Alfonso Rodriguez (1533-1617) was born in Segovia, Spain. His family played host to Saint Peter Faber, who prepared the young Alfonso for his First Communion. He left school at age 14 to help his widowed mother run the family wool business. At age twenty-seven, he married and had three children. Five years later, he found himself a widower with one surviving child, who died soon after. He joined the Society of Jesus as a Brother at the age of thirty-eight. He spent the next forty-six years of his religious life as guest master and doorkeeper of the Jesuit college in Majorca, where he exercised a marvellous influence not only on the members of the college, but upon a great number of people who came to him for spiritual advice. He was a friend and advisor to Saint Peter Claver, encouraging him to go to the missions in South America. His daily routine, though ordinary, offered him opportunities for holiness of life: each time the bell rang, he looked at the door and envisioned that it was God who was standing outside. He was often heard to say “I’m just coming, Lord.”