[Rank]
S. Aloisii Gonzagae Confessoris;;Duplex;;3;;vide C5

[Rule]
vide C5;
9 lectiones

[Oratio]
O God, bestower of heavenly gifts, Who in the angelic youth Aloysius joined wondrous innocence of life to an equally wondrous love of penance; grant, by his merits and prayers, that we who have not followed him in his innocence may imitate him in his penance.
$Per Dominum

[Lectio4]
Aloysius, eldest son of Ferdinand Gonzaga, Marquess of Castiglione, was so hurriedly baptized on account of danger that he seemed to be born to heaven almost before he was born to earth, and he so faithfully kept that his first grace that he seemed to have been confirmed therein. From his first use of reason, which he employed to offer himself to God, he led a life more holy day by day. At Florence, when he was nine years old, he made a vow of perpetual virginity before the Altar of the Blessed Virgin, upon whom he always looked as in the place of a mother to him, and by a remarkable mercy, from God, he kept this vow wholly and without the slightest impure temptation, either of mind or body, during his whole life. As for any other uprisings of the soul, he began at that age to check them so sternly, that he was never more pricked by even their earliest movements. His senses, and especially, his eye-sight, he so mortified, that he never once looked upon the face of Mary of Austria, whom, when he was for several years one of the Pages of honour of the King of Spain, he saluted almost every day and he even denied himself in part, the pleasure of looking on the face of his own mother. He might indeed have been justly called a fleshless man, or an infleshed angel.

[Lectio5]
With this fettering of the senses he added torture of the body. He kept three days as fasts in every week, and that mostly upon a little bread and water. But indeed he as it were fasted every day, for he hardly ever took so much as an ounce weight of food at breakfast. Often also, even thrice in one day, he would lash himself to flowing of blood with cords, or prick himself with spiked chains. He sometimes used a dog-whip, instead of a scourge, and the rowels of spurs instead of hair-cloth. He privately filled his soft bed with pieces of broken plates, that he might find it easier to wake to pray. He passed great part of the night, clad only in a shirt even in the depth of winter, kneeling on the ground, or lying flat on his face when too weak and weary to remain upright, busied with heavenly thoughts. Sometimes he would keep himself thus for three, four, or five hours, until he had spent at least one without any movement of body or any wandering of mind. Such perseverance obtained for him the reward of being able to keep his understanding quite concentrated in prayer without distraction, as though rapt in God in an unbroken extasy. Desiring to give himself up to Him alone, he overcame, after a strong opposition for three years, the objections of his father, procured the transfer to his brother of his right to the Marquessate, and (on the 25th of November, 1585,) joined at Rome the Society of Jesus, to which he had been called by a voice from heaven when he was at Madrid.

[Lectio6]
In his very Noviciate he began to be held a master of all godliness. His obedience to even the most trifling rules was absolutely exact, his indifference to the world extraordinary, and his hatred of self implacable. His love of God was so keen that it gradually undermined his bodily strength. Being commanded to give his mind some rest from thinking unceasingly of God, he struggled vainly to distract himself from Him Who met him everywhere. From tender love toward his neighbour, he joyfully ministered to the sick in the public hospitals, (during the great distemper at Rome in 1591,) and in the exercise of this charity he caught a deadly disease. This sickness slowly wore him away, and soon after he had entered on the 24th year of his age, upon the 21st day of June, a day which he had himself foretold, after entreating that he might be scourged, and laid upon the ground to die, he passed away to heaven. What the glory is which he there enjoyeth holy Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi was enabled, by the revelation of God, to behold, and she declared that it was such as she had hardly believed existed even in heaven, and that his holiness and love were so great that she should call him an unknown martyr of charity. On earth God glorified him by many great miracles. These being duly proved, Benedict XIII inserted the name of this angellad in the Kalendar of the Saints, and commended him to all young scholars both as a pattern of innocency and purity, and as a patron.

[Lectio7]
From the Holy Gospel according to Matthew
!Matt 22:29-40
At that time Jesus answered and said unto the Sadducees Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. And so on.
_
Homily by St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople.
!Bk on Virginity.
This I say, that virginity is good. And in this I agree likewise, that it is better than marriage. And I will even add, that it is as much more excellent than marriage, as heaven is more noble than earth, or Angels than men, and indeed, if I must say more, even more so. For if Angels neither marry nor are given in marriage, at least, they are not creatures of flesh and blood, they dwell not upon earth, they are exposed to no restless troublings of desire or lust, they need neither meat nor drink, they are not such that sweet sound, or soft song, or the delight of beauty can charm them there is nothing of this sort to take hold on them and draw them away.

[Lectio8]
Due the human nature which striveth its utmost to follow them, is not so exalted as that of these blessed intelligences. How Angels marry not nor are given in marriage neither doth a virgin. Angels stand ever before God, and serve Him and so doth a virgin. But if a virgin, still weighed down with this body, and unable, like the Angels, to ascend to heaven, doth make it his one great comfort here to be holy in body and in spirit, and to open his heart for a home for the King of heaven dost thou not see wherein a virgin is higher than an Angel The excellence of virginity in men over virginity in Angels lieth in this, that it maketh them which are yet earth-dwellers and body-burdened equal to intelligences unshackled by bodies.

[Lectio9]
In what respect, I ask, differed Elijah, Elisha, and John, those great lovers of virginity, from Angels In nothing, except that their faithfulness was exercised in a dying body. For the rest, if we look carefully, their minds were no otherwise than those of the blessed spirits, and their crown of glory is this that they attained the same honour under conditions less favourable. For consider of what manliness, of what superiority of reason over feeling they must have been possessed, to enable them bravely to fight their way, earth-dwellers and dying creatures as they were, to the bright summit of grace which was theirs.
&teDeum

[Lectio94]
Aloysius, son of Ferdinand Gonzaga, Marquis of Castiglióne delle Stiviere, was in danger of death while he was being born. He was therefore baptized without delay, so that it seemed he was born to heaven even before he was born to earth. He retained this first grace so faithfully that he was believed to have been confirmed in it. When he was nine years old, he took a vow of virginity at Florence before the altar of the Blessed Virgin, whom he always thought of as his mother. By a singular blessing of God, he kept this vow without any rebellion of mind or body so that he was deservedly called a man without a body or an angel in the flesh. He handed over the right of succession to his brother and joined the Society of Jesus in Rome. Even in the novitiate he began to be considered a master of all the virtues. So ardent was the love of God in him that he would be rapt out of his body. Possessed by a wonderful charity for his neighbour, he zealously served in the public hospitals, and as a result he contacted a contagious fever. After slowly wasting away, he went to heaven on the 21st day of June, having just entered his twenty-fourth year. Benedict XIII enrolled him among the Saints and gave him to students as both a model of innocency and charity and their heavenly Patron.
&teDeum