St. Alphonsus - Master of Prayer

St. Alphonsus - Master of Prayer

Margaret M. O'Shea, IHM

T he two little children leaving church with their mother waved and blew kisses to the saint interred beneath the altar. "Ciao, Papa," they called. They left willingly, knowing they would return another day to pray with Saint Alphonsus Liguori, their friend. What is it about this saint that, three hundred years after his birth, continues to evoke in adults and children such intimacy and ease with God?

One might suspect Italian piety, a mysterious condition prevalent only in Italy; yet all over the world, generations of ordinary people have prayed and are still praying in the spirit of this passionate lover of Jesus Christ, Alfonso Maria de Liguori. With Alphonsus, Catholics can be at home with God; with Alphonsus, Catholics can pray to God as a friend.

EARLY INFLUENCES
Alphonsus' birth in 1696 to an ambitious and self-made father and to a pious and apostolic mother introduced him to a world of potential power, fame, and success. His natural intelligence—a gift for logic as well as for poetry—pointed to future glory. However, as Alphonsus matured into young adulthood, the eldest in a family of eight, his sensitivity and tenderness became edged with painful scrupulosity, aggravated by his father's expectations. The prevailing spirit of rigorism in the Church of his day contributed to a climate in Europe that portrayed God as a fearful tyrant. Hell seemed very close to the ordinary believer. Seminary training reinforced Jansenist attitudes. Like most people, Alphonsus was a victim as well as a beneficiary of his familial and cultural heritage.

As a teenager, Alphonsus read many writings of Saint Teresa of Avila, whom he called his "second mother" It was through Saint Teresa that Alphonsus came to understand mental prayer as "nothing but a friendly relationship, and frequent solitary converse, with him who we know loves us." The Spanish mystic gave Alphonsus permission to be affective in his prayer, to speak to God with passion, tenderness, and love. Prayer for Saint Teresa, and later for Alphonsus, was not just heartfelt words but also strong deeds, discipline, and commitment, validated by the prayer's attachment to the will of God. Gleaning lifelong insights from his "second mother," Alphonsus developed a lay spirituality rooted in prayer that anticipated Vatican II's universal call to holiness. Integrating aspects of Oratorian, Salesian, and Jesuit spiritualities with Teresian spirituality, Alphonsus reached out to the least as well as to the privileged with a single focus: prayer.

CENTRALITY OF PRAYER
Using his gifts and talents yet always aware of his faults and weaknesses, Alphonsus developed a special kinship with the poor people of the countryside of Naples. He experienced the anguish of the uneducated rural people who often felt abandoned by the Church during life and who seemed to be at the mercy of a tyrannical God at death. The central message of Alphonsus' preaching and writing became a proclamation that the redemption offered by Jesus Christ is available to all those who pray. This was liberating good news, especially for the lower classes. Alphonsus taught that salvation is available to all who pray, that everyone has the grace to pray, and that those who choose not to pray are choosing not to be saved, since "ordinarily all adults are saved by prayer" and "we ought also to take for granted that everyone has sufficient aid from God...to pray."

In a formal treatise, Exposition and Confutation of Jansenius' System of Delectation Relatively Victorious, Alphonsus, the lawyer-turned-theologian, defends his views regarding the grace to pray. Although his system has its own difficulties, it achieved his aim of emphasizing the necessity of prayer for salvation. Contrary to Jansen and to the rigorist schools, Alphonsus presents a God of unconditional love. In response to such a God, Alphonsus emphasizes the importance of prayer as the great means of salvation: "By prayer he [sic] may obtain all other graces necessary to enable him to persevere in keeping the commandments and so gain eternal life." Without prayer, Alphonsus is pessimistic about salvation: "He who loves God loves prayer; and he who loves not prayer will find it morally impossible to overcome his passions." The decision to pray or not to pray is placed firmly in the heart of each individual.

ALPHONSUS' MINISTRYOF PRAYER
From the earliest days of his ministry, Alphonsus, the preacher, gathered beggars on the street corners of Naples and taught them to pray. Alphonsus also began Evening Chapels, where simple folk could gather for prayer in the back rooms of local shops. Although he valued oral prayer, he did not believe it could sustain a Christian throughout the journey to perfection: "In general, vocal prayers are said distractedly with the voice of the body, but not of the heart, especially when they are long, and still more especially when said by a person who does not make mental prayer." His aim was to introduce meditation and mental prayer to everyone: "It is impossible for him who perseveres in mental prayer to continue in sin: he will either give up meditation or renounce sin."

Alphonsus, the zealous missionary, encouraged the peasants of the Neapolitan countryside to pray: "Pray, pray, pray, and you will surely be saved." At the close of every Redemptorist mission, he instructed the missioners to spend three or four days teaching the
people the Vita Divota: prayer and meditation on the mysteries of faith. The Vita Divota was to become an important part of spirituality in the rural community.

Alphonsus, the writer, composed books of prayer and instructions on prayer for laity and religious alike. Significant among these works are How to Pray Continually and Familiarly With God and The Great Means of Salvation and of Perfection. In his preface to The Great Means of Salvation and of Perfection, Alphonsus tells his reader: "I do not think that I have written a more useful work than the present, in which I speak of prayer as a necessary and certain means of obtaining salvation, and all the graces that we require for that object. If it were in my power I would distribute a copy of it to every Catholic in the world, in order to show...the absolute necessity of prayer for salvation." Lamenting the lack of instruction in prayer being given by confessors, Alphonsus provided priests with his Praxis Confessarii, in which he delineated stages of prayer, so that confessors could help penitents grow in prayer.

In his books, Alphonsus never tires of praying with his reader. He often concludes sections of his ascetical works with spontaneous prayers. The secret of Alphonsus' approach is that anyone can pray in his simple style: "Jesus, my Redeemer, I feel within me a great desire to love you. This is a gift of your grace, and I know that it comes from you. Give me the strength necessary to put your grace into action and help me, from this day forward, to say to you sincerely and repeat to you always, `My God, I love you, I love you, I love you.' You desire my love; I also desire yours. Let us love each other from now on and forever. You will never leave me; I will never leave you. You will always love me; I will always love you. 0 Mary, see how I run to you to confide in you. You pray for so many others; pray for me, too."

HOW TO PRAY
Unlike Saint Teresa, Alphonsus was not preoccupied with the stages of prayer; he preached a simple method of prayer, adapted from Saint Francis de Sales. Believing that prayer is morally necessary for salvation, he offered a concise outline that all could use: (1) preparation; (2) meditation leading to affection and petition; (3) conclusion. The fruits of prayer, according to Saint Alphonsus, are affections, petitions, and resolutions; the end of prayer is uniformity with the will of God. Alphonsus prefers a minimum, if possible, of one half-hour of prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, but he stresses that prayer can be offered anywhere, anytime, by anyone.

While quietism threatened the Church in Europe, Alphonsus was busy composing his masterpiece of prayer, The Visits to the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary. In these meditations, Alphonsus, the theologian, reveals the contemplative side of his practical personality: "Your love is all I want from life. What I have, I give you, Lord. But even if the whole universe were mine, I would give that up in favor of you....0 Divine Lover, I wish all people knew how tenderly you love each one of them."

Alphonsus, the spiritual director, never grew weary of recommending prayer. He typically advised a confrere: "Keep the Rule as well as you can; for example, when the Community neglects prayer, you must not neglect it." He asks: "What profit is there in sermons, meditation, and all the other means pointed out by masters of the spiritual life, if we forget to pray?" In a circular letter to the Congregation, Alphonsus suggests: "I recommend, in particular and first of all, the common acts and the three meditations. He who has little love for prayer, has little love for God; and when prayer is wanting, the religious spirit is wanting, good desires are wanting, and courage to make progress is wanting." Alphonsus' priorities are clearly stated in his response to a family man who had sought advice about developing a spiritual life: "Ask without ceasing for the love of God, perfect conformity to the divine will, and perseverance in prayer."

POPULAR PIETY
Pray, pray, never cease to pray; for if you pray, you will surely be saved. Because Alphonsus was always in touch with ordinary—even uneducated—Catholics, he knew how to keep his message simple and accessible to everyone. He often reminded young Redemptorists that their sermons needed to be understood by each person in the church, the poorest beggar as well as the royal visitor. Alphonsus' spirituality centers on the Person of Jesus Christ. He was especially attracted to Jesus in the mysteries of his Incarnation, Passion, and Eucharist. He loved the God of Philippians, who emptied himself to become one of us. Alphonsus wept and sought conversion under the cross of the suffering Lord, who was willing to die for us. He lived his life in intimate union with the God who remains with us in the Blessed Sacrament.

Alphonsus introduced Catholics of his day to simple practices centered on the Nativity crib, the cross, and the altar. Although many of these devotions were time-bound and culturally conditioned, popular devotions such as the Stations of the Cross, the novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help, paraliturgical services, prayer meetings, the rosary, and others are practiced today because they continue to speak to the human heart. People need other people to support them on their journey of faith, and people need private prayer to transform their personal lives. Alphonsus offers both. He is unsophisticated in his approach to God. Ordinary people recognize in Alphonsus a friend who is one with them in responding with heartfelt prayers to a loving God.

OUR RESPONSE TO GOD'S LOVE
Especially significant in Alphonsus' pastoral approach is his projection of a positive and loving attitude of God toward the human family. This is somewhat surprising, since Alphonsus himself suffered greatly from scrupulosity and was not afraid to challenge hardhearted and loose-living Catholics. His own experience of woundedness seems to have given him a base from which he was able to present a loving God to others, especially to the poor and the abandoned. Alphonsus' God is approachable and waiting for a response of love. In The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ, for example, Alphonsus describes a conversation between God the Father and God the Son. The dialogue reveals the anguished concern and care that the Father feels for misguided human beings. The Son responds with compassion and offers to redeem the human family. In The Passion and the Death of Jesus Christ, Alphonsus sums up the meaning of the passion by quoting Tiepoli: "He who does not become inflamed with the love of God by looking at Jesus dead on the cross will never love at all." And in The Holy Eucharist, a whole section includes "The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ;" a beautiful invitation to authentic Christian love.

Alphonsus' God calls forth affectivity and commitment from each person. In response to God's love, no practiced words or rote prayers are necessary. Bringing ourselves as we are is enough. Eventually, Alphonsus believes, the peasant on the hillside and the king and queen in the castle—as well as the ordinary Christian of today—will find union with God. On the road to intimacy, Mary will accompany the seeker as she always supported Alphonsus. The key to communion with Alphonsus' God is prayer.

A SPIRITUAL LEGACY
Alphonsus was a gifted pastoral missionary who took what he found helpful from the spiritual resources of his time and made Christian belief and practice available to the average person. Jesus Christ is clearly the center of Alphonsian spirituality, especially under the aspects of Incarnation, Passion, and Eucharist. Unlike Saint Francis, who is associated with peace and nature, or Saint Margaret Mary, who is remembered for devotion to the Sacred Heart, or Saint Dominic, who was a preacher of Truth, or Saint Bernadette, who leads us to Mary, Alphonsus' spiritual legacy embraces a broad pastoral approach to all of the major Christian mysteries and to many of the devotional practices of the Church. His Catholic themes and interests are varied: Jesus Christ the Redeemer, the Blessed Virgin Mary, prayer, reconciliation, morality, Il Distacco (detachment), uniformity with God's will, preaching the Word of God, liturgy, and so forth. The topics of the more than one hundred books he wrote attest to the diversity of his expertise. But Alphonsus' legacy is not his books, many of which would not appeal in their original form to Americans of the twenty-first century. His legacy lies in his compassionate approach to people and in his prayer-filled response to the loving God revealed in Jesus.

The secret of Alphonsus' spiritual legacy is his recognition that deep and affective friendship with the God who loves us unconditionally is possible for ordinary people: "Consider that no one, friend or lover, father or mother, sister or brother, loves you more than your God." This is enduring good news. This is Christianity for all. Jesus Christ, who was born, who suffered and died, and who is with us, offers us friendship with the God of mystery who says to us: "You were not yet in the world, the world itself was not created, and I already loved you. As long as I am God, I loved you. As long as I have loved myself, I have also loved you." If we pray, we open ourselves to growth and relationship with this God. If we don't, we don't.

A Redemptorist missionary from Canada, Gabriel Ehmann, C.Ss.R., described Alphonsus as a preacher who backs us into the corner with proof after proof of God's love until we spontaneously respond: "My God, I love you!" Psalm 48 urges us to tell the next generation that God is here! The little children in the basilica at Pagani visiting their "papa" seem to know this truth.