Reflections on St. Scholastica
Presented Bonita L. Gacnik, OSB of Sacred Heart Monastery, Yankton, SD

BOOC – Retreat / Orientation Weekend
August 1, 2004

Introduction
I will begin my reflections this morning with a paraphrase of Scholastica’s last encounter with Benedict as recorded by Gregory the Great in book II of his Dialogues (1).

The Story from the Dialogues  
…Scholastica used to visit Benedict once each year.  They would meet in a house belonging to the monastery, a short distance from the entrance.  On this particular visit, they spent the whole day praising God and conversing about the spiritual life.  At dusk, they took their meal together and continued their conversation at table until it was quite late.  At this point, Scholastica asked Benedict to spend the night.  She wanted to continue their conversation until dawn.  When Benedict refused to stay, Scholastica folded her hands on the table and rested her head upon them in earnest prayer.  When she raised her head, there was lightening and a sudden burst of thunder, accompanied by such a downpour of rain, that Benedict was unable to set foot outside the door.  So, Scholastica and Benedict spent the entire night together and both of them derived great profit from their insights regarding the interior life.  Gregory refers to this miracle as an answer to the woman’s prayer.  According to Gregory (1), Scholastica proved mightier than Benedict because “hers was the greater love.”

The Historical Scholastica   
These few sentences are all that the historian has inherited to reconstruct the life of St. Scholastica, a nun from childhood to old age… (6).  Scholastica, a shadowy figure, who according to tradition, is the sister of Benedict, lived in the late 5^th to around the middle of the 6^th century.  She was born to a Christian family in the mountains northeast of Rome.  “Scholastica has been revered down through the ages.  Gregory (1) wrote of her within 50 years of her death.  Her feast (February, 10) has been celebrated since the 8^th century (5).

We have all but lost Scholastica, the person.  Scholars have largely neglected her.  She exists somewhere between myth and reality.  But we, who are less intrigued by research than by the woman herself, will go on trying to discover what she was really like and what she has to offer the contemporary Christian, the contemporary Benedictine.

I will use the “Thunderstorm Episode” to reflect on the virtue of love as modeled by Scholastica and how it created a framework in her life for miracles, wisdom, discernment, hospitality, listening, and hope. 

Love and the “Miracle of the Thunderstorm”       
In his account from the Dialogues, Gregory judges that Scholastica loved more, loved more than Benedict (at least in this instance) and that is why God chose to answer her prayer with “the miracle of the thunderstorm,” making it impossible for Benedict to return to the monastery.

What is important in this incident is not that Scholastica loved more, but that Scholastica loved!  Love connotes intimacy, companionship, relationship…  Scholastica loved Benedict!  Scholastica loved God!  She was gifted with a deep spirituality and an intimate relationship with both God and her brother.  It was as natural for her to turn to God with her request as it was for her to turn to a friend, or to her brother. 

This incident is not an example of one who prevailed over another, but rather an example of love, her love of Benedict, her love of God, and God’s love of both Scholastica and Benedict.  Scholastica was a “woman aware of her freedom in God” because of her great love of God (4).  The “miracle of the thunderstorm” demonstrates the Rule in conflict with love, the law vainly opposing charity.  Charity triumphs (3). 

Love and the Gift of Wisdom          
Returning to Scholastica’s last visit with Benedict…  Scholastica wishes to continue their time together in “common prayer and spiritual conversation.”  Benedict wishes to return to the monastery.  Scholastica’s wishes prevail.  Benedict would not transgress the Rule in the sunshine and the blue sky.  However, he must transgress because of the lightening, the clouds, and the rain.

Abbot Butler and other scholars have made it clear that the Rule is derived from dozens of sources.  Benedict melds and moderates these many sources into a Rule characterized by discretion and charity (5).  Most probably, Scholastica was a significant influence on Benedict as he formulated this Rule.  According to Bruno Bernhardt, Scholastica symbolizes love, the feminine side of the Rule, the affective, the intuitive, the exception to the Rule.  De Vogue (3) says that “Scholastica’s caprice reminds us that… the spirituality of the Rule must remain subordinated to certain values, such as love… and direct obedience to the will of God…”   Scholastica demonstrates the “love has precedence over law (5).”  Scholastica models this love.  And, in her love, she models wisdom, the clarity of thought to know when to subordinate the Rule.

Love and the Gift of Discernment  
“Theologians define discernment in a spiritual context as habitually turning toward God in a constantly receptive effort to determine what He wills for us.  It is, as Johnette Putnam suggests, “…not a process, but … a way of life which is always attentive to the will of God.”  Without the habit of discernment, Scholastica would not have dared to presume that God’s will for her would be expressed in His sudden intervention and the granting of her request (5).”  Without her habit of discernment, Scholastica’s desire for more time with her brother might have been interpreted as personal weakness or selfishness.  Without her deep love of God and Benedict and her habit of discernment, Scholastica would not have had “the freedom of spirit” to ask God to grant her request.

Love and the Virtue of Hospitality             
At one of our house meetings here at the monastery, S. Jacquelyn (our prioress) presented part II in her series on monastic hospitality.  She said, “So our call as monastics is a call to create a sacred place that brings us in communion with God and then to share that space with God and others…  This is monastic hospitality.”  We are committed to a life-long quest for a deeper union with God and an openness to share this quest with those who come to us (7).   Returning to the Dialogues, Gregory (1) says, “They spent the whole day singing God’s praises and conversing about the spiritual life.”  Scholastica thirsts for more.  She pleads with Benedict to stay.  And, because of the storm, “They spend the entire night together and both of them derived great profit from the holy thoughts they exchanged about the interior life.”  The last encounter between Benedict and Scholastica is a beautiful example of monastic hospitality, “a call to create a sacred place that brings us in communion with God and then to share that space with God and others… (7)”

Love as a Lesson of Hope and Listening                
WE AREN’T THERE YET!!!  And, neither was Benedict.  We have more to experience, we have more to learn, and our relationships with God and one another must continue to grow.  Through this episode from the Dialogues, Benedict was given a lesson in listening.  His time with Scholastica was not to be cut short.  There was more to share, there was more to learn.  Benedict would not listen to Scholastica and her request for him to stay.  But, he did listen to the storm.  Some might say that Scholastica prevailed.  Perhaps it is more appropriate to say that God Prevailed.  This illustration is not a negative judgment on either Benedict or the Rule.  Rather, it is a message of hope and promise for all of us…(3).   Love can enhance our “listening” and call us to hope.

Conclusion                 
“Scholastica remains very real… to Benedictine women, with a reality which can transcend…historical facts, as a model of feminine aspects of Benedictine monasticism, and an example of the power of the soul who loves God (4).”  What then do we see in this woman distanced from us by centuries of silence and obscurity?  A woman who models the virtue of love which calls forth a variety of other gifts, among them:  miracles, wisdom, discernment, hospitality, hope, and listening.  Scholastica is a woman for our time, a completely human person dedicated to the search for the Divine, steadily growing in her realization that the search must culminate, not in constraint, but in freedom, not in weakness, but in strength … we have an inspiring portrait of a surprisingly modern, resolute woman who saw life as a series of decisions and doubted not at all her own ability to make them…(5).

References

1. Life and Miracles of St. Benedict by St. Gregory the Great, Liturgical Press.
    

2. Terrence Kardong, OSB, The Benedictines, Michael Glazier Books, 1988.
    

3. The Meeting of Benedict and Scholastica: An Interpretation by Adalbert de Vogue, OSB, Cistercian Studies, Vol XVIII, #3, 1983 (pp. 167-183).
    

4. Sr. Margaret Clarke, OSB, St. Benedict and St. Scholastica, The College of Saint Scholastica, Duluth, MN, Home Page.
    

5. Medieval Women Monastics, Wisdom’s Wellsprings, Miriam Schmitt & Linda Kulzer, Editors, Emerging from the Shadows: St. Scholastica, Mary Richard, Boo, OSB, and Joan M. Braun, OSB, pp 1-11.
    

6. Word and Spirit, a Monastic Review in Honor of Saints Benedict and Scholastica, St. Bede’s Publications, Still River, MA, 1981, pp. ix-x.
    

7. Jacquelyn Ernster, OSB, “Hospitality, Part II,” Community Night presentation, 1/25/98.
    

8. Fr. Pearse Aidan Cusack, O. Cist, St. Scholastica: Myth or Real Person? The Downside Review, July, 1974.

Oblate Director 
Sacred Heart Monastery
1005 West 8th Street
Yankton, SD 57078