Aloysius Gonzaga: (died 1591 A.D.); Jesuit scholastic, died at age 23 caring for the sick; from the princely family of Castiglione; a page at the court of Medicis and of Philip II of Spain; renounced inheritance to enter Jesuits; Robert Bellarmine was his spiritual director; strongly devoted to the Eucharist, interior prayer, and charitable service; patron of youth and of students in Jesuit colleges and universities.
His prayer is featured in the book, "Hearts on Fire": Praying with Jesuits", edited by Michael Harter, SJ. It is a prayer addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Holy Mary, my Queen, I recommend myself to your blessed protection and special keeping, and to the bosom of your mercy, today and every day and at the hour of my death. My soul and my body I recommend to you. I entrust to you my hope and consolation, my distress and my misery, my life and its termination. Through your most holy intercession and through your merits may all my actions be directed according to your will and that of your Son. Amen.
The prayer of St. Aloysius of Gonzaga is joined by many other prayers in the book "Hearts on Fire". That book is a good meditative guide for praying in the spirit of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. The presentation of the prayers and other prose is a contemporary translation of the method into popular literary forms: the actual prayers and prose written by Jesuits - both "classic", like St. Aloysius of Gonzaga and Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, and contemporary, like Anthony de Mello, SJ.
To follow the other Saints whose feasts and memorials occur in the month of June, visit this link
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