St. Alphonsus Rodríguez was born in Segovia, Spain, on July 25, 1533. He was a wool merchant by trade, married, and had three children. It was through the death of his wife and children that God chose to lead him to an extraordinary intimate union with himself. Being a widower, he thought of the priesthood, but he was told that he was too old to begin studies. He was then about thirty-five years of age. He thus entered the Jesuits as a coadjutor brother in 1571, and later that year he was sent to the College of Montesión in Palma on the island of Mallorca, where he was made doorkeeper and remained for the next forty-six years of his life. Externally, his life had nothing extraordinary or remarkable about it. He fulfilled his monotonous job with uncommon fidelity, humility, charity, kindness, and obedience, and thus he became a saint. He encouraged the students to have devotion to our Lady and to pray the rosary, and it was he who suggested to Peter Claver (see September 9) to go to the missions in the New World. St. Alphonsus died at Palma on October 31, 1617, and only after his death was it learned how God had favored him with mystical graces, ecstasies, and visions. He was canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1888. The prayer in the Mass today reminds us that in faithful service as lived by St. Alphonsus, God has shown us the way to joy and peace.