St. Aloysius Gonzaga: Feast Day, Patronage & Prayers
Updated: Oct 3
Feast day: June 21 (Memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious)
Patron of: Young people, students, and Christian youth.
About St. Aloysius Gonzaga
St. Aloysius Gonzaga was born in 1568 in Castiglione, in northern Italy, the eldest son of a powerful noble family. His father intended him for a military career and trained him from boyhood, but Aloysius was drawn early to prayer and made a private vow of chastity as a child. He served as a page at the courts of Florence and Madrid and saw their worldliness close up. He received his First Communion from St. Charles Borromeo.
After years of resistance from his father, Aloysius gave up his inheritance to his younger brother and entered the Society of Jesus in Rome in 1585, at seventeen. His spiritual director was St. Robert Bellarmine. In 1591 a plague struck Rome, and Aloysius volunteered to care for the sick in the Jesuit hospital, carrying the dying in his arms. He caught the disease and died on June 21, 1591, at the age of twenty-three. He was canonized in 1726, and Pope Benedict XIII named him patron of young students. Aloysius shows young people that purity and self-giving love are signs of real strength.
Prayers to St. Aloysius Gonzaga on Daily Catholic Prayers
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