Scholastica

Saint Scholastica was a virgin consecrated to God from Nursia in Italy, the sister of Saint Benedict of Nursia, and according to tradition she is regarded as the beginner of Benedictine women's monastic life. All that is known with certainty about her comes from the Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great (book two). She is a saint of the undivided Church, honoured in the West and in some Orthodox dioceses of Western Europe. She is remembered on 10 February.

Her life

According to the Dialogues, Scholastica was born around 480 at Nursia in Umbria, in a well-⁠to-⁠do family. Gregory says only that she was Benedict's sister. A later tradition, from the ninth century, makes her his twin. From youth she was dedicated to God. After Benedict left for Rome to study, and then for Subiaco and Monte Cassino, she lived, by Benedictine tradition, in a community of virgins not far from her brother's monastery. Details of her beginnings have not been preserved.

The last meeting

Scholastica visited her brother once a year, at a house near his monastery, and they spent the day in prayer and in talk about spiritual things. Once, after they had talked all day and had supper, Benedict said that he must leave, since by his rule he could not stay overnight outside the monastery. Scholastica, perhaps sensing that her death was near, asked him to stay until morning so that they might speak further of the joys of heaven. Benedict refused. Then she bowed her head on her hands and prayed. At once a terrible storm broke, with thunder and rain, so that Benedict and his brothers could not leave. Gregory shows by this that she had more power because she loved more. They spent the night in spiritual conversation.

Three days later, Benedict, in his cell, saw the soul of his sister leave her body and rise to heaven in the form of a dove. He gave thanks to God, sent the brothers to bring her body and laid it in the tomb he had prepared for himself at Monte Cassino. Her death is usually dated to 10 February 543, though some sources give 547. Benedict also died at Monte Cassino and was laid in the same tomb.

Veneration

The relics of the two siblings were kept at Monte Cassino. By one tradition, some of them were taken to France, to Le Mans, in the seventh century. The abbey of Monte Cassino was destroyed in the bombing of 1944 and later rebuilt. Scholastica is regarded as patroness of Benedictine nuns, of learning and of children with convulsions, and is invoked against storms. In art she is shown in a Benedictine habit, with a dove or a book.