Prayer

(For Private Devotion Only)

Aloysius, You have drawn me to you, gentle teacher, loving guide. I am filled with gratitude to you...I love you. Just to see you, to sit with your image, is to see all the innocence, the trust, and the fire of prayer of the children of the kingdom.

Aloysius, Let me serve, let me love as you loved people on earth. Teach me to leave the dark destructive forces within and without for the Light in the presence of Our Savior, Jesus.

Aloysius, Teach me to pray unceasingly, pray with me, stay near me, kneel with me...take my hand. And finally when my life here is over, come to lead me Home. Amen

On the Medal:
Sign of the Cross and “Act of Contrition”

On the Single Bead (white/clear- for his innocence):
The Our Father

On the 23 Beads (Blue- for his devotion to Mary):
The Hail Mary followed by “Saint Aloysius, pray for us.”

Closing Prayer:
Father of Love, giver of all good things, in St. Aloysius you combined remarkable innocence with a spirit of penance.
By the help of his prayers may we who have not followed his innocence follow his example of penance.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Biography

This beloved saint, the eldest son of the Marquis Ferdinand Gonzaga, was cradled in luxury and reared among the din of arms. His mother destined him for the church, but his father for a military career. As a boy, Aloysius was often left in the company of soldiers, from whom he learned various coarse expressions. When he innocently repeated these at home, his tutor severely reprimanded him, and all his life Aloysius deeply regretted what he regarded as a great "sin". At the age of seven he began to recite the Office of the Our Lady and other devotions, kneeling on the bare floor. At the age of nine, when at the court of Florence, he made a vow of perpetual chastity. When his father sent him to the courts of Mantua, Ferrara, Pama and Turin, hoping to tone down his piety, he lived like a monk, fasting several days a week and rising at midnight to pray.

At the age of thirteen he was appointed page at the Spanish court but far from being beguiled by its pomp and pleasures, he showed such modesty and recollection that it was said he did not seem to be made of flesh and blood. When he expressed his wish to join the Jesuits, his mother happily approved, but his father became furious and threatened to flog him. To break his son’s vocation he sent him to the courts of Northern Italy, but Aloysius remained unmoved. Finally his father yielded, and at the age of seventeen Aloysius became Jesuit novice in Rome. Six weeks later his father died an edifying death, having completely changed his worldly mode of life.

Aloysius became an ideal religious, his modesty, friendliness, and recollection made him appear like an angel in the flesh. His special delight was to perform the lowliest tasks in the kitchen. During an epidemic of the plague in Rome he nursed the sick, instructed them, and performed the meanest services. He contracted the diseases, but recovered, only to fall victim after a time to a slow, weakening fever. But as long as he could, he rose at midnight to pray on the bare floor, propped between the bed and the wall to keep himself from falling. At the approach of death, he was overjoyed and cried out "We are going, gladly." When he died he was only twenty-three years old. Pope Benedict XII proclaimed him the patron of young students, and Pius XI named him patron of youth in 1926.

His feast is celebrated June 21.

Resources

http://www.slcv.edu.ph/about.htm#Patron

http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/andre/gonzaga_poem.html

http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/andre/gonzaga_article.html