Saints are trailblazers, and so is the one we celebrate today—Saint Alphonsus Liguori. It isn’t because they walk paths unknown. Instead, their lives are silent yet audacious witnesses of the life of Christ in everyday life. Their embrace of grace and its silent nudges is so rooted (incarnate) that it becomes the rose of anointed witness in them.

We see in the saints the triumphant witness of a balancing act of being in the world and “not of the world” (John 17:16). Though wounded, they allow God’s grace to walk in them. Thus, God blesses them with daily sanctification of the will, the soul, and the spirit. As a result, they become perfect in love.  

Saint Alphonsus Liguori from Naples (1669-1787) leaves a clear message for you and me. His life lesson is an infectious gospel. It gladdens my heart. Motivating too. I hear the echoes of his voice: We can all be Saints, no matter our time or place in life. The homeschooling parent and the corporate worker receive the same invitation. The invitation also goes to priests, nuns, and volunteers helping at the home shelter. So is the scientist who hardly can see the sun, tucked in the discomfort of her lab, the babysitter, the clinician, the plumber, and the street cleaner. All receive the same invitation card to be saints. 

It requires a simple RSVP, a willingness to follow Christ and allow His grace to work in us. Consequently, God does the heavy lifting, supplying an ocean of grace for our daily renewal in His body, especially in the Sacred Liturgy. In the meantime, we do the dishes by “faith working through charity” (Galatians 5:6) in our lives.

The Moral Theologian

Saint Alphonsus Liguori was a moral theologian who impacted the Church significantly. He authored over 100 books. His massive 9-volume Moral Theology—written with the concreteness of practical spiritual life—is a masterpiece. But, above all, his life of heroic virtue is a gospel. Therefore, he deserves the honor of being named a Doctor of Moral Theology. He joins the ranks of Saints Augustine (Doctor of Grace), Aquinas (Angelic Doctor), and 34 others the Church honors as Doctors of the Church.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori’s moral theology is based on the principle of love. He believed that the purpose of morality is to lead us to God and that we should love God above all things and show God’s love to everyone and in every circumstance.

Leading by Love

If I may articulate in three paragraphs the core of Saint Alphonsus Liguori’s love-centered Moral Theology, it is the following. Foremost, the greatest glory to God is doing His will in all things. God’s will is the way of love, in which we wholeheartedly embrace God’s affectionate invitation to love and to show the same love to others. It has an ethical implication, leading us to choose only what pleases God and renounce all things that do not glorify God.

Therefore, we make radical choices for God, although it isn’t the mangling of the body and the flesh. It is of the spirit in which renewal is rooted within. For the saint, it entails a series of renunciation; renouncing a career (as the saint did), a passion, or a relationship, and accepting God’s will as the saint did when he was stripped of all leadership roles in the Redemptorist Order he founded. It means choosing the way of Divine Love and Divine Will no matter what. In short, it is renouncing anything that does not glorify God in our lives. A countercultural message.

We do so in a simple and unassuming way. Humility is the true test of pure love. It is a moral life, renewed in spirit and lived in humility. Consequently, we become like the ordinary people of everyday life, renewed and sanctified in Christ. This entails suffering. However, in suffering, we become perfect in Divine Love.

Holiness of Life

Hence, for Saint Alphonsus, holiness is not about the extremities of ascetical life that operates with the presumption that matter is evil, such as the heresy of Jansenism. It isn’t the mere practice of devotion in which spiritual life is a routine of our daily rituals, as was the teaching of some priests of his time. Instead, the saint proposes a solid Catholic truth that holiness is God’s grace and the “love of God poured into our hearts” (Romans 5:5) to live and love as Christ does. It is becoming like God, who is holy. Having believed, we live in charity that springs from true worship.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us to be saints. Amen.

[Readings: Jeremiah 28:1-17; Matthew 14:13-21]

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