St. Aloysius Gonzaga

St. Aloysius Gonzaga was born on 9 March 1568 at Castiglione delle Stiviere in northern Italy, the eldest son of a marquis, and died on 21 June 1591 at Rome, aged twenty-three. Raised amid the intrigues and dangers of Renaissance courts and destined to inherit his father's title and lands, he instead felt drawn from boyhood to prayer and purity, and resolved to give himself wholly to God. Overcoming his father's fierce resistance, he renounced his inheritance in favor of his brother and entered the Society of Jesus.

As a Jesuit student in Rome he pursued holiness with the same intensity he had shown as a boy, marked by a striking angelic purity and self-discipline. When plague struck the city, he devoted himself to nursing the stricken poor, carrying the sick to the hospital and tending them himself; he contracted the disease and died soon after, still a young student. Canonized in 1726, he is honored as a patron of youth and of students, and, in modern times, of those who care for the sick.