Today is the feast of St. Rafael Arnáiz Barón, a Spanish Trappist who died of diabetes in 1938. (The web site, that of his monastery, San Isidro de Dueñas at Palencia, is in Spanish, but easily read. Note the photograph of Rafael holding a cigarette in the "Madrid y Toledo" section.)
Rafael was born in Burgos, Spain, on April 9, 1911, to Rafael Arnáiz Sanchez de la Campa and Mercedes Barón Torres. He was the first of their four children.
The family moved to Ovieto in 1922. Rafael and his brothers attended a Jesuit school, and Rafael, an artist, took painting lessons on the side. In 1930, he received a degree from the University of Ovieto and began graduate school in architecture at Madrid.
He spent vacations with his uncle and aunt, the Duke and Duchess of Maqueda in Ávila. With their encouragement, he visited the Trappist monastery for the first time in September, 1930.
"When, on going into the church to greet the Lord, I saw the monks singing in choir, saw that altar with that statue of the Virgin, saw the reverence the monks had in church, and, above all, when I heard the Salve . . . dear Uncle Poldy, God alone knows what I felt . . . I did not know how to pray."
--God Alone: A Spiritual Biography of Blessed Rafael Arnaiz Baron, by Gonzalo Maria Fernandez, OCSO, Cistercian Publications, 2007.
In 1932, Rafael continued his studies in Madrid, and during that year he made the Spiritual Exercises at San Isidro.
He was called to active duty in the military in 1933. He served from January through July. In Madrid, "Rafael did not always find it easy to keep his behavior blameless; he really did have to exert himself to live up to his Christian principles".
--God Alone. Search term: Vallaure.
In November, 1933, Rafael wrote to the abbot of San Isidro, asking to be admitted to the novitiate. He was accepted, and in January, 1934, he entered the Trappist monastery. After four joyful months, he got sick. He was diagnosed with diabetes, and he left the monastery.
After a year and a half, Rafael returned to the monastery, this time as an oblate. His diabetes made it impossible for him to follow the routine of the monastery, so he lived in the infirmary, taking insulin, eating the food prescribed by his doctor.
In July, 1936, the Spanish Civil War reached the monastery, and Rafael was drafted. He and more than thirty other monks left the monastery. Rafael, because of his diabetes, was declared unfit for military service. He went home. "Once again he was dressed in civvies, smoked and socialized with people in the outside world, far from his La Trappe".
--God Alone
In December, 1936, he returned to the monastery. The solitude in the infirmary was hard on him. His brother, who entered the Carthusians, had once asked Rafael why he didn't become a Carthusian instead of a Trappist. "I need to see faces," Rafael had replied. Now, he saw few faces. And his diabetes worsened. The infirmarian was at the battlefront, and it was impossible for the community to take care of Brother Rafael. In February, 1937, he had to leave again.
He returned in December, knowing he would not live much longer. In February, 1938, the abbot told him "that on Easter Sunday he would give him the monastic cowl and black scapular proper to professed monks". "Such bestowal of the cowl on a mere oblate had no precedent in the history of the monastery of San Isidro".
"His father arrived at the monastery on Easter Thursday morning, April 21, for a visit. Rafael, dressed like a proper monk in white cowl and black scapular, met him. Never had his father seen him with better color in his cheeks, with such a sparkle in his eyes."
Rafael said, "Here you have a Brother with a lot of cloth. I do not know what to do with the sleeves."
His father left, and the next day Rafael went to bed with a high fever. On Monday, April 25, he received Extreme Unction. On Tuesday morning, April 26, "his agony began". While the community prayed for him, "Rafael suffered a strong convulsion that for a few moments very much distorted his face. Then it returned to its normal appearance, and with quiet peacefulness and a smile on his lips, as if enjoying a pleasant dream, he breathed his last." He was twenty-seven years old.
St. Rafael Arnáiz Barón was canonized in October, 2009, by Pope Benedict XVI.
