June 21 -- Feast of Aloysius Gonzaga

We have the stories of rich kids who get inspired to be holy early. Their parents usually work on them to snap out of it, take over the family affairs, get married, and settle down. They resist. Sometimes the kids win. Sometimes the parents win... for a while, anyway. But if they made saint, then we can be sure that the kids prevailed in the long run.

Aloysius Gonzaga was one such kid. The eldest son in a very powerful aristocratic family in Mantua, he determined at age seven that he would not follow the nobleman's path in life. He lost interest in guns and troop parades. The family opposed him and there was much strife over the next five years. It was said that he could not identify his female relatives because he refused to let his eyes fall on any woman. His health declined, perhaps because he quarreled so. Nonetheless, he resigned his inheritance and declared his intention to become a Jesuit. His dad mustered all the forces he could, including clergy, to oppose this effort, but to no avail.

There are two funny aspects to his having become a Jesuit. The first is that he was not really inclined to the Jesuit life at all. They are, above all very well educated. They were the debaters among the Catholic clergy, the priests who used knowledge and reason to defend the Church against the Reformation Movement. Young Aloysius pursued his course of study, but felt that knowledge itself was of this world and a Christian's responsibility was to keep his focus on the other world. He set himself apart from the other Jesuit novices -- well, to call him a sanctimonious prig would be going too far, since he made saint, but his spiritual director did feel compelled to advise him to be more social, to pray a little less, and to eat a little more.

The plague was a big career break for him. It allowed him to break from the intellectual traps (worldly pleasures, I guess) that were demanded of him and get down to serving the least of Jesus' brothers. He opened a hospital and begged in the street for food to sustain the plague victims. Soon enough, he himself had contracted the plague. He then realized that rushing toward death was also sinful, perhaps because it presumed to impose on the will of God. He prayed that he might be useful to God, seemed to recover, but relapsed and died at age twenty-three.

Go Zags!