Dear Benedict
Today we celebrate the life of your twin sister, St Scholastica. Of course even as I write this I am making a whole host of assumptions about her, you and the story. Some wonder if she really existed, some wonder if she really was your twin sister and some wonder if she had a story of her own.
I’m a great one for wondering. It gets me by. I’ll go with Scholastica as sister and twin for the purposes of wondering. That tradition has it that she lived a monastic life and that her community used your Rule, as do so many still today. It would be obvious to any who knew me that I’d borrow St Scholastica’s cover story for the Mobile Chapel of which I’m the unconfined hermit.
The idea that both twin communities were following the same rule gives it a greater strength. It was being tried out and lived with in different circumstances. Although the scholar in me would like to have more words actually attributable to Scholastica, I think there are plenty in the Rule that are probably hers. You heard her and it would have influenced what you wrote. As I write to you I try to find a short title for the day, and I attribute that search to Scholastica: an urge to find a few words that resonate with contemporary life.
I also learned that Scholastica is known as the patron saint of children with epilepsy. As one who worked with children who have epilepsy and their families for many years this is dear to me too.
From the remembered gospel: At the bottom of the mountain, Jesus meets a family of a boy who has seizures. This child’s father says to Jesus ‘I believe, help my unbelief!’ The mother is silent.
So today I once again think of all those silent through the ages, not necessarily by choice, but often by convention. I remember the silent unrecorded ones, those who’s words were not written down or remembered. I remember all those who have helped my unbelief.
Like Scholastica, may I follow The Way.
From a Friend of Scholastic and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.