{"id":23910,"date":"2008-08-01T09:53:05","date_gmt":"2008-08-01T13:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2008\/08\/encountering-the-will-of-god\/"},"modified":"2008-08-01T09:53:05","modified_gmt":"2008-08-01T13:53:05","slug":"encountering-the-will-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2008\/08\/encountering-the-will-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Encountering the Will of God: Saint Alphonsus Ligouri"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\">Today is the feast of a great bishop, founder and doctor of the Church, Saint Alphonsus<br \/>\n<span style=\"DISPLAY: inline\" class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/St%20Alphonsus.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"MARGIN: 0px 0px 20px 20px; FLOAT: right\" class=\"mt-image-right\" alt=\"St Alphonsus.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/St%20Alphonsus-thumb-250x249.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"249\" \/><\/a><\/span>Ligouri (1696-1787). The saint&#8217;s spiritual, dogmatic, liturgical and systematic writings are remarkable&nbsp;sources of inspiration and challenge. Little recognized but nontheless true is Saint Alphonsus&nbsp;was a poet and a musician. After all, the saint is from Naples! It is reported that <span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\">Giuseppe Verdi said of St. Alphonsus&#8217; great Christmas carol: &#8220;Christmas without &#8216;Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle&#8217; is not Christmas.&#8221;&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\">Among the writings that you&#8217;ll find helpful are his <em>Way of the Cross, Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, The Moral Theology<\/em> and <em>The Glories of Mary<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\"><\/font><\/span>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\">For our lectio I propose the following:<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\"><\/font><\/span>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\">Perfection is founded entirely on the love of God: &#8220;Charity is the bond of perfection&#8221;; and perfect love of God means the complete union of our will with God&#8217;s: &#8220;The principal effect of love is so to unite the wills of those who love each other as to make them will the same things.&#8221; It follows then, that the more one unites his will with the divine will, the greater will be his love of God. <strong>Mortification, meditation, receiving Holy Communion, acts of fraternal charity are all certainly pleasing to God <\/strong>&#8212; <em>but only when they are in accordance with his will.<\/em> When they do not accord with God&#8217;s will, he not only finds no pleasure in them, but he even rejects them utterly and punishes them.<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal\"><span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><o:p><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal\"><span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\">Conformity to God&#8217;s Will<\/font><\/span><\/i><span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><br \/><font color=\"#000000\">St. Alphonsus Maria de Ligouri<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><o:p><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\">O God, Who did inflame blessed Alphonsus Your confessor and Bishop with a burning zeal for the salvation of souls and through him did enrich Your Church with new offspring; grant we beseech You, that imbued with his wholesome precepts and strengthened by his example, we may come happily unto You.<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the feast of a great bishop, founder and doctor of the Church, Saint Alphonsus Ligouri (1696-1787). The saint&#8217;s spiritual, dogmatic, liturgical and systematic writings are remarkable&nbsp;sources of inspiration and challenge. Little recognized but nontheless true is Saint Alphonsus&nbsp;was a poet and a musician. After all, the saint is from Naples! It is reported &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2008\/08\/encountering-the-will-of-god\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Encountering the Will of God: Saint Alphonsus Ligouri<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1710],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23910"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}