Spain will soon have their beloved young "Beato Rafael" canonized a Saint, 
making him a likely Patron for World Youth Day Madrid 2011.
making him a likely Patron for World Youth Day Madrid 2011.“God Alone!” was the motto of this 20th century witness to our faith. Bl. Rafael was an amiable, artistic, and intelligent youth born into an aristocratic family of Burgos, Spain, in 1911. After his studies and a time drafted into military service, at age 23, he entered a Cistercian monastery. Only four months later he had to leave for medical reasons. He spent the last four years of his life between the monastery and the homes of family, until at last he passed into eternal life on April 26, 1938, at age 27.
His few writings express the depth of his relationship with the Lord, and his countenance showed those around him his great surrender to God’s will through all the trials, frustrations, and would be disappointments of his life’s journey. He knew God as a companion and “his one desire was to love: love Jesus, love Mary, love the cross, love his trappist monastery.”
Pope John Paul II named Brother Rafael as a model of Christian life for the youth at World Youth Day in Santiago de Compostela in 1989. He was beatified in 1992, and now with a second miracle attributed to his intercession he is set to be canonized this October!
In Bl. Rafael’s own words:
“God, for me, is everything; he is in everything and I see him in everything. How useless it is to busy oneself with that which is not God. … Lord, my God! What but you could hold any interest for me? What am I that I should be looking at myself so much? You alone should occupy my life; you alone should fill my heart; you alone should concern me.
God 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 centre, and the end of all things… God 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 be persuaded that God is with us at every moment. Let us put aside impressions that deceive our senses, cast away from ourselves the self-centredness 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, and we shall be closer to heaven than to earth.”
Blessed Rafael, pray for us!God 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 centre, and the end of all things… God 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 be persuaded that God is with us at every moment. Let us put aside impressions that deceive our senses, cast away from ourselves the self-centredness 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, and we shall be closer to heaven than to earth.”
Sources
http://www.ocso.org/HTM/net/straf-en.htm
http://cistercianvocation.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/blessed-rafael-god-alone/
