Long ago when I visited New Hampshire and climbed the mountain known as South Pack Monadnock I watched chipmunks run around on the rocks there. Chipmunks often run in a straight line, and then suddenly turn 90º and dart in the new direction for a bit. Rinse and repeat. That’s my brain this morning. For example, this is Not a picture of South Pack.
Saint Scholastica, patron of storms, and sister to Saint Benedict, is honored by the Church today, February 10. I know only one story about her and evidently, it is the only story anyone knows about her. Saint Gregory, the Great, is responsible for writing this story down in his 2nd Book of the Dialogues. I knew nothing about the Dialogues but went to look into them, wondering why Saint Gregory was writing about Saint Scholastica, some hundreds of years later.
According to the introduction to the Dialogues, Gregory was extremely depressed by his life. A disciple of his asked him what he was thinking about, and he said that he had been living in a monastery praying, and then was dragged out of it to become pope and worry about earthly problems. More or less. He felt that this was destroying him spiritually. He then told his disciple a lot of stories about different saints in order to remind himself of the holiness that he was striving for.
That’s a very simplistic version of the story. I actually read the first few pages of the Dialogue and they were clear (someone did a good translation) and universal in the problem they described, trying to maintain a holy life when circumstances change. This is a very pretty pdf version of the Dialogues. https://www.saintsbooks.net/books/Pope St. Gregory the Great – Dialogues.pdf
At any rate, Saint Scholastica was born in 480 near Norcia in Italy. Today, a Benedictine monastery of monks brews beer and endures earthquakes near the place where she and her brother, Benedict lived. She died near Monte Cassino, the monastery founded by her brother, Saint Benedict in Italy.
Saint Scholastica founded convents for women to follow the Benedictine rule, but they aren’t called ‘Scholastican’ or anything else that would signal their foundress.
According to Saint Gregory, Benedict and Scholastica got together once a year at a meeting place outside Benedict’s monastery. Benedict’s rule forbade him to stay outside the monastery at night so the brother and sister would meet for a day and then return to their respective abodes. Once, as the end of the day approached, Scholastica asked Benedict to stay for the night so they could spend it discussing the wonders that would be found in heaven. Benedict was horrified and said no. Scholastica put her head down and started both praying and crying.
When she lifted her head with the tears pouring down her cheeks a huge storm broke outside with high winds and rain pouring down. There was no way for Benedict to get back to his monastery. He asked his sister what she had done and she said essentially, that since he had been so unloving, she had asked God for the favor and He had lovingly granted it. !!!
They spend the night discussing heaven and Scholastica died three days later. I can’t help but think that Benedict was glad he had stayed and discussed heaven with his sister, when he realized that she was gone.
Here’s a picture of her with a bunch of guys plus Our Lady and Baby up in the clouds. I think she looks sweet.
The Madonna and Child with Two Angels and Saints Scholastica, Benedict, Roch, Peter, Paul and Jerome c. 1740. Francesco Fontebasso after Sebastiano Ricci From the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Public domain.
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