St. Louis of Toulouse was born in 1274. He was the second son of the heir to the throne of Naples.
Our saint was named after his great-grandfather, St. Louis IX of France, and that wasn't the only saint in his ancestry.
On his father's side, besides St. Louis IX and his sister, St. Isabel, he was related to St. Ferdinand of Castile, the San Fernando, after which so many places are named. His mother was the daughter of a king of Hungary, and on her side, he was related to St. Hedwig, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Elizabeth of Portugal, his cousin, and several blesseds, Agnes of Bohemia, Cunecundis, Yolanda, Margaret of Hungary, and Salomea.
His mother was a worthy niece of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who taught her children to serve God in prayer, virtue, and devout assistance at Mass.
Already at seven, Louis' mother found him sleeping on the carpet instead of his bed in order to do penance.
He did whatever he could to help the suffering and the poor.
In 1284, Louis' father engaged in a naval battle against Alphonse III of Aragon and the Sicilians in the waters off Naples.
King Charles I of Naples had told his son, Louis' father, to wait for him before going into battle, but he didn't wait, and he was captured in battle.
The following year, Charles I died, making St. Louis' father Charles II.
This made it more urgent to get him out of captivity, but an agreement was reached only after four years in 1288.
Charles II was released in exchange for three of his sons and sixty gentlemen of his kingdom, who became hostages to guarantee the king's good conduct.
So at age fourteen, St. Louis went to Barcelona as a hostage.
He remained there for seven years, but this was providential.
Their father arranged for them to be educated and directed by Franciscans, who helped the teenager to grow in holiness.
One of these was the Franciscan theologian, Richard of Middletown, another was Blessed Pancho Carbonell.
Two other Franciscans he knew later became bishops.
From them, he learned to pray the divine office, and he prayed both the day and the night hours, as well as the seven penitential psalms, the Salve Regina, and other prayers to Our Lady.
Every day he went to Mass after a confession of his faults.
He learned to venerate the Holy Name of Jesus and became very devoted to Our Lord's Passion.
He had a small relic of the True Cross, as well as relics of other saints.
And since he was the eldest of the three brothers there, he taught his brothers to love serving God.
He himself loved to serve the poor, and especially lepers.
One day he embraced a leper, and his example convinced his brother Robert to overcome his requirements and also embrace the leper.
His penance grew more intense, even though he was so virtuous that it seemed he had little to expiate, but for him, it was a way of defending himself against temptations and remaining pure.
Early in 1290, after two years there, he became gravely ill with tuberculosis.
The doctors could do nothing, and around the feast of the presentation, he was on the point of suffocating to death.
But he managed to survive the crisis, and after a fast, he invoked Our Lady and St. Francis, vowing to become a Franciscan if he was healed.
He also made a vow of perpetual chastity.
From that day, he started getting better, but when he told the Franciscans about his vow, they didn't dare receive him without his father's consent.
He didn't give up, though. He renewed his vow and looked for some way to fulfill it.
If he couldn't be a Franciscan, at least he wanted to be a member of the clergy.
In 1294 Pope St. Celestine V granted his confessor the faculty to give him the tonsure in the four minor orders, thus making him a member of the clergy, although he didn't actually receive them until the following year.
That was a year full of many events.
In that year, the kings of Naples and Aragon signed a treaty reestablishing peace, and the hostages were released.
On the way back to Naples, St. Louis tried again to get the Franciscans to receive him, but they were still unwilling to do anything without his father's consent.
Then that same year, his older brother died.
Since Louis was the second son, that made him the heir.
His father prepared to marry him to the daughter of the king of Aragon, as his sister had been married to the son of the king of Aragon.
This would ensure peace between the two kingdoms.
Charles II tried to do everything to get his son to accept.
He even offered to abdicate so that Louis would immediately become king.
The pope could dispense him from his vows to the public good, but nothing could change St. Louis' mind, and in the end, his father agreed that Louis' brother Robert could become the heir.
Louis was ordained first a deacon and then a priest in Naples, and he lived among the Franciscans, dedicating his time to prayer and study.
Towards the end of the year, he accompanied his father to Rome, where they met Pope Boniface VIII, who would become pope after the resignation of Pope Celestine.
The pope admired the young man's virtue, and named him one of his chaplains despite his youth.
The next year the bishop of Toulouse died, and the pope chose St. Louis to replace him.
Although Louis didn't want to be a bishop, he accepted the pope's desire and asked only to fulfill his vow by becoming a Franciscan first.
He wanted to observe the Franciscan role even as a bishop.
In the second half of December 1296, he made his religious profession, and a few days later, on December 30th, the pope ordained him a bishop.
He was only 22, well below the canonical age to become a bishop, but the pope had dispensed him from the age limit in view of his eminent virtue and maturity.
As the Book of Wisdom says, the age that is honorable comes not with the passing of time, nor can it be measured in terms of years.
Rather, understanding passes for gray hair, and an unsullied life is the attainment of old age.
For a couple of months, he dressed as a bishop, but then went back to wearing the Franciscan habit.
He even went out to beg for bread.
His father saw him begging and sent one of his attendants to rebuke him for dishonoring the royal house in this way.
But St. Louis showed the rebuke was unjust by opening the sack he was carrying.
The bread had changed into glistening bars of gold.
The man who had consented to rebuke him fell on his knees and vowed to become a Franciscan.
When he went to Toulouse to enter his diocese to act as bishop, he brought some friars with him so that he could live near a Franciscan community, even in the Episcopal palace.
Seventy to eighty years before, in the time of St. Dominic, the scandalous life of the clergy had helped heresy to flourish in Toulouse.
Now they had a bishop so holy that one man was converted from a sinful life just by looking at him.
The first thing that he did was to find learned and prudent priests in the diocese to help him govern it.
Then he set about reforming the clergy, making sure they were sufficiently instructed in striving for holiness.
The diocese was one of the richest ones in France.
He had a list of its revenues drawn up, and looking at it, he decided he only needed a quarter of that for his expenses, so he would give the rest to help the poor.
He continued to serve the poor personally and especially lepers.
Crowds gathered to hear him preach words of light and love, not only in his diocese but also elsewhere in France.
But in his humility, he felt unworthy to be a bishop and more than once asked the Pope to accept his resignation.
In the second year of his episcopate, he left on a trip for Rome, where Louis IX was about to be canonized, his great grandfather, and where he hoped to convince the Pope to finally accept his resignation.
On the journey, he became sick.
On August 3rd, he arrived in Brignoles, where he had been born.
His father was there and alarmed at the state of his son's health, so he would not let it continue.
And it was there that he died on August 19th in 1297.
Twenty years later, he was canonized by John XXII, who had been one of St. Louis' teachers when he was a hostage in Barcelona.
His mother was still alive at the time.
In 1319 the Franciscans held a general chapter at Marseille, where his relics were kept, and agreed that his office be celebrated by all the Franciscans.
His relics remained there in Marseille until 1423, when the king of Aragon invaded and carried them away to Valencia, where they are still venerated.
And in 1772, St. Juniper Serra founded the mission of St. Louis Obispo in his honor, and from that mission, the city and county in California take their name.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.