Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (8)

15th December 1936

FREEDOM

 

The man who meditates a little will see how mistaken the world is in the midst of what it calls freedom; he will see that true freedom is often enclosed within the four walls of a monastery.

Freedom of the body is not  freedom, for it is subject to carnal man, to his flesh and his passions, and in the spiritual  man to his spirit.

Freedom of spirit is also not true freedom for while it lives in the flesh it is a prisoner unable to fly.

Where, then is freedom?

It is in the man whose soul is not attached to the spirit or to the material, but only to God.

It is in the soul that is not subject to the egotistical me; in the soul that rises above its own thoughts, its own sentiments, its own sufferings and joys.  Freedom exists in that soul whose only reason for living is God, whose life is God and nothing else but God.

The human spirit is small, puny; it is subject to a thousand variations, highs and lows, depressions, deceptions, and so forth, and to the body with so many weaknesses.

Freedom is, then, in God; and the soul that truly passes over all things and affirms him in his life can be said, by one who is still in the world, to enjoy freedom whatever his situation.

He who clings to something that is not God or to that which represents him indirectly, such as for example the love of neighbour, the saints, the most Blessed Virgin, who sets his heart upon something outside of him, does not know what it is to enjoy freedom, although he might traverse the skies of Spain in a plane and all the countries of the earth in the speediest train.

To love God!  To live in the infinite!  To rejoice in the shutting in of the body and spirit so that the soul may fly to God …. so that it may plunge into the infinite beauties of the Eternal in order to soar into the regions of the supernatural on the wings of divine love!

This is freedom

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (7)

25th July 1936

VESPERS

 

Vespers! Evening  prayer! Hours of peace, hours of hope, moments in which the soul rests and rejoices in seeing the passing of another day.

Vespers signify the end of the day, everything passes …. soon night will come again.

Vespers! In church the sun passes obliquely through the window and illumines the tabernacle, its light is red …. its rays are weak, and as they touch the altar they do so gently, almost as though kissing it.

The chants are solemn, and the Magnificat to the most Holy Virgin stirs the emotions.

Vespers! Eveing prayer, the prayer of rest, if  rest there can be on the earth.  Hours during which the soul sees that everything is passing; the day’s labours are over …. past are whatever sorrows there may have been …. past are the joys …. past is the day, and with it we too pass, at times dragging our Cross, at others on the wings of consolation.

Everything has passed; and we are one day closer to our end, before we know it the sun that awakened creation in the morning now invites it to rest ….  it begins to set, and puts us in mind that everything in the world is ordained by God, pursuing its course ceaselessly, everything has its decline, everything has its end, whether of sufferings or of joy.

Vespers! The prayer of twilight, the prayer in which the soul asks God for the peace of a happy end.

The Trappists ask the Lord for the joy of a holy death.

How consoling are these moments of such solemnity in the psalmody, and of such peace of heart!  How much joy is contained within the hour of Vespers! What joy there is in thinking that the day is over, and that it has been passed before the tabernacle of the Lord!

What emotions are stirred in the soul on seeing the passage of another day in the service of the Lord! How grateful our hearts are for the supreme privilege of having been able spend the day singing before the Lord!  In these moments the soul would like to fly ot the heights of heaven, there to continue singing with the angels, the saints, and the Virgin.  The soul wishes that the day would never end …. that it were an eternal Vespers. The soul would like to hold back the sun, and with a Gloria Patri soar up to Heaven.

Ah, the ravings of a balmy monk.

What is certan is that for me particularly, this is one of the hours of the office that most arouses my devotion.  As I say, everything contributes to bring out the solemnity of this hour!  How sweet is an evening of singing in choir!  It is an hour most propitious for meditation and for prayer!

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (6)

28th January 1937

My Heaven on Earth

 

I have made my cell my heaven on earth.

I do not live alone; my cell is full of people.  There is laughter, songs, angels galore who play havoc with my papers.

I do not live alone; in my sick man’s cell, Christ lives, Mary is there!  There is everything in my cell; silence, peace, happiness; there is a  monk who dreams of heaven …. of a heaven without sorrow and weeping, of a heaven, not like the one he has, which is an earthly heaven; …. a heaven between walls.

My heaven is my cell.

In it there is silence, peace, happiness.

I live with the saints!

Christ is with me!

I dream of Mary!

FIAT!

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (5)

 

God is in everything

 

11 December 1936

God is in everything, but that everything is not God.

As souls are accustomed to seeing the Creator in the smallest details of creation, in the marvels of nature, in the harmony of the Introit of a Mass, or in the heart of man, what doubt can there be but that they enjoy the Lord, and that God often makes use of all this to awaken a slumbering soul.  That the soul really sees God no one can doubt, but it is in an imperfect way, for before discerning the landscape its vision is hampered …. be it by an insect, or the sun, a piece of music, or the grandeur of a heart.

How clearly one comes to see that it is in isolation from all things that one truly finds God; how great is his mercy when having us bypass all that is created he places us on that immense plain, without stone or tree, without sky or stars …. on that endless plain, where there are no colours, where there are not even men, where there is nothing to distract the soul from God!

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (4)

 

SOLITUDE

 

11 December 1936

Solitude! How many things arise in my soul apropos of this word, and how difficult it is to express the joy of solitude to one who has at times shed so many tears because of it.

Nevertheless, what joy it is to be alone with God; what peace there is when we find ourselves alone together, the soul and God; how diverse are the paths taken by the world and by Christ.

The world seeks itself and finds self.

The soul that does not seek God seeks other souls, and if it does not find them weeps for loneliness …. sad tears that embitter the heart and do not console.

But the heart that seeks Christ loves solitude above all, for it is in this very solitude that Jesus reveals himself; it is in this solitude that he seek souls; to this he leads them,  sometimes at the price of pain and sacrifice.

It is precisely in its aloneness that he wants the soul to be.

How hard it is to climb that small mount up which one begins divesting oneself of so may misconceptions, sometimes of one’s affections,  it seems almost like whole pieces of one’s soul …. it is hard, Lord!  It is hard sometimes to go with you to those solitudes of the spirit and body into which you wish to lead us!

Let us allow him to do it, for he is Master of all, and indeed if God wants us for himself he will undoubtedly lead us out into the wilderness and there speak to our hearts.

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael

Not Everything is Arrive and Conquer

5th August 1936

Unfortunately, all in religious life is not fervour ….Man changes seven times a day, and the slightest thing causes him to waver.  When all is said and done he is a creature, created with a body and a soul, and therefore with problems, and from these the spirit does not always emerge victorious.  God, in His mercy, permits this so that we may not glory in ourselves, so that we can learn to humble ourselves at the sight of our littleness, and so that in all things we may have recourse to him. 

The Trappist lives more for heaven than for earth, this is true; but he is still on earth, and while he walks through this valley of tears he must reinvigorate his spirit that it may not fall back in dismay, often doing violence to himself, and in this way also he can joyfully fulfill a law of Christ, which he imposed on us in order that we may gain the kingdom of God.

No, not all is peace and sweetness in the life of a monk; our spirit is not always in the higher regions of consolation, of prayer, and who knows, even of contemplation …. the old man sometimes reawakens and wages war upon us; the past life with so many memories cannot be forgotten all at once as much as one would like it.

No everything is “arrive and conquer.”

Eternal life, for which the soul longs day and night, is not obtained except by renunciation, sacrifice, and abandonment to the Cross of Christ.

That is the only way …. it is the way followed by religious, sustained by hope, guided by faith and illumined by charity.  But when God permits faith to be obscured, hope to be lost, and charity to be weakened, ah, then, when the soul find itself high and dry upon the Cross, surrounded by shadows, a pray to wretchedness and weakness …., then it is that God tries souls, then is the help of heaven needed and the protection of Mary.

How simple it is to love God in consolation, when all smiles upon us and our spirits seem to soar!

But none of this is necessary to the one who really loves God; joy and pain are all the same to him; he loves God whether bathed in sunlight or surrounded by shadows.

How necessary are the highs and lows of the spiritual life!  How great is the mercy of God, who permits even the weaknesses and imperfections of his most beloved sons, so that we can see ourselves as we are!

Let us struggle day after day with out discouragement, sometimes with our souls enraptured by his love, and at others, oh sad human condition, as though dragging ourselves along the ground. Let us move onward, all for Jesus and always with Mary!

Life and Writings of Br. Rafael (cont.)

You Alone!

 

8th August 1936

God!  Here is all that invigorates, the sole reason for my monastic life.

God, for me,  is everything;  he is in everything and I see him in everything.  What interest do I have in creatures?  in myself? ….  what madness to concern myself with myself, and how useless it is to busy oneself with that which is not God.                

And yet, how easily we forget the true reason for existence, and how often do we live without motivation.  Gone is the time, the minutes, the hours, the days, or the years that we have not lived for God.

God is forgotten by the world, and the reason that man only occupies himself in living well in this mortal life is explained and understood by the fact that the world is an enmity with God, and in saying this; one says it all.  But the fact that in our life of solitude and silence we often waste time is really a shame, and yet it is all too frequent.

Lord, my God! What but you could hold any interest for me?  What am I that I should be looking at myself so much? Truly, all is vanity.  You alone concern me.

God! Ah, this is the reason for living, the reason for existing.  God should impregnate even the air we breathe, the light that illumines us; God is the beginning, the center, and the end of all things; with how much greater reason should this be so for a Trappist monk who dwells in the house of God, who lives only to praise Him, and who day and night is in His presence?

He is in everything ….  in choir, in the fields, in work, when we eat and when we sleep, it is all one, for all is a reminder of why we came to the monastery, which is to seek him in austerity, in silence, in the church, in the garden, inside as well as outside of ourselves.

We should see the Creator in everything around us, whether pleasing and agreeable, or ugly and repellent …. all is his work; there is nothing useless under the sun.

And the days when it seems to the soul that everything is bathed in the light of God and everything seems to smile upon us are as necessary as when shadows of desolation envelope it, and all Creation, heavy with clouds, seems about to crush us.

The thing is to see God in everything, not to waste a moment of our lives, not to think that fervour is a sign that all is well, and when it is lacking to think that God is absent ….

May the Virgin free us from such an equivocation.

We Trappists should be persuaded that God is with us at every moment; let us put aside impressions that deceive our senses, cast away from ourselves the I that does us so much harm, and let us throw ourselves into the arms of God as we are, with our weaknesses and virtues, sins and miseries; let us entrust our souls to him, in joy or in sadness.  If we truly do this and succeed in giving our lives totally to him and make him the All of our lives, we shall have achieved true peace of heart, we shall be closer to heaven than to earth, and then ….

What does it matter to you, Brother Rafael, whether it rains or shines?

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael

Since Brother Rafael was canonised on October 11th 2009 we have been having extracts of his life and writings at Vigils. I will post some of these over the next few days.

The Tranquil Sea

30th July 1936

The Cistercian life is a life of silence;  it is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the Cistercian monk finds in it his motive for meditation, or rather;  that silence is a medium …. the place where the spiritual life unfolds.

Silence is like a sea on which our thoughts sail.

And as the sea is crossed by all kinds of boats, sometimes small sloops, at other times by proud and majestic shops, so the sea of our silence is also  populated sometimes by small schooners with white sails,  at other times by scrubby fishing boats that send up a lot of smoke, and at other times by trans-oceanic liners that sail serenely and majestically through the waters.

The silent life can very well be compared to the sea, a calm and tranquil sea.  The soul in silence is like the sea, unruffled by the slightest breeze. Through this silent soul sail thoughts of God.  The more silence, the more the peace and serenity enable it to be in the presence of God.

The Trappist is in love with his silence, as is the sailor with the sea.

But in life all is not peace.  The pilot often struggles through tempestuous waters.  These waters are not always still and sometimes grow weary of being calm, and roar, and hurl themselves furiously against the shores, as if they were the cause of its ill humour.  so it happens with the soul that, being quiet in God, finds its peace disturbed by failures in silence.

The monk, when breaking silence, involuntarily speaks of worldly things, of his memories, of his tastes and desires …. of himself.  And so the sea is agitated.

Ah, if he spoke only of God …. but even then, it is so difficult to avoid offending God with the tongue!  Let us be silent then we Cistercian monks.  We came to the monastery to seek God in the silence of our souls …. let us be silent, and let us not agitate the waters of our recollections, of our passions, of our self-love.

Let us be silent, when we are being consoled by the divine Jesus, as well as when we are alone with our Cross.

Let us be silent.  Let us keep silence, for in it we will find, if we know how to look for it, our treasure, which is God.

Let us then love silence, as the sailor loves the sea.

Let us pull away from the shore …. let us sail out to sea, where we no longer see land and the horizon merges with the sky; let us raise our eyes to the heights where God is;  and then we will see that our peace in the world grows to the degree that our silence does, and it will be complete when it is as wide as the seas that cover the earth.

The Virgin Mary star that guides seamen, will lead us and enlighten us when we enter the night of our solitudes.

The life of the Cistercian monk is …. love of God, love of Mary and silence among men.

SAINT RAFAEL ARNAIZ BARON(1911-1938)

Rafael Arnaiz, known in the monastery as Brother Maria Rafael, was born on 9 April 1911 in the city of Burgos, in north-central Spain.  He was the first of four sons born to a well-to-do, deeply Christian and Catholic family.  As a boy he went to several schools run by the Jesuit Fathers.  By the time of his adolescence it became clear that  Rafael had special human, intellectual, artistic and spiritual gifts.  These qualities were remarkably well balanced in him, producing an open positive, joyful attitude to the world of persons and things, characterized by exuberant good humour, respect and humility.

His deeper commitment to Christ began in 1930, just after he graduated from Secondary (High) School.  As a graduation present, he was allowed to pass his summer vacation with his Uncle Leopoldo and Aunt Maria, the Duke and Duchess of Maqueda, at their residence near Avila.  It marked the beginning of a fruitful spiritual friendship between the nephew and his Uncle and Aunt.  At their encouragement, Rafael made his first contact with the Trappist monastery of San Isidoro de Duenas.  It was September 1930.  He was seduced by the silent beauty of the monastery and bewitched  by the soaring melodies of the Salve Regina at Compline.  Three years later, after finishing his architectural studies, he entered as a  postulant, then became a novice, convinced that this was his true vocation.  He brought nothing with him except “a heart full of joy and the love of God.”

From that moment on, Rafael’s personal odyssey runs at high speed, for he will live only four more years.  The precipitating factor is a violent case of saccharin diabetes with appears four months after his entering the monastery.  The saddened, perplexed novice is forced to rest at home for a few months then return to the monastery, which he does three successive times from 1935 through 1937, at the height of the Spanish Civil War.  Rafael is called into the Nationalist Army but is declared unfit for active duty.  On his final return to the monastery he is obliged to enter as an oblate, taking the last place and living on the margin of the community, but God’s providence  uses this to show Rafael’s intense vocational commitment and the generosity of his gift of self.  He passed away in the monastery’s infirmary at the age of 27, on 26 April, 1938.

 Despite the short time frame of his monastic experience, Rafael embodies the Cistercian grace in a remarkably pure and intense way.  It is a mystery of detachment.  From beginning to end he let himself be led through a series of bewildering contradictions and perplexities – sickness, war, inability to pronounce his vows, abnormal community relations – until he totally renounces himself, his self-will and his good, but limited, human ideals.  Humiliation is his constant companion until he reaches the true life of the vows, which lies on the other side of death.  Rafael’s God, his Christ, is not the object of study but the Companion of a transcendental lived experience of Absolute Love.  His one desire was to live in order to love: love Jesus, love  Mary, love the Cross, love his Trappist monastery.  This is the outstanding characteristic of his personal spirituality.  He is “a crazy Trappist, crazed by the love of God: …. God alone!”

Rafael was proclaimed as a model for the youth of today by Pope John Paul II.  He was beatified in 1992 and canonized on October 11, 2009

Annual Retreat

It is time for us again to go apart for a few day and answer the Lord’s invitation to spend time with Him away from the demands of our daily tasks and give Him a little bit more quality time.  Fr. Andrew Nugent OSB Glenstal will give us our retreat from 9 – 18 October 2009