This coming week we celebrate the Memorial of St. Scholastica, the sister of St. Benedict.
It is said that as one nears the end of his or her life, a certain kind of wisdom emerges that burns away all that is superfluous and excessive. Perhaps you have witnessed this yourself in family and friends over the years.
We see this in the life of St. Scholastica during her annual meeting with her brother St. Benedict.
Each being superiors of their religious communities, they met once a year for spiritual conversation in a little house halfway between their communities.
In the last of these meetings on February 6 in the year 543, shortly before her death, St. Scholastica asked her brother to continue their conversation until the following morning, but St. Benedict objected, saying it would break the Rule. “The Rule” required them to return to their own communities before the end of the day.
St. Scholastica, shedding tears, then prayed to God not to let her brother depart. Immediately after, an unexpected and violent storm forced St. Benedict to stay, so that the two of them indeed did talk all night and into the morning.
St. Benedict’s first reaction to the sudden downpour was “May Almighty God forgive you, sister. What have you done?” to which Scholastica answered, “I asked a favor of you, and you refused me. So I asked God and He answered me. Now go out, if you can. Leave me and go back to the monastery.”
Her response could not but please St. Benedict, for he had taught his sister to turn to God to Whom everything is possible in times of difficulties.
Three days after this meeting, St. Benedict was informed of his sister's death by a divine sign. He saw his sister’s soul ascend to Heaven in the form of a white dove.
He then desired to bury her in the tomb he had reserved for himself at Monte Cassino Abbey and where he too would be buried, a short time later.
If indeed there is a special wisdom to be celebrated and lived as we near the end of our earthly lives, please God, may we have just a bit of this now! May the Good Lord always help us at every moment to embrace and live all that is pleasing to Him, and to release all that is inconsequential.