Alphonsus Rodríguez, SJ ( es, Alfonso) (25 July 1532 – 31 October 1617) was a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: ** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...

Jesuit who served as a

religious brother A religious brother is a member of a Christian religious institute or religious order who commits himself to following Christ in consecrated life of the Church, usually by the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. He is a layman, in the sense ...

and is now venerated as a saint. He was a native of

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. Though his life was punctuated with personal tragedies and disappointments, his impact on the people he met was his legacy. He is not to be confused with Alphonsus (Alonso) Rodríguez, another 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.

Life and work

Rodríguez was the son of a wool merchant. When

Peter Faber Peter Faber (french: Pierre Lefevre or Favre, la, Petrus Faver) (13 April 1506 – 1 August 1546) was a Jesuit priest and theologian, who was also a co-founder of the Society of Jesus, along with Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier. Pope Fr ...

, 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 First Communion is a ceremony in some Christian traditions during which a person of the church first receives the Eucharist. It is most common in many parts of the Latin Church tradition of the Catholic Church, Lutheran Church and Anglican Communi ...

.Martin SJ, James. "The Catholic Brothers and St. Alphonsus Rodriguez", ''America'', October 28, 2010
/ref> At the age of twelve, Rodríguez was sent him to the new Jesuit college at Alcalá, but left two years later to help his mother run the family business when his father died. 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, she had died as did two of their children. From then on, he began a life of prayer and

mortification Mortification can refer to: * Mortification (theology), theological doctrine *Mortification of the flesh Mortification of the flesh is an act by which an individual or group seeks to mortify or deaden their sinful nature, as a part of the proc ...

, separated from the world around him. On the death of his third child, his thoughts turned to life in some religious order.Campbell, Thomas. "St. Alphonsus Rodriguez." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 2 Apr. 2013
/ref> 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 Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...

, 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 31 January 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. AlonsoRodrigMallorca

Distinct novitiates for seminarians and lay brothers had not yet been established in Spain, and Rodríguez began his term of probation at

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

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—this point is a subject of dispute—and after six months was sent to the recently founded college on

Majorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bale ...

, 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 Peter Claver, SJ ( es, Pedro Claver y Corberó; ca, Pere Claver i Corberó; 26 June 1580 – 8 September 1654) was a Spanish Jesuit priest and missionary born in Verdú (Catalonia, Spain) who, due to his life and work, became the patron saint ...

, who lived with him for some time at Majorca, and who followed his advice in asking for the missions of

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. He made his final vows in 1585 at the age of 54. The bodily

mortifications Mortification of the flesh is an act by which an individual or group seeks to mortify or deaden their sinful nature, as a part of the process of sanctification. In Christianity, mortification of the flesh is undertaken in order to repent for ...

which he imposed on himself were extreme, the

scruples Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system. Conscience stands in contrast to elicited emotion or thought due to associations based on immediate sens ...

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 let him into the pulpit of the

refectory A refectory (also frater, frater house, fratery) is a dining room, especially in monasteries, boarding schools and academic institutions. One of the places the term is most often used today is in graduate seminaries. The name derives from the La ...

to have him give a sermon. On more than one occasion, the community sat quietly past dinner to hear Rodríguez finish preaching. 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 31 October 1617.Foley OFM, Leonard. ''Saint of the Day, Lives, Lessons, and Feast'', (revised by Pat Mccloskey OFM), Franciscan Media
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He had a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially as the

Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, meaning that it is held to be a divinely revealed truth wh ...

, and would produce copies of the complete text of the

Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as Hours of the Virgin, is a liturgical devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, in imitation of, and usually in addition to, the Divine Office in the Catholic Church. It is a cycle of psalms, ...

for the private recitation of people who asked. He left a considerable number of manuscripts after him, some of which have been published as ''Obras Espirituales del B. Alonso Rodríguez'' (Barcelona, 1885, 3 vols.,

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, complete edition, 8 vols. in

quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...

). 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 Pope Clement XIII ( la, Clemens XIII; it, Clemente XIII; 7 March 1693 – 2 February 1769), born Carlo della Torre di Rezzonico, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 July 1758 to his death in February 1769. ...

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 Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their na ...

until 5 June 1825. His

canonization Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of ...

took place on 15 January 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".Hopkins S.J., Gerard Manley. "In Honour of St. Alphonsus Rodiguez"
/ref>

References

Sources

Holweck, F. G. Frederick George Holweck (born Friedrich Georg Holweck; 29 December 1856 – 15 February 1927) was a German-American Catholic parish priest and scholar, hagiographer and church historian. Monsignor Holweck contributed some articles to the ''Catho ...

, ''A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints''. St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1924.

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