Feast of Saint Alphonsus

“Choosing God, they possessed every necessary thing,

anticipating eternity from the earthly life."

Last August 1, 2010 we celebrated the feast of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. It was our founder’s 223rd death anniversary.

On the same date, Pope Benedict XVI also gave a message to the pilgrims of the world in Vatican City and said of St. Alphonsus and equally of St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Eusebius of Piedmont and St. John Vianney of Ars:

“These men acquired ‘a wise heart,’ accumulating that which is not corrupted and discarding all that is irremediably changeable in time: power, wealth and ephemeral pleasures. Choosing God, they possessed every necessary thing, anticipating eternity from the earthly life."

Indeed, the desirable qualities of St. Alphonsus in following Christ, the Most Holy Redeemer continues to be relevant and worth emulating for us, people of today’s world. They are timeless examples of what human beings can do when they totally choose God over themselves and other things.

We, the Redemptorist students in Davao affirmed this and one of the ways we continued to promote his desirable qualities was through a novena in his honor. The novena started last July 23, 2010. Each day of the novena, a theme highlighting one of St. Alphonsus’ virtues was included in the prayers. Different student–volunteers took care in leading the people to prayer each day.

However, the schedule of the celebration of the Holy Mass in honor of the feast of St. Alphonsus was anticipated. It was held on July 31, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. Fr. Brendan was the main presider and Fr. Caloy was the homilist. There were other Redemptorist priests also present during the mass.

After the homily, our two brothers from Sri Lanka renewed their temporary vows. They were Br. Suresh Kelum Fernando, C.Ss.R., a 5th year theology student and Br. Morris Gerard Xavier, C.Ss.R., a 2nd year theology student. Fr. Cruz, the Prefect of Students, representing the Redemptorist Congregation, received their renewal of temporary vows.

At around 7:30 in the evening, a dinner was held at the fourth floor of SAT-MI building. Members of the house, church and office staff, and non-Redemptorist students of SAT-MI dined with us. Our two brothers from the VP of Manila, Br. Leo Mar and Br. Mon who were in SAT-MI the past days for the presentation of their missiological papers were also present to celebrate our founder’s feast day. The faculty of SAT-MI was also invited for that dinner, the eve of our founder’s feast day.

(Jingjing)