It is the patron of young people and youth.
Son of the Marquis Ferrante Gonzaga, born on March 19, 1568, since childhood the father educated him to arms, so much so that at 5 years he already wore a mini armor and a helmet and risked being crushed by shooting a blow with a cannon. But at 10 years Luigi had decided that his way was another: what through humility, the vote of chastity and a life dedicated to neighbor would have led it to God.
At 12 he received the First Communion from San Carlo Borromeo, who visited Brescia. He then decided to enter the company of Jesus and to succeed he had to support two years of struggles against his father. Free now to follow Christ, gave up The title and inheritance and entered the Roman college of Jesuits, dedicating himself to the humble and sick people, distinguishing himself especially during the plague epidemic that hit Rome in 1590.
On that occasion, transporting a dying back on his shoulders, he was infected and died. It was 1591, he was only 23 years old. He is buried in Rome in the church of Sant’Ignazio di Campo Marzio.
Youth portrait of Luigi Gonzaga, an unknown artist seventeenth century
Beyond devotionalism
Today, at the dawn of the third millennium, it is less difficult to trace an authentic profile of the young Marquis (1568-91), a native of Castiglione delle Stiviere (Mantua), son of Ferrante. Luigi was false by a “sugary devotionism”, already with the first biographer, Virgilio Cepàri (1606).
A double premise: the virtuous bride of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Eleonora Senior (1538-1587), supports Luigi’s renunciation; Eleonora Junior (1567- 1611), daughter of Francesco de ‘Medici, could be an ideal party! He was his nephew of Eleonora Medici (who died in 1562), a bride of Cosimo I. but Ferrante’s dreams are broken by Luigi’s choice.
A second preface. In 1968 a traveling exhibition in twelve panels (by Peter Mulder) already reduced Luigi. In parallel, the Aloisian iconographic exhibition (by Monsignor Luigi Bosio, in the homeland of the saint) made him a more virile face. Luigi was not only a graceful and fragile, praying and penitent pagger, but an intelligent young man, full of sensitivity and strength, To react to the legacy of the Gonzaga: Avarizia, insensitivity, thirst for power … we also remember the Municipality of Castiglione delle Stiviere, for the four historical processions in costume (1988-1991), with five hundred extras. The year 1991 was crowned by the charismatic visit of John Paul II.
The century of Luigi is marked by Luther’s heresy and Calvino. The “new era of regeneration” (Vasari) lives with materialism and rationalism; Raffaello and Michelangelo, Ariosto and Tasso operate; The notes of Monteverdi and Pier Luigi da Palestrina resonate. We will see how Luigi knows how to react: he prays and loves the poor, he realizes the court corruption, he is able to defend his Catholicism, to defer an old gentleman who kept pornographic speeches … he knows how to reproach the prince Don Diego, who claimed to command the wind …
Court life
In his choices he is guided by great ideals! His parents – Ferrante Gonzaga and Marta Tana di Sàntena, Piedmontese – know each other at the court of Philip II and marry in Madrid on November 15, 1566, according to the rules of the Council of Trent. Luigi was born on March 9, 1568, with a difficult birth; It is baptized on April 20 in Castiglione: certified in Latin.
Ferrante is proud of his heir. The mother, a woman of culture and faith, educates him to prayer and charity. Luigi grows up lively and mischievous. His father gives him a light arma and he in 1573, in Casalmaggiore, is the officer and shoots the cannon … two years earlier, the gold-blue banner of the Holy League had triumphed in Lepanto … away from Mamma Marta, Luigi prays less and says “military swear words” …
In 1577-78, together with his brother Rodolfo, Luigi passed with his father to Bagni di Lucca and was then welcomed to the court of Francesco de ‘Medici in Florence. It makes progress in Latin and Spanish. In the garden of Palazzo Pitti he plays with the princess Eleonora, Anna and Maria. But Florence matures Luigi: in front of the Santissima Annunziata consecrates herself to the Madonna.
The tutor leads him by a Jesuit confessor, and he passed on to San Giovannino, thinking about the “swear words” … in 1579 Ferrante, elected prince of the Sacred Roman Empire, prefers that the children return to Castiglione, where Luigi, on 22 July 1580 he received the first communion from Cardinal Carlo Borromeo.
By now Luigi’s life follows the spiritual exercises of Sant’Ignazio. Meanwhile Ferrante is commissioned by Filippo II to accompany his sister Maria of Austria to Lisbon, a widow of Massimiliano II. From 1581 Luigi has lived in Madrid. His vocation is specified. On March 29, 1583 he will hold his speech in Latin in front of the king.
But on August 15, 1583, in front of the Madonna of the good advice in the church of the College of the Company of Jesus, Luigi is certain that the Lord wants him Jesuit … Marta is happy. Ferrante opposes great difficulties. Luigi is convinced, but he agrees to postpone the decision to return to Italy. In 1584 in Castiglione, Luigi run away from home, he wrote to his father General Acquaviva.
Finally Ferrante yields, and on November 2, 1585, Luigi signs the act of renunciation of the Marquisate in Mantua. On Monday 4 November, the sun appears from the bruma bruma, the carriage crosses the Po in San Niccolò, the exodus of Luigi is marked by “Great Allegrozza”.
The tomb of San Luigi Gonzaga in Sant’Ignazio in Rome
In Rome he enters the Jesuits and dies during the plague epidemic
Luigi arrives in Rome: perhaps on November 20, 1585. His cousin, Monsignor Scipione Gonzaga, houses him in the building in via della Scrofa 117 (from 9 November 1991, a plaque recalls its passage). From a letter from Ferrante, we know that Luigi on 23 November was received by Sixtus V, on Sunday 24th he passed to Jesus for the Mass, then on Monday 25 he entered the novitiate of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale.
After a short stay in Naples for health reasons, Luigi is transferred to the Roman college to conclude his philosophy studies. On November 25, 1587, in the chapel of the fourth floor, he pronounced the first religious votes. He will often pray in the Church of the Annunziata (later absorbed in the vast church of Sant’Ignazio). Luigi passes to theology, asks for the missions of India. In 1588 he received minor orders in San Giovanni in Laterano.
On September 12, 1589, on the advice of his father Bellarmino and Father Acquaviva, Luigi goes to reconcile his brother Rodolfo with the Duke of Mantua. One of his speech on the Eucharist brings many people to confession. In the return, the students of Siena enthusiastically speaking of the generous sequence of Christ-re.
In February 1591 an epidemic of Petchial and Luigi broke out in Rome, he is among the first volunteers. On March 3, he transported a plague to the Consolation Hospital. Immediately a fever envelops him and starts him to death, a true “martyr of charity” … the last letter to the mother reveals him full of faith …
On June 21, 1591, Luigi gained a great ideal, “reaches all his hopes”. Paul said about him in March 1968: “Luigi conceived his existence as a gift to spend for others”; Finally, the words of John Paul II in June 1991: “The merciful father granted Luigi to immolate his youth in a heroic service of fraternal charity”.
Prayer to San Luigi di John Paul II
St. Luigi, poor in spirit to you with confidence we turn blessing the celestial father because in you he offered us an eloquent proof of his merciful love.
Humile and confidant I loved the designs of the divine heart, you have undressed as a teenager of every worldly honor and of every earthly fortune. You covered the chilizio of perfect chastity, you traveled the path of obedience, you did poor to serve God, all of him offering for love.
You, pure heart, make us free from every worldly slavery. Do not allow young people to fall victim to hatred and violence; Do not let them give in to the flattering of easy and fallacious hedonistic mirages.
Help them free from any cloudy feeling, defend them from the selfishness that blinds, save them from the power of the evil one.
Make them witnesses of the purity of the heart.
You heroic apostle of charity toasting the gift of the divine mercy that moves the hearts hardened by selfishness and keeps the yearning in each one towards holiness.
It makes today’s generation also has the courage to go against current, when it comes to spending life, to build the kingdom of Christ. He also knows how to share your own passion for man, recognizing in him, whoever he is, the divine presence of Christ.
With you we invoke Maria, the mother of the Redeemer. We entrust her soul and body, every misery and narrow, life and death, because everything in us, as happened in you, is fulfilled to the glory of God, who lives and reigns for all centuries of the centuries. Amen.
Guercino, the vocation of San Luigi Gonzaga
… and that of Cardinal Martini
Lord Jesus, who revealed the face of God love in St. Luigi, and gave him the strength to follow you by giving up everything that appeared in the world prestigious and wealth, to spend his life for the brothers, in lethazen and in the ease of heart, grant us, by his intercession, to welcome your design on our life and to communicate to all the brothers the joy of the Gospel, the smile of your presence of love.
Let your cross be, as has been for Luigi Gonzaga, our consolation, our hope, the solution of the dark problems of life, the light of all nights and all the tests.
And you Mary, who have inspired the adolescent Luigi the purpose of virginity, consolidates in us the desire for purity and chastity, toasting the gift of contemplating the mystery of God through that Word through which Jesus speaks to us, calls us, arouses our response.
We ask you, Father, for Christ our Lord in the grace of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
