Bl Raphael Arnaiz Baron

SIMPLICITY OF HEART
From the writings of St Rafael Arnaiz Baron 7
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I see, Brother, that the path you follow is the simple life. God does not
require more of us than simplicity without and love within. The truth is that the
real pathways of God are very easy and very simple when we walk along them
full of the spirit of trust and with free hearts fixed on God. Happy, indeed, is
the Trappist who is not merely a Trappist externally, but whose interior life is
marked by the simplicity that makes the real Trappist. People of the world could
think us somewhat complicated. I do not know how to explain myself, but I
have come to realize what Jesus means when he says: “Unless you become as
little children…”

The ways of the Lord are simplicity; his yoke is easy and his burden is
light. We die to the world in order to be born to God. The self-denial of a life of
silence and solitude blossoms into the exuberant joy of a heart which counts its
blessings in terms of simplicity and integrity. Those who follow Christ, do so
along the way of the Cross. I think that when we love the Cross all is gained.

God always lets his light shine on anyone who loves and seeks him in
simplicity. We have to find our way along many winding paths before we arrive
at the simple straight one. What causes us more distress than complicating
things! How we human beings love to complicate everything for ourselves!
Unless we keep ourselves under control by the practice of virtue, repeatedly,
with our complicated way of existing we drive far from us everything that is
simple.

Time and again, we fail to grasp the greatness hidden deep down in an
act of simplicity. We want to seek greatness in complexity and think that only
when things are difficult have they anything worthwhile to offer… Virtue, God,
Interior Life – difficult values to live out! It is not that I have attained virtue,
nor that my knowledge of God and my life in the spirit are totally clear, but that

I have seen that to achieve something in these matters I need to be free from
complexity and contortion, from clever speculation and technicalities.
I have seen that we reach God by just the opposite. True knowledge of
Him comes through simplicity of heart and integrity. An act of love is not
difficult at all. What is really hard is the effort to attain knowledge of God by
penetrating his mysteries. The act of love brings us to God; the other way leads
us nowhere… Because we are not simple; because we complicate our objectives,
because the weakness of our will makes everything we desire seem difficult. We
pander to this weakness when we let our will satisfy itself with what is pleasant,
consoling, distracting and, oftentimes, plain passion…

With Jesus at my side nothing seems difficult to me, and the path to
holiness seems simpler every time I look at it. Better it seems to consist in going
forward and leaving things behind rather than in acquiring anything new,
stripping back to simplicity rather than adding things on. In so far as we go
forward turning our back on so much inordinate love of creatures and of
ourselves, it seems to me that we are drawing closer to that one real love, that
sole desire, that unique aspiration of this life: the true holiness which is God.

7 Liturgical text, Generalizia Cistercensi S.O., Rome, 1993.