From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Folly   
      
   What folly it would be for travellers to think only of acquiring   
   dignities and possessions in the countries through which they had to   
   pass, and then to reduce themselves to the necessity of living   
   miserably in their native lands, where they must remain during their   
   whole lives! And are not they fools who seek after happiness in this   
   world, where they will remain only a few days, and expose themselves   
   to the risk of being unhappy in the next, where they must live for   
   eternity?   
   We do not fix our affections on borrowed goods, because we know that   
   they must soon be returned to the owner. All earthly goods are lent to   
   us: it is folly to set our heart on what we must soon quit. Death   
   shall strip us of all. The acquisitions and fortunes of this world all   
   terminate in a dying grasp, in a funeral, in a descent into the grave.   
   The house which you have built for yourself you must soon give up to   
   others.   
   --from a sermon by Saint Alphonsus Liguori   
      
      
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   August 1st - St. Alphonsus Liguori   
   (1696-1787)   
      
      Alphonsus, was declared patron of moral theologians by Pius XII in   
   1950. In his day, he fought for the liberation of moral theology from   
   the rigidity of Jansenism. His Theologia Moralis (Moral Theology),   
   which went through 60 editions in the century following him,   
   concentrated on the practical and concrete problems of pastors and   
   confessors. Americans owe much to St. Alphonsus de’Liguori. He was the   
   founder of the Redemptorist Fathers, who have contributed so much to   
   the Church in the United States over the past two centuries.   
      
   Alphonsus was born near Naples of a distinguished family. A brilliant   
   youth, he won his doctorate of civil and church law when only 16, and   
   then for several years engaged in a successful legal law practice. One   
   day, however, when he was triumphantly defending a client in a   
   lawsuit, it was shown to him that he had made an error in reading the   
   law and had defended an unjust cause. He, therefore, not only gave up   
   the case, he gave up his legal practice. Actually Alphonsus, though up   
   to then a layman, had been lately attracted towards becoming a priest.   
   He now took priestly studies and in 1726 was ordained. Then he began   
   to work as a missionary throughout rural southern Italy. An able   
   missionary he was, too. In an age in which it was stylish to preach   
   bombastically, he could say, “I have never preached a sermon which the   
   poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand.” In an age   
   in which the errors of “Jansenism” demanded unreasonable strictness in   
   moral behavior, Alphonsus preached common sense Christian morality.   
   This was also the kind of moral doctrine that he wrote volumes about,   
   for he was the greatest moral theologian of his age – a fact that   
   would win him after canonization the title of “doctor of the church”.   
      
   While engaged in home missionary work as a diocesan priest, Alphonsus   
   assisted in the foundation of the Redemptoristine nuns. A year or so   
   later he established the Redemptorist Fathers as a missionary   
   organization. When de’Liguori was sixty-six, Pope Clement XIII named   
   him bishop of the diocese of Sant’ Agata dei Goti. He tried to get out   
   of it, but the pope insisted. It was a small diocese, but needed   
   reform very badly. Bishop de’Liguori gave it that reform. Meanwhile he   
   was stricken with a rheumatic arthritis so severe that his chin was   
   almost buried in his chest. He asked the pope permission to resign as   
   bishop in 1775. By that time he had such a reputation for goodness and   
   zeal that, as one churchman said of the man still alive, “If I were   
   pope, I would canonize him without any process.”   
      
   If Alphonsus, on retiring, thought he could live out his life in   
   peace, he was mistaken. Now began for this 80-year-old priest, his   
   years of greatest trial – largely because of red tape.   
      
   Naples was a separate kingdom in those days. King Charles III, a   
   Bourbon, shared the idea of the Enlightenment that a King should keep   
   close control over church affairs. Now he required that the   
   Redemptorists, already approved by the Pope, be given state approval,   
   too. But his policy would not allow him to approve any religious   
   orders (these he considered old-fashioned and unprogressive), only   
   societies of secular priests. Unfortunately, St. Alphonsus’s advisors   
   just showed the saint the state regulations when they asked for his   
   signature. Poor Bishop Alphonsus at that point could not read more   
   than the initial words, because of failing eyesight. Thus he   
   unwittingly approved of a law that the pope had to denounce. Pope Pius   
   VI, therefore, declared that the Naples Redemptorists were no longer   
   Redemptorists because they had changed the rule and that only those in   
   the Roman province of the order were such. He named another priest,   
   located in Rome, as Redemptorist general superior. Thus Alphonsus, the   
   founder of the order, found himself demoted from office and his order   
   abolished in the Kingdom of Naples.   
      
   In addition to this martyrdom to red tape, Alphonsus was at the same   
   time suffering severe temptations against faith; yet these dark hours   
   were intermittently lighted by hours of great prayerfulness and grace.   
   More importantly, he accepted his double burden with supreme patience.   
   In peace of soul, he foretold that the divided order would be reunited   
   after his death. He died at 90. Three years later the Neapolitan   
   Redemptorists were readmitted to membership; and in 1796 Pius VI, who   
   had felt obliged to exclude Alphonsus from his order, gave Alphonsus   
   the title of venerable in 1796. He was declared a saint in 1839, by   
   Gregory XVI, and Doctor of the Church by Pius IX in 1871.   
      
   It is impossible to give a full account of his enormous literary   
   production. Between 1728 and 1778 he published no fewer than 111   
   works. A researcher in 1933 identified 4110 editions of his original   
   texts and 12,925 editions of translations in 61 languages. Since that   
   date the numbers have continued to increase.   
   –Father Robert   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "God measures out according as we measure out and forgives as we   
   forgive, and comes to our rescue with the same tenderness as he sees   
   us having toward others."   
   -- Father Luis de Leon, Commentary on the life of Job   
      
   Bible Quote   
    "For as with the human body which is a unity although it has many   
   parts--all the parts of the body, though many, still making up one   
   single body--so it is with Christ.  We were baptized into one body in   
   a single Spirit, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as free men,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)