The Roman Catholic Church honors the life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga (1568-1591) on June 21.
What St. Aloysius Gonzaga, a Jesuit, embodies is love,
as Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love. On his memorial feast, the scripture
readings (1 John 5:1-5 and Mattew 22:34-40) address how God’s love (chesed/חֶסֶד)
affects us and how we respond to this with our love. And Aloysius is exemplary in
responding to God’s love for him with his love, by loving his neighbors in need,
as it is his way of loving God. So he poured out his life in caring his
neighbors suffering from plague, as to reflect Jesus pouring out his love for
us (Romans 5:5). Here, love means agape (ἀγάπη) which is the kind of
love that makes self-sacrifice for the beloved.
To love God means to love children of God (1 John
5:1-2). This Johannine teaching reflects Jesus’ teaching on the supreme
commandment in the Torah:
You shall love the Lord, your God, with
all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the
greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your
neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two
commandments (Matthew 22:37-40).
In this statement on the most important commandment to
observe, which is to love God without any compromise and condition (Deuteronomy
6:5), Jesus indicates that we cannot truly say that we love God unless we also
love our neighbors as we ourselves (Leviticus 19:18). In other words, those who
truly love God has no boundaries between themselves and others as they love them
as themselves. So, a young Jesuit, Aloysius, dedicated himself entirely in
caring for suffering and dying neighbors during plague pandemic, until he succumbed
to this terrible infectious disease.
St. Aloysius Gonzaga is like St. Damien of Molokai
(1840-1889), who poured out his life for his neighbors suffering from leprosy
in Hawaii. They knew that the neighbors whom they cared for could infect their
diseases, which could kill. But their love of God enabled them to take the
risks so they poured out their love to their neighbors in need.
We say, “We love our neighbors. That’s why we run soup kitchens, free medical clinics, free shelters, etc. for our neighbors in need”. But, the question is: Do we really love them as ourselves? In other words, do we treat our beloved neighbors as if they were ourselves? Or, do we keep the “us vs. them” boundary in what we think as “love”?
If you cannot take a risk of costing your life in loving your neighbor, it means you are not loving your neighbor as yourself. And it indicates that you do not love God truly.
The scripture readings to honor the life of St. Aloysius
(1 John 5:1-5 and Matthew 22:34-40) make it clear that those who love their
beloved neighbors without the “us vs. them” boundary are those who truly love
God with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our minds. As we
embody love, commanded by Jesus (i.e. John 13:34; cf. John 15:10-13),
reflecting the love of God, there is no ego. We see ourselves in those whom we
love, just as the Father sees Himself in His beloved, the Son, as St. Augustine
puts it in his “De Trinitate”. This is why Jesus has said, the Father
and he are one (John 10:30). Certainly, St. Aloysius and his neighbors under
his care, whom he poured our his love for, were one. And this is because he loved
God, who loved him first.
St. Aloysius Gonzaga, pray for us to love God and our neighbors as you did. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!
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