23 June 2020
Tuesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
The week cannot pass without noting the feast of Luigi Gonzaga, which was replaced by the 12th Sunday in Ordinary time on June 21. Luigi Gonzaga shares the pinnacle of special saints of the Society of Jesus and was particularly promoted by both the Jesuits and the wider church. His statue could be seen in churches throughout the world, a model of teenage sanctity and modesty for teenagers that perhaps could use some encouragement in these endeavors. His father envisioned a military career for Luigi and when he took him out as a youth among the troops, Dad was proud of how little Luigi marched around with a gun. His mother was less impressed with the language he picked up at camp. Perhaps motherly concern steered Luigi towards a more pious life. One thing we do know, the future heir to the Gonzaga fortune met members of the Jesuit order which in turn led Luigi to enter the Jesuit order. Part of the “boom” of his entrance was that he relegated his fortune to enter the Jesuits, and for this reason he is frequently portrayed as standing with a crown underfoot staring at a crucifix. Few of us have the option of negating the power of a renaissance princedom, but one lesson that we can draw from the somewhat curious life of Luigi is the power of our actions to create a change in behavior. The exact relation between God’s active power by grace and our free actions always has been thorny not to untangle. Jesuits have always perceived that God’s grace falls with greater fertility on ground tilled by human action and therefore have seen the value of tilling human ability, hence the emphasis on education. The lesson we can draw from the feast is the challenge of growing in the fullest human potential so that we can be susceptible to grace and become signs of God’s presence in the world.