Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga (Italian: Luigi Gonzaga; March 9, 1568 – June 21, 1591) was an Italian aristocrat who became a member of the Society of Jesus. He was born in Castiglione delle Stiviere, Duchy of Mantua, Holy Roman Empire. He was the eldest of seven children born to Ferrante Gonzaga, marchese di Castiglione.

Aloysius was destined for a military career as a nobleman and was educated at the ducal courts of Florence and Mantua and at the royal court of Madrid, where he was page to King Philip II’s son Diego. However, in 1585 he resigned his inheritance and social status and entered the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit order) at Rome.

While still a student at the Roman College, he died as a result of caring for the victims of a serious epidemic. He was noted for his asceticism and quickly volunteered to care for the sick and dying at a Jesuit hospital when plague broke out in Rome. Shortly before his ordination, he contracted the disease himself and died at age 23.

He was beatified in 1605 and canonized in 1726. He is the patron saint of young students, Christian youth, Jesuit scholastics, the blind, AIDS patients, AIDS care-givers. His feast day is celebrated on June 21.

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.

(1) Aloysius Gonzaga - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysius_Gonzaga.

(2) Saint Aloysius Gonzaga | Biography & Facts | Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Aloysius-Gonzaga.

(3) St. Aloysius Gonzaga | Gonzaga University. https://www.gonzaga.edu/about/our-mission-jesuit-values/gonzagas-history/st-aloysius-gonzaga.