Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
The Book of Sirach says of creation, "All things come in pairs, one opposite the other, and He has made nothing incomplete." In the visible heavens are the sun and moon, the two great lights in the heavens. In the heaven of the Church are Jesus and Mary, and so too among the Saints we find pairs: St. Francis and St. Clare, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal, St. Benedict, and St. Scholastica. St. Scholastica was born around AD 480 in Norcia (or Nursia as it's called in Latin). She and St. Benedict are said to have been twins, and certainly, they were twins, spiritually speaking.
At that time, there was no longer a Roman Emperor in the West. The last Emperor had recently been deposed by the barbarian Odoacer, who ruled Italy and was at least nominally subject to the Emperor in Byzantium. Roman power and culture were gradually breaking down, at least in the West, and Providence was raising up monasticism, which would preserve human knowledge during the long winter of political instability. But that work was secondary to their primary work of seeking God, seeking holiness through prayer and work. St. Scholastica was consecrated as a virgin to God in early childhood, and she began living as a nun in a cell before St. Benedict became a monk. Details of her life are scanty, but St. Gregory the Great, our main source, implies that she stayed close to her brother once he was established in monastic life. In the latter period of their lives, they had moved well south of Rome to Monte Cassino, where St. Benedict arrived in the spring of 529. On this mountain, there had been a pagan temple, which St. Benedict replaced with a monastery. There, he wrote his rule. St. Scholastica lived lower down in the hills. She probably led a small group of nuns but wouldn't have had the title of abbess. From an examination of the relics made in 1950, we know that she was about five foot three in height, and she had a great deal of strength. She was about five foot three, and he was about five foot eight. Once a year, they would meet for a spiritual colloquy, and St. Gregory tells us the story of one such meeting.
There's reason to think that this particular one took place on February 7th, 547. This was the Thursday before the first Sunday of Lent. There was no public liturgy on Thursdays, so this would have been a good day to meet before they isolated themselves in intense prayer and penance for Lent. The meeting would have taken place at the time of Lent. She would have been sixty-six or sixty-seven years old, and if they were twins, he the same age. This is consistent with her relics which show which are the bones of someone between sixty and seventy years old. But back then there was not the medical care that there is today, so being sixty or seventy was usually harder on the body than it is today. Since women were not allowed in the monastery enclosure, they met a short distance outside it in a house that belonged to the monastery.
St. Benedict was accompanied by a couple of his disciples, and the two saints spent the whole day praising God and conversing about the spiritual life. At sunset, they took their evening meal together and kept talking until it was quite late. Then St. Scholastica said, "Please do not leave me tonight, brother. Let us keep on talking about the joys of heaven till morning."
He refused because the monks were not allowed to spend the night outside their cells. He was the abbot and had to set a good example. If he made an exception for himself, even if it was a reasonable one, the monks would want exceptions for themselves, even when it wasn't reasonable. So it was quite impossible for him to stay.
So St. Scholastica folded her hands on the table and rested her head upon them in earnest prayer. It was a cloudless night, but when she looked up again, there was lightning and thunder and such intense rain that no one could set foot outside the house. By shedding a flood of tears while she prayed, this holy nun had opened the floodgates of heaven. It was clear who was responsible because the thunder started as soon as she finished her prayer and raised her head from the table.
St. Benedict, saddened by this turn of events, said, "God Almighty forgive you, sister. What have you done?" She simply answered, "When I appealed to you, you would not listen to me. So I turned to my God, and He heard my prayer. Leave now, if you can. Leave me and go back to your monastery."
So, in this case, it was the weaker sex that proved the stronger because it was not a matter of the body but of the soul. As St. Gregory comments, her influence with God was greater because she loved Him more. Since charity is the essence of sanctity, it would seem that she was holier than he.
By the miraculous downpour, God dealt with St. Benedict's concern. He would not occasion any relaxation of monastic discipline by remaining, since he was truly unable to leave. Another reason for God to grant the miracle was that He knew this was the last time the two siblings would see each other. Thanks to the miracle, they spent the whole night together, and both of them derived great profit from the holy thoughts they exchanged about the interior life.
When morning came, we can suppose St. Benedict celebrated Mass and gave his sister communion for the last time. Then they parted. Three days later, he was in his cell, contemplating the heavens through a window that looked out in the direction of his sister's monastery. He saw her soul ascend to heaven in the form of a dove, an appropriate symbol of her pure desire for heaven. We could also see the dove as a symbol of the Holy Spirit, saying that she yielded herself so completely to the Holy Spirit in prayer and in all her life that she became indistinguishable from Him.
St. Benedict was elderly, so he sent some younger monks to collect his sister's body and bring it up the mountain for burial in the tomb that he had prepared for himself. Not long afterward, when he died, he was laid there too, and their remains rest together to this day.
The monastery was destroyed several times over the centuries. The first time was when it was sacked by the Lombards, a couple of decades after the death of the two saints. The monks fled to Rome and told St. Gregory stories of St. Benedict, which he wrote down for us, including this story of St. Scholastica that we heard. The last time the monastery was destroyed was when it was bombed during World War II. One of the many bombs bounced off the tomb of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica without exploding. It seems God wanted to save them as perpetual models, and that was the way to return to paradise and the power of loving service to God.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.