Feastday: October 30
Birth: 1532
Death: 1617
Confessor and Jay brother, also called Alonso. He was born in Segovia, Spain, on July 25, 1532, the son of a wealthy merchant, and was prepared for First Communion by Blessed Peter Favre, a friend of Alphonsus' father. While studying with the Jesuits at Alcala, Alphonsus had to return home when his father died. In Segovia he took over the family business, was married, and had a son. That son died, as did two other children and then his wife. Alphonsus sold his business and applied to the Jesuits. His lack of education and his poor health, undermined by his austerities, made him less than desirable as a candidate for the religious life, but he was accepted as a lay brother by the Jesuits on January 31, 1571. He underwent novitiate training and was sent to Montesion College on the island of Majorca. There he labored as a hall porter for twenty-four years. Overlooked by some of the Jesuits in the house, Alphonsus exerted a wondrous influence on many. Not only the young students, such as St. Peter Claver, but local civic tad and social leaders came to his porter's lodge for advice tad and direction. Obedience and penance were the hallmarks of his life, as well as his devotion to the Immaculate Conception. He experienced many spiritual consolations, and he wrote religious treatises, very simple in style but sound in doctrine. Alphonsus died after a long illness on October 31, 1617, and his funeral was attended by Church and government leaders. He was declared Venerable in 1626, and was named a patron of Majorca in 1633. Alphonsus was beatified in 1825 and canonized in September 1888 with St. Peter Claver.
For people with similar names, see Alfonso Rodriguez.Alphonsus Rodríguez (Spanish: Alfonso) (July 25, 1532 – October 31, 1617) was a Spanish Jesuit lay brother, now venerated as a saint. He was a native of Segovia. He is sometimes confused with Alphonsus (Alonso) Rodriguez, a Jesuit who wrote the Exercicio de perfección y virtudes cristianas (3 vols., Seville, 1609), which has frequently been re-edited and translated into many languages. Though his life was punctuated with personal tragedies and disappointments, his impact on the people he met was his legacy. He served with such love that the act of opening the door became a sacramental gesture.
Life and work
Rodríguez was the son of a wool merchant. When Peter Faber, one of the original Jesuits, visited the city to preach, the Rodríguez family provided hospitality to the Jesuit. Faber prepared the young Rodríguez for his First Communion. When he was 14, his father died and Alphonsus left school to help his mother run the family business. At the age of 26 he married María Suarez, a woman of his own station, with whom he had three children. At the age of 31 he found himself a widower with one surviving child, the other two having died. From that time on he began a life of prayer and mortification, separated from the world around him. On the death of his third child his thoughts turned to a life in some religious order.
Previous associations had brought him into contact with the first Jesuits who had come to Spain, Peter Faber among others, but it was apparently impossible to carry out his purpose of entering the Society as he was without education, having only an incomplete year at a new college begun at Alcalá by Francis Villanueva. At the age of 39 he attempted to make up this deficiency by following the course at the College of Barcelona, but without success. His austerities had also undermined his health. After considerable delay he was finally admitted into the Society of Jesus as a lay brother on January 31, 1571, at the age of 40. The provincial is supposed to have said that if Alphonsus was not qualified to become a brother or a priest, he could enter to become a saint.
Statue of St Alphonsus Rodriguez in the Church of the Cave of Saint Ignatius, Manresa
Distinct novitiates for seminarians and lay brothers had not yet been established in Spain, and Rodríguez began his term of probation at Valencia or Gandia—this point is a subject of dispute—and after six months was sent to the recently founded college on Majorca, where he remained in the humble position of porter for 46 years, exercising a marvelous influence not only on the members of the household, but upon a great number of people who came to the porter's lodge for advice and direction. As doorkeeper, his duties were to receive visitors who came to the college; search out the fathers or students who were wanted in the parlor; deliver messages; run errands; console the sick at heart who, having no one to turn to, came to him; give advice to the troubled; and distribute alms to the needy. Alphonsus tells that each time the bell rang, he looked at the door and envisioned that it was God who was standing outside seeking admittance. Among the distinguished Jesuits who came under his influence was Peter Claver, who lived with him for some time at Majorca, and who followed his advice in asking for the missions of South America. He made his final vows in 1585 at the age of 54.
The bodily mortifications which he imposed on himself were extreme, the scruples and mental agitation to which he was subject were of frequent occurrence, his obedience absolute, and his absorption in spiritual things, even when engaged on most distracting employments, continual. His Jesuit superiors, seeing the good work he was doing among the townspeople, were eager to have his influence spread far among his own religious community, so on feast days they often sent him into the pulpit in the dining room to hear him give a sermon. On more than one occasion the community sat quietly past dinner time to hear Rodríguez finish his sermon.
Rodríguez became very feeble when he reached his eighties and in his last months his memory began to fail. He was not even able to remember his favourite prayers. He died on October 31, 1617.
The vision of Alonso Rodríguez, by Francisco de Zurbarán.
He had a deep devotion to Our Lady, especially as the Immaculate Conception, and would copy the entire little office of the Blessed Virgin for private recitation for those who asked. He left a considerable number of manuscripts after him, some of which have been published as Obras Espirituales del B. Alonso Rodriguez (Barcelona, 1885, 3 vols., octavo, complete edition, 8 vols. in quarto). They are sometimes only reminiscences of domestic exhortations, the texts are often repeated, the illustrations are from everyday life, and the treatment of one virtue occasionally entrenches upon another. They were not written with a view to publication, but put down by Rodríguez himself, or dictated to others, in obedience to a positive command of his superiors.
Veneration
Alphonsus Rodriguez was declared venerable in 1626. In 1633, he was chosen by the Council General of Majorca as one of the special patrons of the city and island.
In 1760, Pope Clement XIII decreed that "the virtues of the Venerable Alonso were proved to be of a heroic degree", but the expulsion of the Society from Spain in 1773, and its suppression, delayed his beatification until 1825. His canonization took place in September 1888. His remains are enshrined at Majorca.
Legacy
Though his life was punctuated with personal tragedies and disappointments, and he left no special writings or teachings, his impact on the people he met was his legacy. He served with such love that the act of opening the door became a sacramental gesture.
There is a parish dedicated to Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez in Woodstock, Maryland.
Rodríguez is the subject of a sonnet by fellow-Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins, "In Honour Of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez Laybrother Of The Society Of Jesus".
