearly now how 
impurity makes the mind blind to the light which comes from the 
Lord of Lights.
And when it is coupled with pride,with the obstinate determination to 
play with attractive falsehoods in religious matters,how difficult it is for 
God's Truth and Good News to reach an open mind and heart!

pr:Lord Jesus,let me know myself;
let me know You,and desire nothing else but You.
Let me hate myself and love You,and do all things for the sake of You.
Let me humble myself and exalt You,and think of nothing else but You.
Let me die to myself and live in You,and take whatever happens as coming from You.
Let me forsake myself and walk after You,and ever desire to follow You.
Let me flee from myself and turn to You,that so I may merit to be defended by You.
Let me fear for myself,let me fear You,and be among those that are chosen by You.
Let me distrust myself and trust in You,and ever obey for love of You.
Let me cleave to nothing but You,and ever be poor because of You.
Look upon me that I may love You,call me,
that I may see You,and forever Possess You,for all eternity.

fr:I want to thank you,dear Saint.Your exernplary life after your 
conversion is more powerful in its inspiration for us than sermons 
however eloquent and treatises however profound.Many today have 
left the Church and rejected her Divinely willed guidance.
*Make readers of your works realize that by following your example 
they can learn to follow Jesus Christ ever more closely and faithfully--
the One Who is the Way,the Truth,and the Life.

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