MIRACULOUS MIRACLES^™

Prayer — Prayers of the Saints

Act of Consecration to St. Aloysius Gonzaga

Indulgenced by Leo XIII, 12 June 1894

The prayer of the young: 'The world and the devil lay snares for me; I feel the fire of my passions, I know the weakness and inconstancy of my age. Who can protect me if not thou?'

The Prayer

English · Original

O glorious St. Aloysius, honoured by the Church with the title of Angelic Youth, for the eminent purity of thy life on earth, to thee I offer myself this day with all the devotion of my mind and heart, and to thee I consecrate myself entirely.

O perfect example, O kind and powerful protector of youth, how much I have need of thee! The world and the devil lay snares for me; I feel the fire of my passions, I know the weakness and inconstancy of my age. Who can protect me if not thou, O angelic saint, the glory, ornament, love and mainstay of the young? To thee, then, with all my mind and heart I have recourse; in thee I confide, to thee I consecrate myself.

Therefore I firmly purpose and resolve to be specially devout to thee, to glorify thee for thy lofty virtues, and especially for thy angelic purity; to imitate thy example, to promote devotion to thee among my companions, and to invoke and bless to the end of my life thy dear and holy name.

To thee I consecrate my soul, my senses, my heart, and all my being. O dear St. Aloysius, lo! today I am all thine, and thine I wish to remain for ever. Oh! protect, defend, and preserve me as thy possession, that through honouring thee I may be better able to serve and honour Jesus and Mary, and come one day with thee to see and bless my God for ever in Paradise. Amen.

When the Prayer is Said

On 21 June and through the month; on the Six Sundays kept in his honour; by students and by the young.

History & Background

Aloysius Gonzaga was heir to a marquisate and renounced it to enter the Jesuits at seventeen, over his father's furious opposition. In 1591 plague broke out in Rome; he begged alms for the sick, carried the dying to hospital on his own back, caught the disease and died at twenty-three on 21 June. Benedict XIII named him patron of youth in 1729.

What makes the prayer unusual is its honesty about the age it is written for. It does not pretend the young are safe. It names the snares, the fire of the passions, and 'the weakness and inconstancy of my age', and then asks the one question that follows: who can protect me if not thou? Then it consecrates soul, senses, heart and being, and promises to promote the devotion among one's companions — which is exactly how a devotion among the young actually spreads.

Leo XIII indulgenced it in 1894, with a plenary indulgence for those who said it daily through June. The text is the Raccolta's of 1910.

Indulgences Attached

Two hundred days once a day; plenary on the feast or during its octave for those who say it every day in June — Leo XIII, 12 June 1894 (Raccolta, 1910, no. 372).

Related Saints

St. Aloysius Gonzaga

March 9, 1568, Castiglione delle Stiviere, Mantua – June 21, 1591, Rome

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