Saint Who?
Saints Who Battled the Devil
Saint Alphonsus Liguori
Doctor of the Church († 1787)Feast: August 1
“Tell me, young man…. What will you do? Will you now, for this miserable pleasure, forfeit the grace of God…which is more valuable than the whole world? Will you yourself write the sentence of eternal death, and condemn yourself to burn forever in hell?” Alphonsus Liguori, born in 1696, was a brilliant lawyer. But a bitter humiliation in court caused him to reexamine his life. He became a priest and subsequently founded the Redemptorists.
He became a bishop, a distinguished moral theologian, and a prolific author. In one work, he exposes a common suggestion of the devil when one is tempted to sin: “Just go to confession tomorrow.” Would you, Alphonsus asks, throw away a precious jewel, promising yourself you would find it later? He also notes: “The devil does not bring sinners to hell with their eyes open…. Before we fall into sin, the enemy labors to blind us, that we may not see the…ruin we bring upon ourselves by offending God. After we commit sin, he seeks to make us dumb, that, through shame, we may conceal our guilt in confession.”
During his last years, Alphonsus suffered grievous betrayal and a dark night, filled with scruples and diabolic illusions. At last, at age ninety, he triumphed over the enemy and entered into eternal life on August 1, 1787.
Merciful Father, through the prayers of
Saint Alphonsus Liguori, do not let me
be complacent about sin.
