Gonzalo Maria Fernández (1963-2019), was a monk of Rafael's abbey of St Isidro. Hugh McCaffery is a monk of Mont Melleray Abbey in Ireland.

• TABLE OF CONTENTSPREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION   viiPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION   ixTranslator’s Note   xiGeneral Editor’s Note   xiiINTRODUCTION   xiiiI. AMONG HIS OWNBirth and family background   1Childhood and schooldays   3Rafael’s artistic temperament   5Rafael’s first relations with and impressions of La Trappe   7II. A NEW STAGERafael in Madrid: student and soldier   13Preparations for entering his La Trappe   16His health before entering   18His state of mind before entering   21III. IN MONASTIC LIFEA joyful experience   26The illness that changed it all   29The esteem of his fellow monks in the monastery   31IV. RETURN TO WHAT HAD BEEN LEFTReflecting on his experience   33Improving in health and thinking of returning   35The Trappist’s Apologia   38Homesick for La Trappe and helping his own family   42The request for entrance as an oblate   46 V. WAITING TO REENTERWaiting and writing   53Teaching the ways of the Spirit   55Centered in love and “in waiting”   57Talking about Mary   59Reasons for reentering   62The struggle during the last few moments   63VI. FROM HERE TO THEREIn the monastery once again   65Meditations of a Trappist and the Civil War   68Called up by his country, he leaves the monastery   70Entering for the third time   71The thought of God   73In greater solitude   75The third departure   77VII. WITH HIS FAMILY FOR THE LAST TIMEA new adjustment   79Love triumphs in him   80Happy in God   83Three “spiritual” letters to his uncle   85Preparing for his last return   87VIII. TO DIE AT HIS LA TRAPPEThe final reentry   92“God and my soul”: motives and longings   94United to the will of God   96To live loving   98To live suffering   100The challenge of the cross   103Living in the last place   105Living paradoxically   107He offers his life—He is promised the cowl   108Under the influence of and the desire for God   109He receives the cowl—He dies   111IX. CONCLUSION   115X. CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF BLESSED RAFAEL   122