St. Alphonsus Liguori (SNV 02) Tie

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, he is portrayed wearing his Bishop’s regalia—white mitre and cope, light violet gloves, blue-violet robe, and gold pectoral cross. He carries his crosier or pastoral staff in his left hand and raises his right hand in blessing. While his torso is shown frontally, his head is turned slightly to the right, the better to show his chin tucked against his chest. In May 1768, St. Alphonsus 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. He spent much of those last twenty years confined to a wheelchair. For these reasons, he is patron saint of rheumatoid arthritics and the aged ill. + Feast: August 1 + Image Credit (SNV 02): Antique image of St. Alphonsus Liguori from a late 19th-century devotional print in chromoxylography originally published by St. Norbertus Verlag, Vienna, Austria, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.