St. Alphonsus Liguori (SAU 039) Postcard

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (1696–1787) was an Italian nobleman, a lawyer turned priest, prolific writer, founder of the Redemptorists, Bishop, and Doctor of the Church. Here, in a chapel setting against a red brick background, he stands wearing his Bishop’s robes—mitre and cope—and carrying his crosier or pastoral staff. His right hand is raised in blessing. In art, when portrayed at an angle to the viewer as in this image, he has a noticeably humped back and a chin tucked into his chest. In May 1768, he had been struck with a terrible attack of rheumatic fever that lasted over a year and left him permanently crippled until his death some twenty years later. For this reason, he is patron saint of rheumatoid arthritics and the aged ill. + Feast: August 1 + Image Credit (SAU 039): Antique image of St. Alphonsus Liguori from a late 19th-century devotional print in chromolithography, originally published by Socièté de St. Augustin, Bruges, Belgium, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.