This week, on Nov. 14, is World Diabetes Day, a disease that causes some 4 million deaths a year, according to the World Health Organization. The Catholic Church considers St. Rafael Arnáiz Baron to be the patron saint of those suffering from diabetes.
St. Rafael Arnáiz is considered one of the great mystics of the 20th century, and, because of this disease, he could not fulfill his desire to become a Trappist monk, so he was only allowed to be an oblate.
Born in Burgos in 1911, he was educated in schools of the Society of Jesus in his city of origin and in Oviedo, where his family later moved for work reasons.
As a child, he suffered from various illnesses. At the age of 10, after recovering from pleurisy, his father took him to Zaragoza to offer him to the Virgin of Pilar in gratitude for his cure.