Saint Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori

Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori was born in Marianella — back then a hamlet outside Naples, today part of the city — on September 27, 1696, the first of eight children of Don Giuseppe, a nobleman of the Seggio di Portanova and a naval officer, and of Anna Maria Cavalieri. His father gave him the best tutors there were: among them the painter Francesco Solimena, who taught him to paint. Alphonsus was a prodigy: he enrolled at the university at twelve and took his degree in both civil and canon law at sixteen, with a special dispensation because he was too young. At twenty he was one of the most sought-after lawyers in Naples. He stopped all at once. In 1723, in a very important case, he lost over a detail he had missed — a document he had misread. He walked out of the courtroom saying “World, now I know you,” and never set foot in a courtroom again. He became a priest and went to preach among the lazzari (the street poor of Naples), in the city’s neighborhoods and in the countryside, to people no one went looking for. That is how the Redemptorists were born, in 1732. He was bishop of Sant’Agata de’ Goti for thirteen years and asked more than once to be relieved of the post. He wrote a great deal — his Moral Theology is his major work — and he wrote music too. *Quanno nascette Ninno* is his, the carol that in Italian became *Tu scendi dalle stelle*: it is sung at Christmas all over the world. He died in Pagani on August 1, 1787, at ninety. He is a doctor of the Church. If your name is Alfonso, today is your name day.