April 16th - St. Benedict Joseph Labre (RM)
Born at Amettes (near Boulogne), Arras, France, March 26 (25?), 1748; died
in Rome, April 17 (16?), 1783; beatified in 1860; canonized in 1881.
Since God leads each of us in our own way, our spiritual life will assume
an
pattern totally different from that of anyone else. Each of us is one of a
kind. Our spirituality then should also be one of a kind. This is shown
dramatically in various people's lives.
The story of Saint Benedict caught my eye and my heart. He was born in
18th
century France in Amettes, then in the diocese of Boulogne-sur-Mer, to a
family of prosperous shopkeepers. His mother claimed to feel his sanctity
while she carried him in her womb. Because of his piety he was sent to an
uncle who was a parish priest at Erin for his education in Latin, grammar,
and mathematics to prepare him for the religious life.
A domestic servant in his uncle's house, probably jealous, used to knock
Benedict about when they were alone and forced the youngster to perform
chores beyond the strength of his years. Since Benedict seemed to find
this
odious treatment amusing, the bully was disarmed.
In freedom from the prying eyes of his preoccupied elders, little Benedict
tried his hand at austerities, the recipes for which he found in the dusty
library of the presbytery. In addition to almsgiving that gives so much
pleasure to the giver, he adopted a minor practice in austerity that was
more sane than them all: every night he would replace his pillow with a
plank of oakwood. Once upon being surprised while sleeping in this way, he
explained, without ostentation: "I do it in order not to sleep too
deeply."
He made steady progress in his studies until he was 16. Then, suddenly, he
was unable to learn any more. His uncle died of cholera after he and
Benedict had ministered to other victims in the parish. Is this the reason
he could learn no more? Or was it because Benedict was overcome by the
dark
night of the soul, as Saint John of the Cross calls this state, in which
God
forms the soul and prepares it for union with himself?
After his uncle's death, he walked 60 miles to La Trappe to become a monk.
He was irresistibly drawn to the very austere order. But he was denied
entry. He vainly applied numerous times between 1766 and 1770 for entry
into
the Trappists, Carthusians, and Cistercians, but each time was sent home.
For some of the communities he was too young; others, after admitting him,
found him to be suffering such spiritual tortures that they couldn't let
him
stay; to still others, the failure of his physical health was proof that
he
could not observe the rule and, therefore, must be rejected.
Finally, Benedict realized that God must have something else in store for
him. He went home and told his parents that he felt God was calling him to
Rome. Perhaps because he was the eldest of 15 children, they were
reluctant
but finally gave him their blessing. Off he went on foot to Rome, begging
his way.
Those who have never begged say that it's painful only the first time, but
this isn't true. One does not knock on all doors in the same way. It is
not
true that the same words invariably come to mind in front of different
faces. Each time is the first time. How tempting then to deprive yourself
of
a stale piece of bread which even the dogs would forego and to not ask.
Begging is not easy. Try stretching out your own hand and you will see how
difficult it is to swallow pride and ask for help.
Saint Vincent de Paul understood that the beggar needs us and deprives
himself of us because we deprive ourselves of him. A beggar is a man who
is
completely at our mercy, and whom we never thank for the op****tunity to
act
in God's Name.
The saint wandered to Italy to seek admission there into a strict
monastery
or community of hermits. In Italy he experienced inner enlightenment and
clearly recognized that it was God's will that, like Saint Alexis, he was
to
leave his home, his father and mother, and everything that was agreeable
in
the world, in order to lead a new life, a life of rigorous penance, in the
midst of the world, as an eternal pilgrim.
From the moment of this recognition, his soul was filled with perfect
peace,
and all attempts made by confessors to bring him back to an ordered life,
with work, failed.
Benedict Joseph wandered. For the next three or four years he wandered
about
western Europe, going from shrine to shrine. He went to Santiago de
Compostella in Spain, to Aix-en-Provence and Paray-le-Monial in France, to
Assisi, Loreto, and Bari in Italy. He paid repeated visits to Einsiedeln
and
to German sanctuaries, made a pilgrimage every year to Loretto, and
continued to make Rome his city of perpetual pilgrimage. He always
traveled
on foot, slept in the open or in some corner, his clothing rags, his body
filthy, picking up food where he could, and sharing any money given to
him.
As he traveled in his sack-cloth cinched with a rope, he carried with him
only his perpetual nourishment: the Imitation of Christ, the New
Testament,
and a breviary. His rosary was made from the berries of wild rose bushes,
which he would eat when they began to wear out.
He finally settled in Rome in 1774, where he found his vocation as a
tramp,
wandering the streets with other vagrants. How could this be a vocation?
He
dressed in rags and wandered from shrine to shrine. Eventually he became
widely known as one of the homeless who roamed the streets accepting
crumbs
of food and clothes that the charitable would give him.
During the day he spent most of his time in churches with perpetual
adoration; at night he wandered to the seven major basilicas. He quenched
his thirst at the fountains; he lived from remnants of food found in the
streets. He slept for a few hours under an arch of the Coliseum at the
station of the Cross named "Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the
Cross."
As time went on people began to realize that there was something different
about this tramp. He became known as the 'beggar of the Coliseum' or the
'beggar of the perpetual adoration.'
It was rumored that he was of high birth but had committed a murder or
other
heinous crime and now sought atonement. Alms given to him burned in his
hand; he passed them on to other who he deemed more needy. He was once
beaten by a man who thought Benedict had spurned his offer of money
because
he gave it away.
His soul hovered constantly over the greatest mysteries of the faith. And,
just as all water streams to the sea, so everything carried him on to the
mysteries of the Most Holy Trinity. "When I contemplate the crowning of
thorns," he said to the priest who examined him, "I feel myself elevated
to
the Trinity of God."
"What do you, a man without education, understand about this mystery?" the
priest asked.
"I understand nothing about it," Benedict answered, "but I feel myself
trans****ted to it." And this trans****t was sometimes so strong that his
soul
was carried away and his body lay as though dead.
One day as he was praying at Saint Ignatius' and had fallen into ecstasy,
an
anxious visitor to the church asked the sacristan in alarm: "What has
happened to this beggar?"
Benedict seemed to be swaying in the air. He was in a position that mocked
the laws of equilibrium and gravity. "The saint is in ecstasy," said the
sacristan, as though this were the most natural thing in the world, and
went
on sweeping with his broom.
Such soaring over the ground, as well as bilocation, is frequently
attested
in Benedict's case. As he worked in painting the interior of the church,
Antonio Cavallucci was so impressed by the sight of the saint that he once
took him to his studio and painted him. This painting can still be seen at
the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome, Italy.
This painting and his death mask reveal that Benedict was a handsome man
with deep-set eyes, strong cheek bones, a perfectly straight and noble
nose,
high forehead, and gently protruding upper lip. Not only was his soul
beautiful, so was his physical body. Perhaps the one transformed the
other?
He is reputed to have multiplied bread for the hungry, and on another
occasion to have cured an invalid.
One day some friends found him in a quiet glen on his knees absorbed in
prayer. He stayed that way for the longest time. His companions were
deeply
impressed. They also found out that he had the rare gift of counseling
people with the most complex problems and bringing them peace.
His reputation spread throughout Rome and soon strangers from all walks of
life came to talk to him: lawyers, doctors, judges, women in society,
bishops, cardinals, as well as just ordinary folks. His wisdom and
understanding enabled him to bring peace to the most troubled souls.
He neglected his body and his fragile health finally obliged him to seek
refuge in a hospice for poor men. There he was known to give away his
****tion of the soup.
The man who had spent long hours before the Blessed Sacrament collapsed
from
exhaustion on the steps of his favorite Roman church, Santa Maria dei
Monti,
during Holy Week and died, consumed by the inner flame of ceaseless
prayer,
in the back room of a butcher's shop to which he had been carried. Since
the
burial of Saint Philip Neri, there had been no such crowd pressing to see
the mortal remains of a servant of God as at the Requiem Mass for Benedict
Joseph. The military summoned to the scene had difficulty preserving
order.
After his burial, people came from all over Europe to visit his grave and
ask his intercession with God. In less than three months after his death,
136 miracles had already been protocoled. The healings and graces people
received were so overwhelming that the Vatican was forced to start the
process for his canonization as a saint. In record time, in 1883, he was
proclaimed a person of rare heroic holiness.
The people of Rome had no doubt about the holiness of this 'new Saint
Francis.' He is a late Western example of an ascetical vocation better
known
in the East, that of the pilgrim or wandering holy man. He also has points
of resemblance with the Greek saloi and Russian yurodivy, 'fools for
Christ's sake' (Attwater, Attwater2, Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia,
Farmer, Girzone, de la Gorce, Schamoni, White).
On the day of his canonization Mass, in the crowded Saint Peter's Basilica
way above the heads of the congregation was the glorious painting of this
sainted tramp dressed in his rags, held up for the veneration and
admiration
of all the faithful.
"What a strange vocation! And you cannot help but ask why. But it was a
time
when the whole Christian world had become so materialistic that spiritual
things meant little to people. So God called this young man to give up
everything and wander the streets of Rome with other homeless people,
dressed in the stinking rags of a tramp.
"All the while God molded in the depths of his soul a holiness that
transcended anything people had ever witnessed, and held up the remarkable
spirituality of this lowly beggar for the admiration and example of all.
It
was no doubt a difficult vocation for one to follow, but Saint Benedict
was
always a happy man, so he must have found a strange satisfaction in the
realization that he was following where God was leading him" (Girzone).
Where is God leading you? Have you heard His voice yet? It's a small voice
that cannot be heard except in the stillness of your heart. You, too, are
called to be a saint-but how?
And how many of those nameless, faceless souls that we pass on the street
are really God's Presence among us? How often do we recognize Him in them?
Which one(s) is the saint we have failed to recognize?
In art, Saint Joseph Labre is depicted as a beggar with his bowl and the
tricorn hat of a pilgrim sharing his alms with other poor (Roeder, White).
He is the patron saint of tramps and the homeless (White).
Saint Quote:
"The Lord is loving toward men, swift to pardon but slow to punish. Let no
man despair of his own salvation. Peter, the first and foremost of the
apostles, denied the Lord three times before a little servant girl, but he
repented and wept bitterly.
-Cyril of Jerusalem" (Catechetical Lectures 2:19 [A.D. 350]).
Bible Quote:
He who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never
thirst.
-St. John 6:35
<><><><>
A prayer composed by Pope Pius XII, to Our Lady of Lourdes:
Immaculate Virgin of Lourdes, in compliance with thy loving invitation, we
kneel before thee in the lowly grotto where thou didst appear in order to
point out the way of prayer and penance to those who had strayed, and to
distribute to those sorely beset by bitter anguish the graces and marvels
of thy queenly bounty.
Accept, compassionate Queen, the praise and prayers which all peoples and
nations address to thee with confidence.
O ****ning vision of Paradise, dispel the shadows of error from our minds
with the light of Faith. O mystical Rose, comfort dejected souls with the
heavenly fragrance of Hope. O inexhaustible source of lifegiving waters,
refresh our barren hearts with the waves of Divine Love.
Grant that we, thy children, strengthened in affliction, protected in
danger, and sup****ted in our struggles, may so love and serve thy Divine
Son as to merit eternal joys at the foot of thy heavenly throne. Amen.
Imprimatur: Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York; Nov 26,
1958.
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