Subj : October 30th - St. Alphonsus Rodriguez To : All From : rich Date : Tue Oct 29 2019 09:16:57 From: rich October 30th - St. Alphonsus Rodriguez (A married Spaniard with tragedies who became a holy Jesuit, a mystic, patron of Majorca, Spain) d. 1617 Tragedy and challenge beset today's saint early in life, but Alphon= sus Rodriguez found happiness and contentment through simple service and prayer. =C2 Born in Spain in 1533, Alphonsus inherited the family textile business at 23. Within the space of three years, his wife, daughter and mother died; meanwhile, business was poor. Alphonsus stepped back and reassessed his life. He sold the business and, with his young son, moved into his sisters' home. There he learned the discipline of prayer and meditation. =C2 Years later, at the death of his son, Alphonsus, almost 40 by then, sought to join the Jesuits. He was not helped by his poor education. He applied twice before being admitted. For 45 years he served as door keeper at the Jesuits' college in Majorca. When not at his post, he was almost always at prayer, though he often encountered difficulties and temptations. =C2 His holiness and prayerfulness attracted many to him, including St. Peter Claver, then a Jesuit seminarian. Alphonsus's life as doorkee= per may have been humdrum, but he caught the attention of poet and fellow-Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins, who made him the subject of one of his poems. =C2 The night before his death was spent in a visionary ecstasy . Some authors claim he wrote the "Little Office of the Immaculate Conception", but his part was to make more popular. Left behind a collection of manuscripts of journal entries, random thoughts, simple illustrations, and musings on things spiritual that are remarkable for their simplicity, sound and correct doctrine, and spiritual understanding; they were published as "Spiritual Works of Blessed Alonso Rodriguez" in Barcelona in 1885. =C2 Comment: We like to think that God rewards the good even in this life. But Alphonsus knew business losses, painful bereavement and periods when God seemed very distant. None of his suffering made him withdraw into a shell of self-pity or bitterness. Rather, he reached out to others who lived with pain, including enslaved blacks. Among the many notables at his funeral were the sick and poor people whose lives he had touched. May they find such a friend in us! Saint Quote: We should love God because He is God, and the measure of our love should be to love Him without measure. --St. Bernard Bible Quote: Him, who knew no sin, he hath made sin for us: that we might be made the justice of God in him. Sin for us... That is, to be a sin offering, a victim for sin.=C2 [2 Co 5:21]=C2 DRB <><><><> Saint Anselm of Canterbury Shows How Sin Enslaves Man On another occasion, he saw a boy playing with a little bird by the roadside. The bird had its foot tied to a string, and now and then, when it was allowed a little freedom, it tried to fly away, hoping to succour itself by flight. But the boy holding the string pulled it back and brought it down beside him. This gave him enormous pleasure, and he did it again and again. When the Father saw this, he was sorry for the wretched bird, and hoped that it would break the string and regain its freedom. And suddenly the string did break; the bird flew off: the boy wept; and the Father rejoiced. Then he called to us and said =E2=80=9CDid you notice the game the boy was playing? When we admitted that we had done so, he said =E2=80=9CConsider likewise how the devil plays with many men, whom he catches in his toils and drags into various vices at his pleasure. For instance some men are consumed by the flames of avarice or lust or such-like things, and are chained to them by evil habit. Sometimes it happens to them that, when they consider what they are doing, they weep over it and promise themselves that they will leave off such things in the future. So, like the bird, they think they can fly away free. But, being enmeshed by evil habits, they are held by the enemy, who pulls them back into the same vices, as they fly away. This happens time and again, and they are never entirely set free unless, by a great effort and by the operation of God's grace, the cord of evil custom is broken. --- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2 * Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4) .