St. Alphonsus Liguori entered the priesthood in 1726, and later founded the missionary Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. He wrote his first book at age forty-nine and went on to author more than one hundred books on spirituality and theology over his lifetime. Many of these books were written ...

St. Alphonsus Liguori entered the priesthood in 1726, and later founded the missionary Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. He wrote his first book at age forty-nine and went on to author more than one hundred books on spirituality and theology over his lifetime. Many of these books were written during the half-hours snatched between his labors as missionary, religious superior, and Bishop. He died in 1787, at age ninety-one. St. Alphonsus was beatified in 1816, canonized in 1839, and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1871.