After losing his wife and children, St. Alphonsus Rodriguez became a Jesuit and was for many years a porter at the Monte Sión school in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. The Church celebrates his memory on October 30.
Photo: oratorio leno
Newsroom (30/10/2024 15:31, Gaudium Press) Saint Alfonso Rodríguez was born in 1531 in Segovia. He was the son of a pious businessman. The influence of the blessed Father Fabro, who lived among them for some time, should be considered transcendent in his life, as well as later the holy religious Francis of Villanova. After his father’s death, St. Alphonsus took over the family business, but his lack of skill led to the business going bankrupt, while death took his wife, children, and mother.
After a vision of heavenly bliss, he made a general confession. “In misfortune,” said the saint, ”I saw the majesty of God and recognized the wickedness of my life. For the sake of the world, I had given God short shrift and now I was on the verge of losing myself eternally. I saw before me the sublime greatness of God as I lay in the dust of my misery. I imagined I was a second David and a moving Miserere was the expression of my state of mind.
From then on, he began practicing hard mortifications and going to confession and communion once a week. A few years later, his son died and Alonso, who was suffering greatly, felt great consolation when he realized that his son had been spared the danger of offending God.
The idea of embracing religious life came back more strongly and he asked to be admitted to the Jesuits in Segovia. They dissuaded him because he was almost forty years old, his health was very poor and his education was not sufficient for the priesthood. Without losing heart, Alonso went to Valencia and sought out his old friend, Fr. Luis Santander, S.J., who recommended that he start learning Latin to be ordained as soon as possible. He was comforted by the fact that the founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius of Loyola, had also entered religious life late.
Alonso began attending school with the children, which was no small mortification. As he had given his sisters and the poor almost all the money he had, he had to work as a servant and, from time to time, was forced to beg. At school, he met a man his age and with aspirations similar to his own, who tried to persuade him to give up being a Jesuit and go with him to live as a hermit. Alonso visited him in his mountain hermitage but suddenly realized that this was a temptation against his true vocation and immediately returned to Valencia, where he told Father Santander: “I promise that I will never do my own will again in my life. Do with me what you will.
On January 31, 1571, the Jesuit provincial, ignoring the opinion of his subordinates, accepted Alonso Rodríguez as a lay brother. He stayed in Valencia for six months to complete his novitiate and was then sent to the college of Monte Sión in Palma de Mallorca, where he was soon appointed porter. Saint Alonso held this position until age and illness prevented him from doing so. The trust that his conduct aroused contributed to many people coming to him for advice and help in their spiritual conflicts.
St. Alphonsus particularly possessed the gift of spiritual conversation. His rector agreed that no religious treatise did him as much good as contact with a lay brother. He also responded to their requests through numerous letters. For this, he was called the Doctor of Mallorca. The saint could have given good advice because he had to endure numerous intimate and material difficulties and face tough battles. Thanks to this, “I felt more and more deeply the greatness of the Lord, while the awareness of the weakness of my being was sharpened in me,” he said. Thanks to this experience, I was plunged into a state of absolute unconsciousness. Then I only knew how to love.
In addition to the students, there was a constant coming and going of priests, noblemen, professionals, and parents at the Monte Sión school. There were also beggars looking for alms and merchants who came to sell their wares. Everyone knew, respected, and revered Brother Alonso. The wise and the simple sought his advice, and his reputation spread far beyond the walls of the college. The most famous of his “disciples” was St. Peter Claver who, in 1605, was a student at the college. For three years, he placed himself under the direction of St. Alphonsus, who, enlightened by God, enthused him and encouraged him to work in America. It was there that St. Peter Claver earned the title of “the apostle of the blacks”.
Father Miguel Julián summed up the reputation for holiness that the brother achieved in this position in one sentence: “This brother is not a man, but an angel”. St. Alphonsus dedicated every moment that his office left him free to prayer. Although he lived in constant union with God, his spiritual journey was far from easy. Especially in his later years, the saint went through long periods of desolation and dryness and suffered from severe pain whenever he made the slightest effort to meditate. As if that wasn’t enough, he was attacked by the most violent temptations, as if so many years of mortification had been in vain. Alonso’s response was to intensify his penance even more, without ever despairing.
One day, when his impure temptations became unbearable, he stopped in front of an image of the Blessed Virgin and exclaimed in Latin: “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, memento mei” (Holy Mary, Mother of God, remember me), and immediately felt the temptations disappear. From then on, he became convinced that the Blessed Virgin has great power to drive away impure spirits and he devoted himself to her more fervently. He prayed several rosaries every day and, in honor of the Mother of God, recited psalms daily. And the Virgin Mary was his great protector and defender until the hour of his death and appeared to him several times, flooding him with incomparable happiness. He experienced consolations “so intense that he could not raise the eyes of his soul to Jesus and Mary without seeing them as if they were present”.
Three days before his death, after his last communion, he remained enlightened and ecstatic. What happiness, wrote an eyewitness, was awakened in our spirit when we contemplated him! And they were only a few crumbs of his happiness. We decided to call in a painter to draw a faithful portrait of Alphonse. The saint died on October 31, 1617.
Compiled by Dominic Joseph
