Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez

Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez was a Spanish merchant, a husband, and a father, and after losing his family and his fortune he became a religious brother in the Society of Jesus. For many years he served as doorkeeper at the Jesuit college in Palma, on the island of Majorca. The Church commemorates him on October 31.

He was born in Segovia into a family of merchants who traded in wool and cloth. The year of his birth cannot be established with certainty: the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints gives July 25, 1533, while other sources give 1531 or 1532. Already as a child he came into contact with the first Jesuits. According to the tradition of the order, Saint Peter Faber, a companion of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, stayed in the Rodriguez home and prepared the boy for his First Holy Communion. Alphonsus began his studies at the Jesuit college in Alcalá, but after his father’s death he had to return home and take over the family business.

He married María Suárez and they had children. Within a few years he lost everything: his wife died, his children died, and the business failed. These blows turned him toward prayer and penance. He wished to enter the Jesuits, but he was refused because of his age, his poor health, and his lack of education. He did not give up. He went to Valencia and tried to make up his studies, and when the examiners were again opposed, the provincial admitted him all the same, convinced of his holiness.

He entered the Society of Jesus in January 1571 as a brother, when he was nearly forty years old. After six months of novitiate he was sent to the college of Montesión in Palma, Majorca, where he remained until his death, for forty-six years. There he was sacristan and doorkeeper. In everyone who came to the door he wanted to see Christ himself. The tradition of the order has preserved the words with which he answered a knock: “Ya voy, Señor,” that is, “I’m coming, Lord.”

The brother without learning became in time a spiritual adviser to many people, to his fellow Jesuits and to those who came to the door. His best-known disciple was the young Jesuit Peter Claver, who was studying philosophy in Palma. Alphonsus encouraged him to leave for the missions in America, where Claver became the apostle of the slaves brought from Africa. Alphonsus himself led a deep life of prayer and had mystical experiences. At his superior’s order he wrote them down from 1604 onward.

He spent his last years in illness. He died in Palma on October 31, 1617. Already in his lifetime he was regarded as a saint, and the viceroy and the nobility of the city came to his funeral.

The process of canonization was opened soon after his death, but the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain and the suppression of the order interrupted it for a long time. Pope Leo XII beatified him in 1825, and Leo XIII canonized him on January 15, 1888, together with Saints Peter Claver and John Berchmans. The Jesuits honor him as the patron of their brothers.