From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   How we should Bless God in all Trouble: [II]   
      
   And now, in this trouble, this shall be my prayer, `Thy will be   
   done.'(Matt.6:10) I have fully deserved this trouble, and must bear   
   it. Let me bear it patiently, until the storm is past and better days   
   return. I know that Thy almighty power can remove even this trial from   
   me and lessen its violence, so that I am not completely crushed by it.   
   Often in times past, my God and my Mercy, Thou have done this for me.   
   And the harder it is for me, the easier it is for Thee to change my   
   way (Ps. 77:10) O God most high.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ, Bk 3, Ch 29   
      
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   21 June – St Aloysius de Gonzaga SJ   
      
    Jesuit Seminarian, Mystic, Marian devotee, Apostle of Charity.   
      
   (1568-1591)   
   The Lord can make saints anywhere, even amid the brutality and license   
   of Renaissance life. Florence was the “mother of piety” for Aloysius   
   Gonzaga despite his exposure to a “society of fraud, dagger, poison   
   and lust.” As a son of a princely family, he grew up in royal courts   
   and army camps. His father wanted Aloysius to be a military hero.   
      
   At age 7 Aloysius experienced a profound spiritual quickening. His   
   prayers included the Office of Mary, the psalms and other devotions.   
   At age 9 he came from his hometown of Castiglione to Florence to be   
   educated, by age 11 he was teaching catechism to poor children,   
   fasting three days a week and practising great austerities. When he   
   was 13 years old, he travelled with his parents and the Empress of   
   Austria to Spain and acted as a page in the court of Philip II. The   
   more Aloysius saw of court life, the more disillusioned he became,   
   seeking relief in learning about the lives of saints.   
      
   A book about the experience of Jesuit missionaries in India suggested   
   to him the idea of entering the Society of Jesus and in Spain his   
   decision became final. Now began a four-year contest with his father.   
   Eminent churchmen and laypeople were pressed into service to persuade   
   Aloysius to remain in his “normal” vocation. Finally he prevailed, was   
   allowed to renounce his right to succession and was received into the   
   Jesuit novitiate.   
      
   Like other seminarians, Aloysius was faced with a new kind of   
   penance—that of accepting different ideas about the exact nature of   
   penance. He was obliged to eat more and to take recreation with the   
   other students. He was forbidden to pray except at stated times. He   
   spent four years in the study of philosophy and had Saint Robert   
   Bellarmine (1542-1621), Doctor of the Church, as his spiritual   
   adviser.   
      
   In 1591, a plague struck Rome. The Jesuits opened a hospital of their   
   own . The superior general himself and many other Jesuits rendered   
   personal service. Because he nursed patients, washing them and making   
   their beds, Aloysius caught the disease. A fever persisted after his   
   recovery and he was so weak he could scarcely rise from bed. Yet, he   
   maintained his great discipline of prayer, knowing that he would die   
   within the octave of Corpus Christi, three months later, at the age of   
   23.   
      
   As a saint who fasted, scourged himself, sought solitude and prayer   
   and did not look on the faces of women, Aloysius seems an unlikely   
   patron of youth in a society where asceticism is confined to training   
   camps of football teams and boxers and sexual permissiveness has   
   little left to permit. Can an overweight and air-conditioned society   
   deprive itself of anything? It will, when it discovers a reason, as   
   Aloysius did. The motivation for letting God purify us is the   
   experience of God loving us in prayer.   
      
    Patronages – Catholic youth, Jesuit scholastics, the blind, eye   
   ailments, AIDS patients, care-givers, Jesuit students, for relief from   
   pestilence, young people, Castiglione delle Stiviere, Italy, Valmonte,   
   Italy.   
      
   from Anastpaul 2019   
      
      
   Saint Quotes:   
   “I am a piece of twisted iron,   
   I entered the religious life   
   to get twisted straight.”   
   --St Aloysius de Gonzaga   
      
   “He who wishes to love God   
   does not truly love Him,   
   if he has not an ardent   
   and constant desire   
   to suffer for His sake.”   
   --St Aloysius de Gonzaga   
      
   “Take care above all things,   
   most honoured lady,   
   not to insult God’s boundless loving kindness,   
   you would certainly do this,   
   if you mourned as dead,   
   one living face-to-face with God,   
   one whose prayers,   
   can bring you in your troubles,   
   more powerful aid,   
   than they ever could on earth.”   
   --St Aloysius de Gonzaga   
      
   Bible Quote:   
    but no human being can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of   
   deadly poison.  [James 3:8]  RSVCE   
      
      
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   The "Bookmark" prayer of St. Theresa:   
      
   Let nothing disturb thee, Let nothing affright thee. All things   
    are passing; God only is changeless. Patience gains all things.   
    Who hath God wanteth nothing -- Alone God sufficeth.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)