Francisco Gárate Aranguren was born on 3 February 1857 in the farmstead of Recarte, in Azpeitia in Guipúzcoa, not far from the castle of Loyola where Saint Ignatius had been born. He was the second of seven brothers, sons of Francisco Gárate and María Aranguren, and he grew up in the plain, hard-working piety of a Basque country household. From his earliest years he opened his heart to Christ who stood at his door and knocked, inviting him to be a faithful follower and friend; like the Virgin Mary, whom he loved tenderly as a mother, he answered the call of grace with generosity and boundless trust.
At the age of fourteen he left his home to take domestic work at the newly opened college of Nuestra Señora de la Antigua at Orduña in Biscay. There, among the Jesuits, his vocation ripened. In 1874, at seventeen, he resolved to enter the Society of Jesus — not as a priest, but as a coadjutor brother. Because the revolution of 1868 had driven the Spanish Jesuits from their country, the novitiate had been transferred to Poyanne in the south of France, and Francisco set out on foot with two other young men to reach it. He began his novitiate on 2 February 1874 and pronounced his first vows on 2 February 1876.
With the return of peace the Spanish Jesuits came home, and on 29 October 1877 Brother Gárate was sent to the college of La Guardia, near Pontevedra on the Atlantic coast, as sacristan and infirmarian. For ten years he cared for some two hundred boys, and the students never forgot his patience, his self-forgetfulness and his charity, above all toward the sick. He made his final vows on 15 August 1887, the feast of the Assumption.
In March 1888 he was assigned to the college of higher studies at Deusto in Bilbao — the future University of Deusto — as porter and sacristan. He remained at that door for forty-one years, until his death. The entrance hall of the university had the look of a busy port: parents talking with their sons, men of every walk of life discussing their affairs with the fathers and professors, delivery men bringing goods and food, beggars come in search of alms. In that crowd Brother Gárate received each and every one in particular with his kind smile, greeted those who were leaving, and comforted every heart with a well-chosen word or a peaceful and most courteous conversation. Students, professors, employees and strangers alike came to call him, affectionately, "Brother Courtesy." Besides the porter's lodge he looked after the still-unfinished buildings, supervised works, kept the courtyards clean, served as sacristan and gardener, and from 1916 tended the telephone switchboard that had been installed there.
His austerity was hidden in his simplicity: his room, his clothing and his food were of the poorest and plainest. He lived his religious consecration as a radical openness to God, to whose service and glory he offered himself and from whom he drew the inspiration and strength to be good to everyone. Asked how he managed so much with such serenity, he answered: "I calmly do what I can, the rest is done by the Lord, who can do everything. With his help everything is light and smooth, because we serve a good master." From that doorway a lay brother made the goodness of God present by the evangelizing power of a silent and humble service — a living witness that the interior life is the soul of every apostolate. Two of his brothers followed his example and became professed Jesuit brothers as well.
His health failed on 8 September 1929, when he was seized by sharp abdominal pains after Mass. He consented to go to bed only on condition that he first finish his chores. That evening he asked for Viaticum; his suffering was such that a doctor was called and operated on him, and though the operation succeeded he continued to sink. Having received the last rites, Brother Gárate died at seven in the morning on 9 September 1929, the feast of Saint Peter Claver, in his room at the University of Deusto. Students pressed their rosaries and crucifixes to his coffin. His remains were exhumed in August 1946 and in 1964 were laid in a chapel of the university he had served so long.
Considered a perfect and holy religious already in his lifetime, his cause was opened at Bilbao and Vitoria with an informative process running from 14 December 1939 to 29 July 1940; his writings were approved in 1942, and the Congregation of Rites gave formal approval to the cause in 1950, when he received the title Servant of God. On 11 February 1982 Pope John Paul II declared that he had practised the virtues to a heroic degree, and after the approval of a miracle worked through his intercession the same Pope beatified him on 6 October 1985, together with the Jesuits Diego Luis de San Vitores and José María Rubio y Peralta. He is commemorated liturgically on 10 September, and his elogium is read in the Roman Martyrology on 9 September.
May Blessed Francisco Gárate obtain for us the grace to meet every person who knocks at our door today with the same unhurried kindness, doing calmly what we can and leaving the rest to the Lord who can do everything.
