St. Aloysius Gonzaga

June 21 is the feast of St. Aloysius Gonzaga (1568-1591), the Jesuit scholastic and patron of Christian youth. Born the eldest son of the Marquis of Castiglione, at the family castle of Castiglione delle Stiviere, he was sent at the age of eight to the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Florence, where he served as a page and received his first communion at the age of nine from St. Charles Borromeo, who was visiting the family. He resolved to enter the Society of Jesus and renounced his inheritance in favour of his younger brother.

Aloysius entered the Jesuit novitiate at Rome in 1585, against his father's resistance. He taught catechism to the children of the city and, in 1591, when an epidemic of plague broke out in Rome, he begged to serve in the hospital. He caught the plague from a patient he was carrying to the hospital, and died on June 21, 1591, at the age of twenty-three. His last words were "I am going to heaven."

Aloysius was beatified in 1605 and canonized in 1726, and was proclaimed patron of Christian youth by Pope Benedict XIII in 1729. His body lies in the Church of Sant'Ignazio at Rome, in a chapel built for him by the Jesuit order. From Florence, where he was a page, to Rome, where he died, the June 21 feast is the feast of the young Jesuit who chose the hospital rather than the court.