Two events for the patron saint of Valmontone: on 21 June and the last weekend of September, solemn religious celebrations and pagan festivals.
St. Luigi Gonzaga is the protector of youth and the Red Cross for the way he died young helping others during a serious plague in Rome.
Luigi was born lucky, near Lake Garda in Castiglione delle Stiviere in 1568, because his father was the local marquis appointed by the king of Spain and he would have had no problem choosing what to do. In fact Luigi was the eldest son and would have been the natural new marquis.
His father trained him for power and by the time he was 5 he was wearing armor, training for the war, associating with veterans who swore and told 'dirty' stories. His mother trained him in love and charity and took him to church to pray and thank the Lord for what he had. He attends all the most important courts, from Florence to Madrid and plays with offspring from all over Europe.
The sixteenth century is a special century and when Luigi was small, all of Europe was pervaded by the euphoria of the victory over the Turks and Muslims in Lepanto.
However, the church is still shaken by the splits of Martin Luther and Calvin, which had highlighted an excess of 'earthly longings', and which created a cultural separation in the West. In this period the Society of Jesus was born and the Jesuits committed themselves to re-Catholicize many regions of Eastern Europe.
Between his maternal and paternal upbringing, his destiny traces a path for him and at the age of 7 St. Louis began his conversion by reciting prayers on his knees every day. At 8 he took a vow of chastity while he was in Spain.
In Mantua he had fallen ill and the doctor had prescribed him a strict diet based on bread and water, Luigi is inspired by this request to learn how to do spiritual exercises and penances.
He got so used to penance that when he entered the Jesuits his spiritual father as penance ordered him to 'not do penance'!
A particular life if you think that he received his first communion from Cardinal San Carlo Borromeo and that at 13 he became the page of Prince Diego of Spain, the son of Philip II. Here the great painter El Greco paints him a very different portrait from the image that Luigi will later have in Christian iconography.
Despite all the pomp of the European courts, Louis continued in his decision and at the age of 17 he joined the Jesuits in Rome where he studied theology. To do this he fights with his father and renounces his marquisate in favor of his brother saying to everyone “I am seeking salvation, you too seek it! You cannot serve two masters… It is too difficult for a lord of the state to save himself! ”.
In his Roman period, Luigi undertook to care for the sick especially for the various infectious diseases that had affected Rome permanently in that period. There was first a drought, then a famine and finally typhus. The papacy had lost 3 popes, Sixtus V, Urban VII, Gregory XIV.
Luigi was weak in constitution and a few days after rescuing a plague victim on the ground he died at 23 and was buried in the beautiful church of Sant’Ignazio in Rome. But his relics are found both in the birthplace of Castiglione delle Stiviere and in Rosolini, near Syracuse.
He was proclaimed a saint in 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII.
His last letter to his mother contains all the poetry of his life: "I cannot understand how the Lord looks at my small and brief effort and rewards me with eternal rest ... consider my departure as a joyful event".
For this spirit of him St. Louis was nominated protector of young people and of the Red Cross and was chosen as protector by many countries including Valmontone.
One last merit: in the United States the Gonzaga University of Spokane was dedicated to him.
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