Today marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of this Augustinian Recollect who dedicated his life to the initial and ongoing formation of religious, to the service of Government, to the support of the Secular Fraternity and to the representation of the Order before the Holy See.
Juan de Dios Araiz was born in Caparroso (Navarra, Spain) 150 years ago today, on March 8, 1875. As a child, he entered the Saint Joseph Preparatory School in San Millán de la Cogolla (La Rioja, Spain), the so-called “grammarian boarding school,” the immediate predecessor of the minor seminaries.
This School was the first of the Augustinian Recollects and welcomed students from 11 to 15 years of age with a certain religious vocation, although it was not yet clear, to whom it offered accommodation, food and education. Juan was a student in the first stage and was part of its reopening as a member of the training team.
The first voyage of this School was short-lived due to the Philippine Revolution, which deprived the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine of the means to maintain it. In June 1898 the provincial prior was quick to close it and bring forward the summer vacations of the students, who would not return.
Juan professed as a religious on March 9, 1891, at the age of 16, which was usual at that time. He studied philosophy and theology at the Recollect convents of San Millán de la Cogolla and Marcilla (Navarra).
On March 26, 1898 Araiz received priestly ordination in Vitoria (Álava). From that moment on he was assigned to the newly opened houses in Andalusia, first in the residence in Granada and then, in 1899, as one of the founders of the Recollect community in Motril, which opened the church of Our Lady of Victory.
In 1904 he returned to San Millán for the reopening of the Saint Joseph Preparatory School, six years after it had been closed. The closure of the apostolic school and the novitiate in 1898 worried everyone and more and more voices called for its reopening. It was of vital importance for the future of the community, which, otherwise, was destined to disappear.
The first step was taken by the provincial prior when in 1902 he asked the community of San Millán to make space available for its reopening. In October 1903 he asked Pedro Corro and Fernando Mayandía to draft the Regulations. On February 29, 1904 he appointed Vicente Jiménez as director and on April 16 he assigned his collaborators: Juan Araiz, Teófilo Garnica and Cándido Ladrón de Guevara.
The School reopened its doors on May 9, 1904 with 53 students. Vicente Jiménez and Juan Araiz improved and adjusted its Regulations to reality and needs.
In 1905 Araiz published a book on the purpose and organization of the Correa Brotherhood, the predecessor of the Secular Fraternity, recently established in San Millán. It was not a new task for him, since the community of Motril had established it in September 1899, five months after his arrival.
In 1910 Araiz acquired the title of Lector, which qualified him to be a teacher. From that time on, he was twice the director of the Emilian college and once the vice-rector of the religious community.
His academic activity reached all the religious of the Province, as he opened a section entitled “Liturgical-Canonical Review” in the Bulletin of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine. He presented studies and summaries of the latest documents of the Holy See so that his brothers, wherever they are, could be updated on Liturgy and Canon Law.
In February 1910, Juan Araiz, Fidel de Blas and Edmundo Goñi were appointed to a Commission to adapt the Ceremonial to the current liturgical legislation, and together with Celestino Yoldi, Araiz was also entrusted with the musical part of the Ritual.
In 1920, after the General Chapter, Juan de Dios Araiz was appointed procurator general of the Order. The headquarters of the generalate of the Augustinian Recollects was in Madrid, on Príncipe de Vergara Street, until 1930, when it was moved to Rome. World War II made it advisable to return to Madrid until the end of 1949.
For this reason, the procurators general resided in Rome and played the important role of natural link between the Holy See and the Order, a task they fulfilled with dignity. Gregorio Segura (1914-1920) was succeeded by Juan Araiz (1920-1926), and then by Daniel Delgado (1926-1934).
As procurator, Juan Araiz played an important role in the Jubilee of 1925, 100 years ago. On the occasion of the Holy Year, a large exhibition of Catholic missions was organised in Rome, and since 1923 Juan de Dios has been working to ensure that the Augustinian Recollects were well represented there.
Araiz asked the entire Order for certain materials to be sent to Rome before September 1924, a difficult requirement to meet in isolated missions such as Palawan (Philippines) or Casanare and Tumaco (Colombia). In fact, some objects arrived late and were not displayed, and others arrived in ruins due to poor packaging.
However, the presence of the Augustinian Recollects at the exhibition was worthy and in keeping with their real status. In Pavilion 5 (South America), the Order exhibited 119 stuffed birds, butterflies, 70 pieces of wood, textiles and manufactured goods, resins, musical instruments and a painting of the Virgin of Manare, all from Colombia.
In Pavilion 15 (Japan, the Philippines and Indochina) the Recollects exhibited maps and photographs of their presence in the Philippines, 372 pieces of wood from the island of Negros, animals, minerals, plants, weapons, musical instruments, a model of a nipa house, kitchen utensils, manufactured goods made of silk, abaca or pineapple, embroidery by girls from the schools of Manila, Zamboanguita and Dumaguete and an indigenous alphabet from Palawan.
In Pavilion 7, a hundred manuscripts and prints by Recollects such as Tomas de San Jerónimo, Andrés de San Nicolás, Juan de la Concepción, Basilio de San Pablo, Patricio Adell and Santiago Matute were displayed, as well as rare works such as Relación del transito de Pedro de Santiago (1630) and Proventus messis dominicae (1656). In compliance with the Pope’s wishes, they later became part of the Propaganda Fide Library.
His work in Rome earned him the trust to be named general counselor (definitor, in the terminology of that time) in 1926, president of the General Chapter of 1932, treasurer and teacher of professed students of the International College of Saint Ildefonse.
One of the tasks entrusted to Juan Araiz was the updating of the main charismatic and spiritual documents. In 1927 he published the Ritual of the Order, and he translated the Rule of Saint Augustine and the Constitutions of 1930 into Spanish.
In 1935, ill, he retired to the convent of Marcilla (Navarra), where he died on October 6, 1936 due to tuberculous cerebral sclerosis. The Recollect Miguel Avellaneda, continuing the catalogue of religious begun by Francisco Sádaba, reveals a pleasant detail about Juan Araiz: “In his spare time he devoted himself to painting, leaving some copies of famous paintings”.
