Post #6442

According what pope St. Gregory the Great has handed down (he was also part of the gens Anicia) in the second book of the Dialogues, at the age of 12 years old was sent to Rome with her brother to carry out the classical studies, but both were profoundly disturbed by the dissolute life that was lead there. Retired Benedict in hermitage, Scholastica remained the only heir to the familiar possessions; but, refusing all earthly attachments, asked her father to be consecrated to the Lord in a monastery near Norcia. The father, although suffered from the detachment from the daughter, remembered of the given vow and accepted her decision. Consecrated to the Lord since her youth, few years later followed the brother to Subiaco and, when St. Benedict found the abbey of Montecassino, she wanted to reach him and at the foot of Montecassino she found the monastery of Piuarola (in the current territory of Villa Santa Lucia, Frosinone), where, living a common life with a group of consecrated women and following the Rule of St. Benedict, gave origins to the female branch of the Benedictine Order. Scholar, as her name indicated, she always dedicated to the school of her virtues (cf. Prologue of the Rule of Saint Benedict: “Ausculta, o fili, praecepta Magistri”), that she followed, it was none other than the echo of Jesus during His public life, thus the whole life of the Saint is summed up in these words: “love justice, and hate iniquity” (Introitus). The divine spouse, when he was going to get her, granted with a miracle the prayers of His beloved. Scholastica, recounts St. Gregory the Great (Dialogues, II Book, chapter 33), had the habit of going to visit the brother once a year; and the man of God descended to receive her in a property of the monastery not too distant from her residence. When she had gone according to habit, her venerable brother came down to her with a few disciples; and after having spent the whole day in the praises of God and in holy talks, as the darkness of the night fell, they took the meal together. When they were still seated at the table and the hour in the holy speeches had extended, the same holy woman his sister begged him by saying: "Please do not abandon me this night, so that we may speak until morning about the joys of heavenly life". But he answered her: «What are you saying, oh sister? At no cost I can stay outside the monastery". The sky was then so clear that no clouds appeared in the sky. The holy woman, hearing the negative answer of her brother, placed her hands with her fingers folded on the table, bent her head in her palms and prayed to the almighty Lord. As she raised her head from the table, such violence of lightning and thunder broke out, and such a deluge of rain, that neither the venerable Benedict, nor the monks who were with him were able to set foot outside the threshold of the place where they were. The holy woman, bending her head in her hands, had poured a torrent of tears on the table, from which she had made the rain succeed to the serenity of the air. Nor did the flood follow long after the prayer; but the simultaneity between prayer and the flood was so great that when she raised her head from the table, thunders were already breaking out; so that both the raising of the head and the falling of the rain were one and the same moment. Then the man of God seeing that the lightning and thunder and the downpour of torrential rain did not allow him to return to the monastery, saddened, began to grieve, saying: "Almighty God forgive you, sister: what have you ever done?" And she answered him: “Behold, I have begged you, and you did not want to listen to me; I prayed to my God, and He listened to me. Now go out if you can; and, leave me, go back to the monastery”. But he could not leave the house, while at first he did not want to stay there spontaneously, then he remained there in spite of himself. And so it happened, they spent the whole night in holy talks of spiritual life, they were satisfied in the reciprocal exchange of their feelings.