While engaged in home missionary work as a diocesan priest, Alphonsus assisted in the foundation of the Redemptoristine nuns. A year or so later he established the Redemptorist Fathers as a missionary organization. When de’Liguori was sixty-six, Pope Clement XIII named him bishop of the diocese of Sant’ Agata dei Goti. He tried to get out of it, but the pope insisted. It was a small diocese, but needed reform very badly. Bishop de’Liguori gave it that reform. Meanwhile he was stricken with a rheumatic arthritis so severe that his chin was almost buried in his chest. He asked the pope permission to resign as bishop in 1775. By that time he had such a reputation for goodness and zeal that, as one churchman said of the man still alive, “If I were pope, I would canonize him without any process.”
If Alphonsus, on retiring, thought he could live out his life in peace, he was mistaken. Now began for this 80-year-old priest, his years of greatest trial – largely because of red tape. Naples was a separate kingdom in those days. King Charles III, a Bourbon, shared the idea of the Enlightenment that a King should keep close control over church affairs. Now he required that the Redemptorists, already approved by the Pope, be given state approval, too. But his policy would not allow him to approve any religious orders (these he considered old-fashioned and unprogressive), only societies of secular priests. Unfortunately, St. Alphonsus’s advisors just showed the saint the state regulations when they asked for his signature. Poor Bishop Alphonsus at that point could not read more than the initial words, because of failing eyesight. Thus he unwittingly approved of a law that the pope had to denounce. Pope Pius VI, therefore, declared that the Naples Redemptorists were no longer Redemptorists because they had changed the rule and that only those in the Roman province of the order were such. He named another priest, located in Rome, as Redemptorist general superior. Thus Alphonsus, the founder of the order, found himself demoted from office and his order abolished in the Kingdom of Naples.
In addition to this martyrdom to red tape, Alphonsus was at the same time suffering severe temptations against faith; yet these dark hours were intermittently lighted by hours of great prayerfulness and grace. More importantly, he accepted his double burden with supreme patience. In peace of soul, he foretold that the divided order would be reunited after his death. He died at 90. Three years later the Neapolitan Redemptorists were readmitted to membership; and in 1796 Pius VI, who had felt obliged to exclude Alphonsus from his order, introduced the cause for his canonization. Being a saint is not easy, you see! --Father Robert F. McNamara
(Year C). When you are afflicted with sickness, persecution, temptation, or any other trouble, turn at once to God and ask His help. It is enough for you to lay your affliction before Him-to go to Him and say: Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress (Lam. 1-20). He will not fail to comfort you, or at least to give you strength to suffer the trial with patience, and in this case it will prove a greater good than if He had freed you altogether from it. Tell Him of all the things that make you fear, or make you .sad, and say to Him: My God, in Thee are all my hopes. I offer this cross to Thee. I resign myself to Thy will. Take pity on me and either deliver me from my trial or give me strength to endure it. He will remember immediately the promise which He made in the Gospel, of consoling and comforting all those who have recourse to Him in tribulation: Come to Me all you that labour and are burdened and I will refresh you (Mat. II-28). He will not be displeased if you seek comfort from your friends in the hour of trial; but He wishes you to have recourse principally to Him. At least, therefore, when you have had recourse to creatures and they have not been able to console your heart, go to your Creator and say to Him: Lord, men have only words; they cannot afford me consolation. I no longer desire to be consoled by them. Thou alone art my hope; Thou alone my only love. By Thee alone do I desire to be comforted and the consolation I ask for is to do on this occasion what is most pleasing to Thee. Behold, I am ready to endure this trial for the whole of my life, and for all eternity, if such be Thy will. Only help me. Do not be afraid of offending Him if you sometimes gently complain, saying: Why, Lord, has Thou retired afar off? (Ps. 9-1). Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee, and that I desire nothing but Thy love. Have pity on me and help me. Do not abandon me. If desolation should continue for a long time and grievously afflict you, unite your voice to the voice of your afflicted Jesus and say: My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? (Mat. 28-46). Let the thought humble you that having offended God you do not deserve His consolations. At the same time, remember that He permits every thing for your good, and do not lose confidence: All things work together unto good to them that love God (Rom. 8-28). Say with courage, even when you feel most troubled and disconsolate: The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? (Ps. 26-1). Lord, Thou wilt guide me, Thou wilt save me; In Thee do I trust. In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be confounded (Ecclus 2-11). Reflect that God loves you more than you can love yourself. Why, then, should you be afraid? David brought comfort to his heart saying: The Lord is careful for me (Ps. 39-18). Let such be your sentiments, too, when you pray; and speak in this manner to God: Lord, I cast myself into Thy arms; and I desire to think only of loving and pleasing Thee. Behold me ready to do what Thou askest of me. Thou dost not only will my good, but Thou art 'careful for it. To Thee, then, I leave the care of my salvation. In Thee I rest, and will rest for evermore, since Thou wiliest that in Thee I should place all my hopes: In peace, in the self-same I will sleep and I will rest; for Thou, O Lord, singularly hast settled me in hope (Ps. 4-9). Think of the Lord in goodness (Wis. I-I). In these words the inspired writer exhorts us to have more confidence in the divine mercy than dread of the divine justice. For ,God is incomparably more inclined to bestow favours upon us than to chastise us, as St. James says: Mercy exalteth itself above judgment (2-13). For this reason, St. Peter exhorts us in all our fears-whether for our temporal or eternal interests-to abandon ourselves entirely to the goodness of God, who has the interests of our salvation at heart: Casting all your care upon Him, for He hath care of you (I Pet. 5-7). The royal prophet, David, has the same message of hope when he gives to God the beautiful title of our God and the God who is willing to save us: Our God is the God of salvation (Ps. 39-18). This means, as Bellarmine explains it, that it is the will of God, not to condemn, but to save all. He threatens with His displeasure those who despise Him; but He promises mercy to those who fear Him: in the words of the canticle of our Blessed Lady: His mercy is from generation to generation to them that fear Him I place before you, devout reader, all these passages from the sacred scriptures, so that if you are ever troubled by the doubt as to whether you will be saved or no-whether you are of the number of the predestined or no-you may take courage at the thought that you know from God's Word that He desires to save you, if only you are resolved to serve and love Him as He asks of you. (How to Pray at All Times)