For almost 300 years the priests and brothers of the Redemptorist order have toiled so quietly and humbly among the poor and marginalized of society, few Americans know they exist.
Not many Denverites know that headquarters for their province covering the midwestern and western U.S. has been here since 1996.
Yet a rare limelight is stealing over The Redemptorists of the Denver Province with help from actor Liam Neeson and musician Ray Hermann.
And, of course, none of it would be possible without the order’s founder and patron saint, Alphonsus Liguori.
Sheet music and meditations written by St. Alphonsus centuries ago were rediscovered in the order’s archives, and the good fathers here have spent the last few years getting the previously unheard works performed and recorded by Hermann’s Little Lamb Music. The CDs also feature recitation by Neeson and others.
The Redemptorists’ CDs — “Praying the Way of the Cross,” “Praying the Rosary” and Praying the Seven Sorrows of Mary” — were released in 2008 and 2009.
Hermann and his wife Theresa give all the proceeds from CD sales, about $50,000 to date, to Redemptorist missions among “the poorest of the poor.”
St. Alphonsus’ hymns, though simple, are among the most moving music Hermann’s experienced, he said.
But then St. Alphonsus — author, composer, painter, sculptor and architect — is one of the greatest overachievers in the long history of the Catholic Church. Still, like his order, he is little known by rank-and-file Catholics. If Redemptorists had the communication skills of the Jesuits, the priests joke, Alphonsus would be a household name. Now the order, in advance of the saint’s Aug. 1 feast day, is finally bragging.
“It’s good the gospel gets preached, however we do it,” Provincial Superior Harry Grile said.
St. Alphonsus, born near Naples, Italy, in 1696, received his doctorates in civil and canon law at the tender age of 16 — pleasing his parents, Italian nobility. However, the prodigy’s heart was at the hospital for “incurables,” where he washed and fed the afflicted.
By the age of 20 he was regarded as one of Naples’ most gifted attorneys, but he disappointed his ambitious father, captain in the Royal Navy, by leaving the law to be ordained a priest in 1726.
Alphonsus left Naples to live and work among the rural poor, establishing his Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, commonly called Redemptorists.
Worldwide there are about 5,500. The 20 or so administrators here in Denver are part of 400 priests, brothers and seminarians serving this province, which stretches from Seattle to Biloxi, and Chicago to Tucson. Their missions are in Brazil, Nigeria and Thailand.
For Hermann, who performs Sunday night at Red Rocks with the legendary rock band Chicago, collaborating with these men to help people pray has been “a wonderful journey through my faith.”
Alphonsus earned a name as a brilliant preacher of the gospel, but to fully reach people of limited education and means he also composed songs, painted, sculpted and even designed buildings.
“He wanted the church to appeal all the senses,” Grile said.
Alphonsus so beautifully rendered and invoked the great images of the Christian faith — the infant Jesus, the crucified Jesus and Mary, Mother of God — his devotional practices inspired a revolution in worship style in coming centuries as far away as Ireland.
The saint’s composition, “Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle,” is one of the most popular Christmas songs in Italy — it traditionally closes Midnight Mass at the Vatican.
However much loved by simple folk, Alphonsus also ranks as a leading intellectual, recognized in 1871 as a Doctor of the Church, or authority, who shaped its teaching. In his most influential work of 111 books, “Moral Theology,” Alphonsus wrote that it was love, not fear of law or threat of punishment, foremost in God’s plan for us. He is the patron saint of moral theologians.
Alphonsus, multi-faceted genius that he was, also had his problems, Grile said.
“He had a temper. He struggled to control it,” Grile said. “But he could also be very gentle, especially in the confessional. He was the lion of the pulpit and a lamb in the confessional.”
Alphonsus, sickly much of his life and later severely crippled by arthritis, is also the patron saint of sufferers of the disease.
He died at age 91 on Aug. 1, 1787, and was canonized in 1839.
In advance of the feast day, the Redemptorists have been distributing prayer cards for arthritis sufferers. Grile said 30 parishes have committed to blessing arthritis sufferers in Alphonsus’ name Aug. 1.
Most. Rev. Charles Chaput was recently photographed kneeling before the coffin of another Redemptorist saint, St. John Neumann, fourth bishop of Philadelphia and author of the Baltimore Catechism.
“Redemptorists nationwide are feeling especially proud that the new archbishop of Philadelphia is looking to our saint for strength and guidance,” said spokesman Bruce Crane.
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com
