LOUIS GONZAGA, Saint. - Born on 9 March 1568 in the Castle of Castiglione delle Stiviere near Mantua, firstborn of Ferrante G., prince of the Empire and marquis of Castiglione, and of Marta Tana Santena of Chieri, died on 21 June 1591 in Rome. At the age of five he followed his father to the military camps of Cremona, learning the life of a soldier. In 1577 he was with his brother Rodolfo in Florence, a page at the court of Francesco de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany. There, in the church of the Santissima Annunziata, before the celebrated image of the Virgin, he made a vow to God of perpetual virginity.
Taking occasion from an illness, L. gave himself over to austerity with the practice of fasts and penances, which he joined to long hours of prayer. In 1580 he received his first Communion from the hands of St. Charles Borromeo, who had passed through Castiglione on a pastoral visit; from then on he felt a very great affection for the sacrament of the Eucharist, attending Holy Mass every day and receiving Communion on all feast days. In 1580-81 at Casale Monferrato and at the sanctuary of Crea, edified by the conversation of the Barnabites and Capuchins, he resolved to embrace the state of perfection, beginning already at court to lead the life of a religious. In the autumn of 1581 he accompanied, together with his relatives, the empress Maria of Austria to the court of Philip II in Spain, where he remained for two years as page of Don Diego, pursuing studies in philosophy, of which he gave public proof at the University of Alcalá. Reading the Compendio de la doctrina espiritual of friar Luigi of Granada, he devoted himself more greatly to mental prayer, which he prolonged at times to five or more hours a day. In 1583 he decided to enter the Society of Jesus. After a long and tormented struggle with his father, who left nothing untried to dissuade him from that resolution, sending him to various courts, finally, after having settled difficult affairs in Milan with much sense and ability, L. succeeded in wresting his consent and, having renounced [his rights], he entered the novitiate of Sant'Andrea in Rome on 25 November 1585. He had as masters of the spiritual life R. Bellarmino and the famous ascetic writer Vincenzo Bruno. He distinguished himself in the practice of the most heroic virtues, especially in humility, in the spirit of penance and in the most tender devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist and to the Virgin. He was assiduous in the service of the poor and the sick, and in teaching the catechism to the poor. He always nourished the desire to go as a missionary to India. As disputes had arisen in the family between the duke of Mantua and his brother, who were contending for the lordship of Solferino, L., at the request of his relatives, was sent by the father general to Castiglione, where he reconciled the relatives and also settled the situation of his brother, who had married a woman of inferior condition. Having returned to Rome, when a plague broke out, he offered himself for the assistance of the sick, and, while carrying a plague victim, he contracted that pernicious fever, which, lasting three months, caused him to die a victim of charity, in the early hours of the octave of Corpus Domini (21 June 1591) at 23 years and three months of age.
Paul V granted him the title of blessed (1605), Benedict XIII canonized him in 1726 and in 1729 proclaimed him patron of youth, especially of students. His bones rest beneath the altar dedicated to him in the church of St. Ignatius in Rome. His head is preserved in the basilica of St. Luigi at Castiglione. In the Gesù Vecchio in Naples an ampoule of his blood is preserved. An Aloisian museum is kept near his room at the Roman College. On the second centenary of the canonization (1926) Pius XI reconfirmed him as patron of youth. Feast on 21 June.
Bibliography9 works
After having obtained an immense success from his missions, removed from the Hospital and from the diocese through the intrigues of the libertines and the Jansenists, he completed on foot the pilgrimage to Rome, to obtain light and counsel from the Vicar of Christ. Clement XI dissuaded him from departing for the foreign missions, named him apostolic missionary and assigned him France as his field of apostolate. From then on he would consecrate himself without cease, until the end of his life, to the work of the missions (1706-16), especially in Brittany, in Poitou and in Aunis. Everywhere he preached the Cross and the Rosary, the total consecration of oneself to Jesus through the hands of Mary, erected Calvaries, restored churches, instituted confraternities with the result that down to our own days the faith has remained most lively in the regions evangelized. Heroic in poverty, mortification, obedience, love of the poor, persecuted to the utmost, the victim of several attempts on his life, rejected by many dioceses, he was always protected by the two great anti-Jansenist bishops of Luçon and of La Rochelle (Jean-François-Valderie de l'Escure and Etienne de Champflour).
L. M. wrote: Traité de la vraie dévotion à la Ste Vierge (ms. rediscovered in 1842, 1st ed. Luçon 1843; phototypic ed., Rome 1942; 1st Italian trans. Turin 1851), L'amour de la Sagesse éternelle (Paris 1856), Le secret admirable du T. S. Rosaire (ibid. 1912), Lettre aux amis de la Croix (Nantes 1875), Secret de Marie (Montreal 1899), moreover various canticles (cf. critical ed. by F. Fradet, Paris 1929).
He considers the spiritual life as the total consecration to Jesus, Incarnate Wisdom, through the hands of Mary and the complete dependence on this Divine Mother, in such a way that man, moved by Mary, and living in her, with her and for her, may also live more perfectly with Jesus, in him, for him. In order to perpetuate the work of the edited by E. Reitz v. Frentz, ibid. 1928); M. Meschler, Leben des h. Aloysius, Freiburg im Breisgau 1891 (with similar success: Italian trans., Turin 1923 and 1926); F. Goldie, St. Aloysius, London 1891; J. Croiset, St Louis de G., parfait modèle de la jeunesse chrétienne, Lille 1921; A. Lambrette, St Louis de G., sa mission, son âme, Louvain 1926; C. Martindale, The vocation of Aloysius G., London 1927; French trans. by E. Delpierre-A. Noché, St Louis de G. et la Renaissance italienne (1568-1591), Le Puy 1946. Cf. E. Rivière, Bibliogr. du 3e centenaire de St Louis de G., Paris 1891.
Arnaldo Lanz