If your prayer life ever feels empty, today's Pause+Pray is for you. 🛐
October 30, 2024
Dear John,
St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, who you will read about in today's Saint of the Day, is a reminder that not every holy person is a "celebrity saint," and that outward ordinariness can often mask a deep soul within.
I don't know about you, but I take heart in the stories of saints like St. Alphonsus. They take some of the pressure off of the pursuit of saintliness and show us that the holy life can take on many hues. As inspiring and impactful as the heroic stories of saints such as Oscar Romero or Teresa of Calcutta are, it's a beautiful thing that the Catholic faith holds up such a diversity of figures for us to model our lives after.
Tragedy and challenge beset today’s saint early in life, but Alphonsus Rodriguez found happiness and contentment through simple service and prayer.
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 sister’s home. There he learned the discipline of prayer and meditation.
At the death of his son years later, 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 doorkeeper at the Jesuits’ college in Majorca. When not at his post, he was almost always at prayer, though he often encountered difficulties and temptations.
His holiness and prayerfulness attracted many to him, including Saint Peter Claver, then a Jesuit seminarian. Alphonsus’ life as doorkeeper may have been humdrum, but centuries later he caught the attention of poet and fellow-Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins, who made him the subject of one of his poems.
Alphonsus died in 1617.
Reflection
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 Africans. 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!
For Clare of Assisi, friendship with Christ entailed a friendship of self-giving love. Whereas Francis emphasized martyrdom (symbolized by the Good Shepherd), Clare emphasized personal transformation in union with the crucified Spouse. Unlike Francis, Clare’s letters reflect a more personal relationship with the poor Crucified. She directs Agnes to foster a deep friendship with Christ who will lead her to the fullness of her identity in God. In her first letter Clare writes, “be strengthened…out of an ardent desire for the Poor Crucified who for our sake took…the Passion of the Cross…and so reconciled us to God the Father.”
Clare calls Agnes not to a life of suffering but to a life of love; however, the path will take her through suffering following the footprints of the crucified spouse. Agnes is to embrace this God of overflowing love who comes to her in fragile flesh. She writes, “as a poor Virgin, embrace the poor Christ.” This Spouse, Clare continues, was “struck,” “scourged” and was the “lowest among humans.” Gaze on this mystery, consider it, contemplate it, so that you may come to imitate it.
In episode two of Franciscan Media’s “Off the Page” podcast, Father Murray Bodo, OFM, dissects a poem from his republished book Song of the Sparrow: Four Seasons of Prayer. His poem addresses the very real experience of the emptiness we sometimes encounter in prayer.
Pray
When prayer feels empty, when my words dissolve in silence,
help me, Lord, to remember what you’ve done,
so that the past strengthens my faith in the present,
so that the gifts you gave awaken me to the gifted now.
Act
In moments today where your faith feels weak or anxiety shows its face (which is often an indication that we are lacking in faith), pray a prayer of gratitude for how God has blessed you in the past.
Today's Pause+Pray was written by Stephen Copeland. Learn more here!
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