Rafael Arnaiz
Raphael Arnaiz
(From Tarrawarra Newsletter August 2008)
(From Tarrawarra Newsletter August 2008)
Rafael Arnaiz Baron was born on Palm Sunday 1911 at Burgos, Spain. He was the eldest of several children of a cultured and comfortable family. He received his secondary education with the Jesuits in Oviedo. In 1926, Rafael began private lessons in painting with Don Eugenio Tamayo as preparation for admission to the School of Architecture in Madrid. He has left a body of art. In 1933, he completed his obligatory military service in the Corps of Engineers, in the Battalion of Sappers and Miners. He entered the School of Architecture in June 1933. Rafael had a brilliant intelligence, distinguished manners, a jovial character, was frank and happy, but still, with all this, he was extremely simple.
Through his school, military and university days, he was a committed and active Church member, with a definite emphasis on prayer. An uncle took him one afternoon to visit San Isidro, a Trappist monastery, just to show him the place. This set in motion an inner journey which led him to enter the community of San Isidro on 15 January 1934. His family was a close one and it cost him dearly to take the step. Only four months later, he was stricken with serious diabetes mellitus, which, in a few days, stripped him of his health and left him almost blind. He returned home, by the decision of his superiors, to recover his health.
In January 1936, he was back in the monastery as an Oblate. Canon Law prevented him, on health grounds, from continuing to train as a novice for a vowed life. On 29 September of the same year, he was called up by the army because of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. But the military quickly declared him totally unfit for service and he returned to San Isidro. In February 1937, his illness overtook him once again. In view of the difficult conditions of the monastic life in time of war, his superiors sent him home a second time to be cared for. He returned to the monastery for the fourth and final time on 15 December 1937 and died fairly suddenly on 26 April, Easter Week of the following year.
Rafael’s passionate focus was on “God alone”. God’s ways with him, as briefly outlined above, were mysterious, often confusing and painful. But he was so certain that the monastery was where God’s will for him was to be found that he persevered in returning there four times in as many years. His circumstances left him for long periods without a spiritual guide. He felt his way forward through prayer and writing journals. “My writings are at the same time reflections to myself and prayers to God”. These personal documents reveal his growth towards abandonment to God’s will: “When I left the monastery, I surrendered to him everything that I possessed: my soul and my body … My surrender was absolute, total; it is quite right, then, that God should now make of me whatever seems good to him, whatever he pleases, without my making any complaint, without any rebellion … God is my absolute master and I am his servant who obeys without a word … The trial that he has demanded of me is hard, but with his help I shall come out ahead … without looking back”. This simplicity was the key to his genuine sanctity.
Through his school, military and university days, he was a committed and active Church member, with a definite emphasis on prayer. An uncle took him one afternoon to visit San Isidro, a Trappist monastery, just to show him the place. This set in motion an inner journey which led him to enter the community of San Isidro on 15 January 1934. His family was a close one and it cost him dearly to take the step. Only four months later, he was stricken with serious diabetes mellitus, which, in a few days, stripped him of his health and left him almost blind. He returned home, by the decision of his superiors, to recover his health.
In January 1936, he was back in the monastery as an Oblate. Canon Law prevented him, on health grounds, from continuing to train as a novice for a vowed life. On 29 September of the same year, he was called up by the army because of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. But the military quickly declared him totally unfit for service and he returned to San Isidro. In February 1937, his illness overtook him once again. In view of the difficult conditions of the monastic life in time of war, his superiors sent him home a second time to be cared for. He returned to the monastery for the fourth and final time on 15 December 1937 and died fairly suddenly on 26 April, Easter Week of the following year.
Rafael’s passionate focus was on “God alone”. God’s ways with him, as briefly outlined above, were mysterious, often confusing and painful. But he was so certain that the monastery was where God’s will for him was to be found that he persevered in returning there four times in as many years. His circumstances left him for long periods without a spiritual guide. He felt his way forward through prayer and writing journals. “My writings are at the same time reflections to myself and prayers to God”. These personal documents reveal his growth towards abandonment to God’s will: “When I left the monastery, I surrendered to him everything that I possessed: my soul and my body … My surrender was absolute, total; it is quite right, then, that God should now make of me whatever seems good to him, whatever he pleases, without my making any complaint, without any rebellion … God is my absolute master and I am his servant who obeys without a word … The trial that he has demanded of me is hard, but with his help I shall come out ahead … without looking back”. This simplicity was the key to his genuine sanctity.
