Today we celebrate the feast of a great saint, St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, or commonly called the Redemptorists.
St. Alphonsus was asked by his bishop to set up a congregation of missionary priests to work among the people in the rural areas and the countryside. Because those were the people who needed more spiritual help since they only had a shallow faith.
He is the patron saint of moral theologians, but it was as a preacher and a confessor that he is a model for the Redemptorists as well as for priests in general.
St. Alphonsus once said of his preaching : I have never preached a sermon which the poorest old woman in the congregation cannot understand.
Indeed his methods were old practices which were revised and given a new breath of life.
Yet the focus of his preaching does not deviate from the aspects of faith and morality.
In the tradition of St. John the Baptist, whom we heard about in the gospel, St. Alphonsus would not hestitate to point out any moral transgressions, besides the need to strengthen the people's faith in God.
Indeed, the witnessing of St. John the Baptist and the feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori reminds us of the fundamental aspect of our Christian lives : that our faith in God must be expressed in our morality in life