"[5] In 1854, Queen Isabella II of Spain issued a royal charter founding the "Colegio de Belén" in Havana.

The school took its name from the building it occupied at its founding, the colonial convent and convalescent hospital of Our Lady of Belén.

The Colegio de Belén opened in Marianao in 1925, situated next door to the Tropicana Club, it was constructed on sixty acres of land that had been donated and was to be used as the main building of the Colegio de Belén, which had been opened since 1854 within the premises of the convent of the same name in Old Havana.

[7] The result was a monumental pan-optical edifice[citation needed] with an extensive neoclassical façade perpendicular to the chapel and four large courtyards, recalling the building in Havana Vieja, with three stories of porticoed galleries to link nine radial pavilions.

[citation needed] In 1961 the government of Fidel Castro (himself a graduate of Belen) confiscated all private and religious schools in Cuba.

[8] Thousands of those dubbed "enemies of the revolution" were executed or imprisoned, and the school curriculum was reshaped by communist doctrine.

The Gian Zumpano Aquatic Center was completed on June 6, 2018 and is the home to the Belen Jesuit swimming team.

The Belen jazz band has won first and second place awards in competitions at Disney World, the Miami-Dade Youth Fair and the Festival of Music in Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

The bands have three annual concerts at the Roca Theater, while the drum line is a source of "mood and spirit" at pep rallies and athletic competitions.

Sections of the bands do charity work during the Christmas season, performing in malls, assisted living facilities, and hospitals.

Student productions include classics like Death of a Salesman, Fuenteovejuna, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Godspell, A Few Good Men, West Side Story, Sound of Music, Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast, The Outsiders, Moon Over Buffalo, Hunchback of Notre Dame and others.

Belen Jesuit competes in basketball, bowling, crew, cross country, football, golf, lacrosse, soccer, swimming, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo, and wrestling.

La Colección Cubana consists of over 8,000 volumes written either on the subject of Cuba or penned by Cubans and Cuban-Americans.

La Colección Cubana is open to the public and is the second-largest collection of Cuban books and other media outside of Cuba.

[13] The following three Latin phrases are common mottos for the Society of Jesus and are reflected in the teachings of the school's curriculum and community service.