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Les saints
n°158

Spain

1533-1617

Brother Alphonsus Rodríguez, SJ: the "holy doorkeeper"

Born in 1533 in Segovia, Spain, Alonso (Alphonsus) Rodríguez had to leave school at the age of 14 to help his mother run the family business after his father, a wool merchant, died. He married and had three children, all of whom soon died, along with their mother. His business was in decline. Rodríguez turned to the Jesuits and deepened his intimate union with God. The provincial of Valencia eventually welcomed him into the Society of Jesus. Sent to Palma de Mallorca, he remained a porter at the Montesion convent for the rest of his long life. A laybrother known for his holiness and gift of prophecy, Rodríguez belongs to the host of humble and obscure saints who lived in service to others and in divine adoration. Leo XIII canonised him in 1888.

Francisco de Zurbarán, The Vision of Alfonso Rodríguez, 1630, San Ferdinand Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Madrid /© CC0/wikimedia
Francisco de Zurbarán, The Vision of Alfonso Rodríguez, 1630, San Ferdinand Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Madrid /© CC0/wikimedia

Reasons to believe:

  • It was only after his death, in 1617, that Rodríguez's memoir was discovered (Memory of Some of the Things That Have Happened to a Certain Person). These spiritual notes confirm his immense humility, reveal the depth and quality of his interior life, and show an intelligence of heart inexplicable without the help of grace.
  • Alphonsus Rodríguez received several mystical graces, ecstasies and visions of Christ, his mother Mary and the saints. "My heart, full of love for God, is extremely eager to please Him; and to be pleasing to Him, I am ready to renounce everything in this world, and myself [...] I go to Jesus and Mary and converse with them; they answer me with sweet suavity and make known to me their holy will, teaching me at the same time how to carry it out"( Memoir written in June 1615).

  • The countless people who met him at the convent door, even without knowing him, testified to his extraordinary kindness. Brother Alphonsus transcended the boring and repetitive task of doorkeeper by seeing in every visitor another Christ.
  • Despite his simplicity and lack of education, he was a teacher and adviser to Saint Peter Claver, one of the great evangelisers of South America.
  • Brother Alphonsus Rodríguez is renowned for his perfect and constant obedience. He was convinced that by carrying out the orders of his superiors, he was obeying to Christ.
  • Since Pope Urban VIII, the canonisation of a person implies the recognition of the heroic nature of his virtues and the authentication of several miracles due to his intercession. This was the case for Alphonsus Rodríguez: the sudden and complete cures of Joachima Rocha y Rayo (spleen cancer, gastritis and extensive peritonitis, Mallorca, July 1830) and Sister Marie Alphonse Gallis (stomach cancer, Saint Colette monastery, Antwerp, 1858) are especially worth mentioning.

Summary:

Born during the golden age of Spain (16th century), Alonso Rodríguez was by no means a conquistador, hidalgo or romancero character. His story didn't start out too badly, however, from a worldly point of view: his father was a wealthy wool and fabric merchant from Segovia, who let one of the first French companions of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Peter Faber, stay in his house when he stayed in Segovia (Faber even prepared Alonso for his First Holy Communion) Alonso was already associated, without his knowing it, to the Society of Jesus from childhood.

At the age of twelve, he was sent to study at a Jesuit college. Unfortunately, his father's sudden death forced him to interrupt his studies after two years: he had to take over the family business with his mother. At the age of twenty-seven, he married Maria Suarez, with whom he had three children. Sadly, his wife died, as did each of the children. To make matters worse, his business, badly managed and taxed, went bankrupt. At the age of thirty-five, the future Saint Alphonsus Rodríguez was alone, ruined, widowed and distraught. He knocked on the door of the Jesuits, who turned him down on the ground that he was too old, not learned enough, and in poor health.

Not one to give up hope, Alphonsus persevered and resumed his studies, but he was turned down again. Even when he tried to become a simple friar, he was rejected, both in Segovia nor in Valencia, until an intuitive provincial realised that Alphonsus was a favored soul precisely because of his simplicity. Finally, on January 31, 1571, at the age of thirty-seven, Alphonsus entered the Jesuit novitiate.

He was soon transferred to the Montesion College in Palma de Mallorca as a porter. This mundane and repetitive task required him to welcome visitors, carry the mail, run errands, give alms to the needy, console the sick at heart, and give advice to the troubled. No one approached him without feeling the immense goodness that emanated from him. Alphonsus greeted every visitor as if he was Christ himself: "What you did for the least of my brothers, you did for me."

From 1579 until his death in 1617, many students benefited from the affection and love of Brother Alphonsus, the humble friar. Among them was Saint Peter Claver who, as a young man, came to that novitiate to discern his vocation. And it was Brother Alphonsus, already 72 years old, who told Claver that God wanted him to spend his life in service in the colonies of New Spain, and frequently urged the young student to accept that calling. Both Rodríguez and Claver were canonised in 1888 by Pope Leo XIII.

However, it was only after the old porter had ascended to heaven that his Spiritual Notes and Memoirs revealed the depth of his soul and the ecstasies and apparitions he experienced.

Saint Alphonsus Rodríguez also became the patron saint of all Jesuit brothers.

Jacques de Guillebon is an essayist and journalist. He is a contributor to the Catholic magazine La Nef.


Going further:

The life of Blessed Alphonsus Rodriguez, lay-brother of the Society of Jesus by Henry Foley,  London : Burns and Oates, 1873, available online


More information:

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