SAINTS AND ART: Known as a gatekeeper, Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez drew countless people to Christ with his quiet holiness and deep spiritual vision.

When we talk about saints in the “calendar” of the Church, the truth is that there are multiple calendars to consider. Some saints, such as Saint Francis on October 4, are recognized as having such importance to the Church that they are celebrated around the world. Others, like Bl. Marie Durocher on October 6, are important for a particular country, for example, Canada, and that is why they appear in the national appendix of the Roman Calendar. And some saints, like the current Alfonso Rodríguez, appear in the calendars of particular religious orders, probably most observed in their countries of origin and in parishes belonging to that religious congregation.

Saint Alphonsus was a Jesuit brother born in Spain in 1533, in the generation of the first Jesuits. Peter Faber, one of the first Jesuits, prepared Alfonso for his First Communion.

Alfonso came from a prosperous home and his father was a wool merchant. His father enrolled him in the Jesuit school of Alcalá but his studies were interrupted when his father died and he had to take over the family business. She married at age 27 and had three children but, as in the case of Job, they all died. Then taxes destroyed his business.

In his anguish, Alfonso turned to the Jesuits, where he deepened his spiritual life. Although he asked to be ordained a priest, the Company decided that he was too old, in poor health and without sufficient education. However, recognizing his holiness, they accepted him as a brother and began his novitiate at the age of 37.

He was sent to Palma de Mallorca to be a porter at the Jesuit school there. As Saint Andrew Bessette five centuries later in the house of the Brothers of the Holy Cross in Montreal or Blessed Solanus Casey With the Capuchins of Detroit and New York, Alfonso brought countless people to the Lord through his humble ministry as a doorman. As proof, consider that he was responsible for convincing Saint Peter Claverthen a student at that Jesuit college, to assume the ministry of “slave of the slaves” trafficked in Colombia. Thanks to the discreet advice of Brother Alfonso, 72 years old, Peter Claver found his vocation. As Brother Alfonso said, he saw each person who came to the door as God. Loneliness is not a phenomenon of our times, and Brother Alfonso paid attention to countless people who came to his door with their physical and spiritual impoverishment. He died on October 31, 1617. Although he was declared venerable in 1626, he was not canonized until 1887, partly due to the vicissitudes of the Jesuits (their suppression) in the 18th century.

Brother Alfonso cultivated a rich and profound spiritual life, something that became even clearer posthumously when his notes and reflections were published. That spiritual life was also mystical, Brother Alfonso being favored by many visions of the Lord, Our Blessed Mother and the saints.

The Spanish baroque painter Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664) had already painted one of the visions of Saint Alphonsus in 1630. The large oil painting (8 feet by 5 feet), originally in the Jesuit house in Seville, is now in a museum in Madrid. The painting depicts a vision of Jesus and Mary, surrounded by cherubs, with an angelic quartet on a slightly lower cloud (indicative of humility) to the right, providing musical accompaniment. The two main ones hold the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, whose devotion was increasing at the time and would be promoted by the Jesuits.

Below them appears Saint Alphonsus, in a Jesuit habit and accompanied by an angel (his guardian angel?). As in the Transfiguration, two kingdoms or orders coincide: the earthly and the heavenly, the temporal and the eternal. Most commentators highlight the “split level” or “two level” aspect of the painting, which is perhaps necessary for us to conceptualize Brother Alfonso’s vision. But Alfonso faces us entranced, not only because we can then identify him better than if he were in profile, but because – once again, as one commentator pointed out – the vision is not so much “somewhere” as in him (just as Beatitude is more a “state” than a “place”). Clouds are not just “heavenly” decorations; Since biblical times, clouds have been signs of the Divine Presence (shekinah) that reveals and at the same time keeps man’s eyes from the unprotected vision of God, whom mortal man cannot look upon. As is typical of both baroque painting in general and Zurbarán in particular, chiaroscuro – the masterful use of shadow – is prominent in the painting, especially in terms of separating the earthly realm from the heavenly.

The Church begins October with the Memorial of the Guardian Angels on October 2. If the angel next to Saint Alphonsus is your guardian angel, it is a fitting end to the month. Also often during October in the Year B Sunday Lectionary (the Gospel of Mark that we read this year on October 13), we hear the story of the rich young man whose dependence on his wealth impeded his ability to follow Jesus wholeheartedly. Brother Alfonso, who lost everything when he was in his twenties, instead found the truth of Jesus’ promise: “There is no one who has left home, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children or lands for my sake and for the sake of of the gospel, which will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come” (Mark 10:29-30).

(For more information on Saint Alphonsus, see here, here and here.)