The "So What?" Saint
Turns out there's a documentary about one of Rafael's translators, and thank God, it's not me.
When I discovered the existence of Bruder Schwester (“Brother Sister,” dir. Maria Mohr, 2010), a documentary about the German translator of St. Rafael Arnaiz’s works, I felt mildly insane. As his English translator, I’ve done enough research to be fully aware that his work is available in other languages, and thus other people had to have gone down this rabbit hole before me. This is theoretically a thing that I knew. But there is no shaking the utterly unnerving feeling of realizing you have been perceived, at length, at international film festivals, in the form of someone else sharing your exact combination of genuine devotion and academic obsession. I was repulsed.
Naturally, I had to watch it.
Of course, the first lesson of this film is that it’s not about me. (Amazing, how many things are in fact not about me.) It’s about Sr. Ingrid, the filmmaker’s aunt, who finds a friend in Rafael when no one else seems to understand her spiritual experiences. A lot of the film is dedicated to this mystery: why someone would choose religious life, what it really means to love God with a passion that real and human, whether those of us who profess that are kidding ourselves, and above all, why relationships predicated on such a love are completely incomprehensible to anyone on the outside looking in. In that sense, the main relationship that the film studies is between Sr. Ingrid and St. Rafael, but it also looks at the relationship between Rafael and his own aunt, María, and his sister, Merceditas; between Sr. Ingrid and her translation collaborator, Fr. Carlos; between the filmmaker and her late brother, Matthias; and very occasionally, between the world and God.
Honestly, given all that, I thought this movie was going to draw icky conclusions, because most movies that ask the question “are celibates for real??” don’t answer it with much respect or realism. But rather than answer that question head-on, Bruder Schwester chooses to observe a small little world (the Mohr family, the Trappists of San Isidro de Dueñas, their unlikely overlap), document the otherworldly love found there, and propose in response that relationships between heaven and earth are not substantially more mysterious than relationships on earth. It’s all mystery all the way down. The dominant note is, ultimately, reverence.
The majority of the footage was filmed in the abbey of San Isidro de Dueñas, where St. Rafael lived and died, following Sr. Ingrid as she collaborates with the monks who work on his cause for canonization. I wasn’t able to travel there during my translation process due to the pandemic, so it was a real joy for me to get to “tag along” on this filmed research trip. There were so many photos I’d never had a chance to see—especially with Rafael and his younger sister, Merceditas, who was such an important person in his life but hardly figures in his writings. Seeing them together gave me a missing piece of the puzzle, and made me wonder what she was really like beyond the role she plays in retellings of her brother’s story.
As much as I enjoyed the novelty, after all this time immersed in Rafael’s writings about and drawings of the monastery, it was also delightful and surreal to recognize so many details of a place I’ve never been. The refectory where he once made a fool of himself, having prayed for the opportunity to do public penance. The fields where he worked—though one monk was quick to note they don’t grow turnips anymore. One of my favorite moments in the documentary superimposed Rafael’s paintings and drawings onto the monastic landscape:
Plus a shot of the art supplies he made these with—how’s that for a choice relic?
I was moved to recognize the signature of the brother who labeled these as Rafael’s: Ramón Yáñez Neira, his co-novice. At one point, the filmmaker asks a member of the community what it’s like to have lived with a saint. He responds that it’s pretty much the same as having lived with any loved one who has died: you remember them, you miss them, and you ask them to help you from above. Looking at this little watercolor set, it looks more like what a relic really is. Something that belonged to a person you loved. What you have now instead of their physical presence beside you. A son’s favorite toy, a wife’s hairbrush. A reminder that he was just here, and we are family still, somehow. That’s what I mean about the mystery and reverence in this movie. It doesn’t exoticize any of this, or give into the grandeur. The relics that Sr. Ingrid shows off are just things someone she loved was just using a moment ago, that’s all. The intimacy is the point. The saints are not far away.
When Mohr does film the canonization ceremony, it’s from the perspective of her aunt in the crowd, smiling proudly at her fellow German academic (who just so happens to be the pope) saying the name of her closest friend (who just so happens to live in heaven). The celebration that matters to this film isn’t the shot you’ve seen a thousand times, with pilgrims rejoicing in St. Peter’s Square, although that definitely happened that day. Instead you get all the “friends of Rafael” hugging and smiling, normally silent monks exchanging joyful words, filmed so closely you’d think they were in their living room rather than in the most major of major basilicas. The emotion is so real and so raw that it’s completely offputting if you’re on the outside of it. It’s objectively strange to see this level of personal emotional investment in such an institutional, dry, frankly bizarre custom surrounding someone most of these people never knew personally. And yet you do get the sense that they know him. It’s not a fan club, it’s a family reunion.
When asked to give a talk on St. Rafael’s spirituality, Sr. Ingrid sums him up as “el santo de ‘¿qué más da?’” (That is, “the ‘so what?’ saint.”) “So what if you’re here or there? So what if you’re sick or if you’re healthy?” she goes on. What does it matter? God is the same. His love is the same, and it’s enough. This movie says pretty much the same thing. So what if a person you love—a saint you’ve never met, a God you’re married to, a brother you miss—dwells in heaven rather than on earth? The love has to go somewhere, and mysteriously, it does.
So despite having approached this film with trepidation, fearing someone else’s portrayal and judgment of my incredibly specific occupation over the last two years, it turns out you can’t always see what’s most beautiful about your own life. You need someone else to describe it to you. I needed to hear that “so what.” Not the “so what if translation leads to a friendship across heaven and earth”—because I’ve been Catholic long enough not to be shy about sincere chumminess with the saints. But that deeper “so what”: “so what if the One I love happens to live on the other side of death?” Every religious person has to be willing to look that crazy, has to come to that point of almost ridiculous confidence. I want that for myself, to be a “so what” saint. I want it for you too.
Credits… and a request
You can rent Bruder Schwester for $2.50 USD here and follow the filmmaker, Maria Mohr, on Twitter here.
And now for an urgent research inquiry. There’s an amazing song in this movie, credited as “Los Nabos” by Alberto Ramos Díaz, that’s absolutely nowhere to be found. It’s an adaptation in song of Rafael’s story about the turnips, and I need it in my life, and if anyone out there is able to find it for me, I would be in your everlasting debt.
Catherine, this is beautiful. Thank you.