Suggest an Edit — Confessor Alphonsus Rodriguez

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Biography

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Alphonsus Rodriguez, known in Spanish as Alonso Rodríguez, was born on 25 July 1532 in Segovia, in Castile, Spain, the son of a wool merchant. He received some early schooling from the Jesuits, but the death of his father when Alphonsus was still an adolescent obliged him to leave his studies and take over the family business. In his mid-twenties he married María Suárez; they had three children. Within a relatively short period he suffered the deaths of his wife and of all three children, together with the failure of the wool trade that had supported the household. These losses turned him toward a more intense religious life. He tried to resume Latin studies with a view to the priesthood, but found the work beyond him at his age, and then sought admission to the Society of Jesus.

At first refused as too old and insufficiently educated, he persisted and was accepted in 1571 as a lay brother, or temporal coadjutor, of the Society of Jesus. After his novitiate he was sent the same year to the Jesuit college of Montesión in Palma on the island of Majorca, where he remained for the rest of his life, some forty-six years. His assigned work was that of porter, or doorkeeper. In that humble office he received students, visitors, and the poor, distributed alms, and became known for patience, recollection, and spiritual counsel. Many people of the island, including members of the Society, came to him for advice. Among those he influenced was the young Jesuit Peter Claver, who later credited Rodriguez with encouraging his vocation to missionary work in South America.

While performing ordinary duties, Rodriguez led a hidden life of prayer and austerity. Contemporary accounts and his own spiritual notes describe frequent mystical experiences, including visions, as well as prolonged contemplation and a particular devotion to the Immaculate Conception. He also underwent trials of scruples and interior darkness, which he met with obedience to superiors and confessors. Despite modest schooling and no Latin, Jesuit theologians on the island regarded his spiritual doctrine as sound. He remained at his post as porter until shortly before his death and died in Palma on 31 October 1617.

Devotion to him spread within the Society of Jesus and on Majorca. He was beatified by Pope Leo XII in 1825 and canonized by Pope Leo XIII on 15 January 1888, in the same ceremony as Saints Peter Claver and John Berchmans. His feast is kept on 31 October. He is invoked as a patron of Jesuit lay brothers and of Majorca and Palma, and is remembered as an example of holiness found in obscure and menial work.

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