How can one maintain a singular vision of devotion for God alone in this life? It would seem that this is an ideal reserved only for the beatific vision of heaven, but this is not the case for the life of the Spanish Saint Rafael Arnaiz. In a correspondence concerning his vocation as a Trappist, Rafael wrote, “I was searching for God, and God gave Himself to me so freely… I suffered, but when it’s for His sake, it’s not suffering… I was searching for God, but I was also searching for His creatures, and I was searching for myself; and God wants me all to Himself…I gave Him my body, my soul, my career, my family… but I still held on to one thing: my dreams and desires, my hopes of being a Trappist and making my vows and singing the Mass…but God wants more, He always wants more. I needed to be transformed. He wanted His love alone to be enough for me” (CW 64). God’s love alone is the theme of Rafael Arnaiz’s life and letters, and Mark O’Keefe and Maria Gonzalo-García have provided an enriching account of the life of this single-minded saint.

Saint Rafael lived a relatively short life of twenty-seven years that was riddled with suffering. His life goal was to embrace the vows of a monk and enter into the Cistercian monastery of La Trapa in Spain. It was during his encounter with the Trappists that Rafael found God to be the only reason to exist in the world. His single-minded goal was frustrated throughout his life because of many sufferings like diabetes, the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), crisis of vocational selfishness, and an unrelenting pull back into the “outside” world. Rafael would (re)enter the monastic life four times in his vocation; he entered as an oblate, but the abbot thought it right to allow him to unconventionally pursue ordination as a priest. Throughout his tumultuous journey of monasticism, Rafael learned to bear his cross of suffering and surrender himself fully to the mercies of God and the mysteries of His plan for the saint. Saint Rafael did not live long enough to reach ordination, but nevertheless he received the unique honor of a black scapular to be worn over a white tunic, and the cowl of a professed monk—which is unheard of for an oblate. Shortly after, Rafael died from a diabetic induced fever.

The theme of Saint Rafael’s life was “God alone,” but how this notion of life played itself out in suffering, and self-renunciation would lead him to identify the crucified Christ to be the face of this singularly focused on God. Rafael’s diabetes often left him lonely and isolated, but it was in those deep hurting moments of trail and pain that the truth of God alone would render the many troubles of life ultimately relativized and powerless. That is, the many of life’s chaos is reconstituted in the order of the One God alone. As Rafael writes, “The whole world is reduced to a tiny little dot… and on that dot there is a monastery… and in that monastery, there’s just God and me” (CW 517). His path of suffering with the crucified Jesus not only focused his devotion on his relationship with God alone, but refocused and united his vocation to that of the Savior: “My vocation is to suffer, to suffer in silence for the whole world” (CW 649).

There are many things to be learned and emulated from the life of Saint Rafael Arnaiz, but the crucial one is to have a cruci-focused vision of God alone in suffering. There is a deep simplicity and contempt in life that emerges from this vision. Rafael’s life and single-minded devotion to God in the midst of trouble, pain, crisis, loneliness, and even in the midst of joy, happiness, excitement, and pleasure, is a good framework for living a faithful life in the now of reality. This work is important for the spiritual formation of Christians everywhere. That we may all live the call of Saint Rafael’s life: “God alone! How sweet it is to live like this!” (CW 162).