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 B). Jesus on the cross! O stupendous sight for heaven and earth of mercy and of love! To see the Son of God dying through pain upon a gibbet of infamy, condemned as a malefactor to so bitter and shameful a death, in order to save sinful men from the penalty that was due to them! This sight has ever been, and will always be, the subject of the contemplation of the saints, and has led them willingly to renounce all the goods of the earth, and to embrace with great courage sufferings and death, that they might make themselves more pleasing to a God who died for love of them. The sight of Jesus despised between two thieves has made them love contempt far more than worldings have loved the honors of the world. Beholding Jesus covered with wounds upon the cross, they hold in abhorrence the pleasures of sense, and have endeavored to afflict their flesh in order to unite their sufferings to the sufferings of the Crucified. Beholding the patience of our Saviour in his death, they have joyfully accepted the most painful sick nesses, and even the most cruel torments that tyrants can inflict. Lastly, from beholding the love of Jesus Christ in being willing to sacrifice his life for us in a sea of sorrows, they have sought to sacrifice to him all that they had, possessions, children, and even life it self.

 

Oh, happy is that soul which frequently sets before its eyes Jesus dying on the cross, and stops to contemplate with tenderness the pains which Jesus has suffered, and the love wherewith he offered himself to the Father, while he lay agonizing on that bed of sorrow. Souls that love God, when they find themselves more than usually harassed by temptations of the devil and by fears about their eternal salvation, derive great comfort by considering in silence and alone Jesus hanging on the cross, and shedding blood from all his wounds. At the sight of the crucifix, all desires for the goods of this world flee utterly away. From that cross exhales a heavenly breath, which causes us to forget all earthly objects, and enkindles within us a holy desire of quitting all things, in order to employ all our affections in loving that Lord who has pleased to die through love for us.

 

What Christian, then, O my Jesus! knowing by faith that Thou hast died upon the cross for love of him, can live without loving Thee! Pardon me, then, O Lord! first of all, this great sin of having lived so many years in the world without loving Thee. My beloved Saviour, the thought of death fills me with dread, as being the moment when I shall give an account to Thee of all the sins that I have committed against Thee; but that blood that I see flowing from Thy wounds causes me to hope for pardon from Thee, and at the same time the grace of loving Thee for the future with my whole heart, by virtue of those merits Thou hast earned by so many pains. I give myself wholly to Thee; I will no longer be my own; I desire to do all; I desire to suffer in order to please Thee.

 

O men, O men! how can you show such contempt for a God who has suffered so much for you? Behold him on that cross, how he sacrifices himself by death to pay for your sins, and to gain your affections. My Jesus, I will live no longer ungrateful for such goodness. (On the Passion of Christ)