San Rafael Arnaiz Barón
RAPHAEL ARNAIZ BARON was born in Burgos (Spain) April 9, 1911, into a prominent, deeply Christian family. He was baptised and confirmed in Burgos and began his schooling at the Jesuit college in the same city where, in 1919, he was admitted to first Communion.
It was at this time that he had his first experience of illness: persistent fevers due to colibacillosis forced him to interrupt his studies. To mark his recovery, which he attributed to a special intervention of the Virgin Mary, his father took him to Zaragoza and consecrated him to the Virgin of Pilar. This experience, which took place in the late summer of 1921, profoundly marked Raphael.
When the family moved to Oviedo, he continued his secondary schooling with the Jesuits there, obtaining a diploma in science. He then enrolled in the School of Architecture in Madrid, where he succeeded in balancing his studies with a life of fervent piety.
Possessing a brilliant and eclectic mind, Raphael also stood out because of his deep sense of friendship and his fine features. Blessed with a happy and jovial nature he was also athletic, had a gift for drawing and painting as well a love for music and the theatre. But as he matured, his spiritual experience of the Christian life deepened.
Although the study of architecture required a great deal of hard work and discipline, at that time he began the practice of making a long daily visit to the Blessed Sacrament in the Chapel of “Caballero de Gracia”. He even joined the Nocturnal Adoration Association, and faithfully took his turn before the Blessed Sacrament.
In this way his heart became well disposed to listening, and he perceived an invitation from God to lead the contemplative life. Raphael had already been in contact with the Trappist monastery of San Isidro de Dueñas, and he felt strongly drawn to this place, responding to his deepest desires. In December of 1933 he suddenly broke off his professional studies and on January 16, 1934 entered the monastery of San Isidro.
After the first months of the noviciate and his first Lent, which he lived with great enthusiasm, embracing all the austerities of Trappist life, God mysteriously chose to test him with a sudden and painful infirmity: a serious form of diabetes mellitus which forced him to leave the monastery immediately and return to his family in order to receive the proper care.
Barely recovered, he returned to the monastery, but his illness forced him to leave the monastery for treatment again and again. But whenever he was absent he wanted to return, responding faithfully and generously to what he understood to be a call from God. Sanctified by his joyful and heroic fidelity to his vocation, in his loving acceptance of the Divine will and the mystery of the Cross, in his impassioned search for the Face of God, fascinated by his contemplation of the Absolute, in his tender and filial devotion to the Virgin Mary—"the Lady", as he liked to call her—his life came to an end on April 26, 1938. He was barely 27 years old. He was buried in the monastery cemetery, and later in the Abbey church.
The fame of his sanctity rapidly spread beyond the walls of the monastery. The example of his life together with his many spiritual writings continue to spread and greatly profit those who get to know him. He has been described as one of the great mystics of the twentieth century.
On August 19, 1989, the Holy Father John Paul II, on World Youth Day at Santiago de Compostella, proposed him as a model for young people today, and beatified him September 27, 1992.
With his canonisation, Pope Benedict XVI presents him as a friend and intercessor for all the faithful, especially for the young.
Benedict XVI's homily at the Canonization of Rafael Arnáiz Barón
St Peter's Basilica, Sunday 11 October - also in French, German, Italian, Portuguese & Spanish
"Dear Brothers and Sisters,
"What must I do to inherit eternal life?" The brief conversation we heard in the Gospel passage, between a man identified elsewhere as the rich young man and Jesus, begins with this question (cf Mk 10: 17-30). We do not have many details about this anonymous figure; yet from a few characteristics we succeed in perceiving his sincere desire to attain eternal life by leading an honest and virtuous earthly existence. In fact he knows the commandments and has observed them faithfully from his youth. Yet, all this which is of course important is not enough. Jesus says he lacks one thing, but it is something essential. Then, seeing him well disposed, the divine Teacher looks at him lovingly and suggests to him a leap in quality; he calls the young man to heroism in holiness, he asks him to abandon everything to follow him: "go, sell what you have, and give to the poor... and come, follow me" (v 21).
"Come, follow me". This is the Christian vocation which is born from the Lord's proposal of love and can only be fulfilled in our loving response. Jesus invites his disciples to give their lives completely, without calculation or personal interest, with unreserved trust in God. Saints accept this demanding invitation and set out with humble docility in the following of the Crucified and Risen Christ. Their perfection, in the logic of faith sometimes humanly incomprehensible, consists in no longer putting themselves at the centre but in choosing to go against the tide, living in line with the Gospel. This is what the five Saints did who are held up today with great joy for the veneration of the universal Church: Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński, Francisco Coll y Guitart, Jozef Damien de Veuster, Rafael Arnáiz Barón and Mary of the Cross (Jeanne Jugan). In them we contemplate the Apostle Peter's words fulfilled: "Lo, we have left everything and followed you" (v 28), and Jesus' comforting reassurance: "There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the Gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time... with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life" (v 29-30). ....
Turning to today's Gospel, the figure of the young man who tells Jesus of his desire to be something more than one who fulfils to the letter the duties imposed by the law contrasts with Br Rafael, canonized today, who died at age 26 as an oblate at the Trappist Monastery of San Isidro de Dueñas. Br Rafael also came from a rich family and, as he himself said, was of a "somewhat dreamy disposition", but his dreams did not vanish before the attraction of material goods and the other aims that the worldly life sometimes proposes with great insistence. He said "yes" to the call to follow Jesus, instantly and with determination, without limits or conditions. So it was that he set out on a journey which, from the moment when he realized at the Monastery that "he did not know how to pray", brought him in just a few years to the peak of spiritual life, which he recounts in a very frank and natural style in many of his letters. Br Rafael, who is also near to us, continues with his example and his actions to offer us an attractive path, especially for young people who are not content with little but aspire to the full truth, the ineffable happiness which is attained through God's love. "A life of love.... This is the only reason for living", the new Saint said. And he insisted: "All things come from God's love". May the Lord listen kindly to one of the last prayers of St Rafael Arnáiz, when he offered God his whole life, imploring him: "Take me to yourself and give yourself to the world". May he give himself to revive the inner life of today's Christians. May he give himself so that his Brother Trappists and monastic centres continue to be beacons that reveal the intimate yearning for God which he himself instilled in every human heart. ...
Dear brothers and sisters, let us thank the Lord for the gift of holiness which shines out in the Church today with unique beauty. While I greet with affection each one of you Cardinals, Bishops, civil and military authorities, priests, men and women religious and members of the lay faithful of various nationalities who are taking part in this solemn Eucharistic celebration I would like to address to all the invitation to let yourselves be attracted by the luminous examples of these Saints, to let yourselves be guided by their teaching so that our entire life may become a song of praise to God's love. May their heavenly intercession obtain for us this grace and, especially, the motherly protection of Mary, Queen and Mother of humanity. Amen."