Happy Birthday, Holy Father!
Today is the Holy Father's 82nd birthday. Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI was born on April 16, 1927. It was Holy Saturday. He was baptized on the same day. One-hundred-forty-four years earlier, on April 16, 1783 a poor man, who prayed always, died in Rome. His name: Benedict Joseph Labre. It is strange and wonderful that a man named Joseph, born on the feast of Saint Benedict Joseph, should take the name Benedict upon his election to the papacy. It is as if a providential indication of his destiny had been given from the beginning.
A Pilgrim
Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, born on March 26, 1748 in northern France, exemplifies a very particular kind of holiness found in both East and West. He was a wanderer who prayed ceaselessly, a pilgrim walking from one holy place to another, a fool for Christ.
A Misfit
As a young man, Benedict Joseph made a number of unsuccessful attempts at monastic life. He tried his vocation with the Trappists, with the Cistercians, and with the Carthusians, but, in every instance, after a few months or a few weeks, he was rejected as being unsuitable. Benedict Joseph was endearing in his own way. He was a gentle young man, tortured by scruples of conscience, and sensitive. He was completely honest, humble, candid, and open. He was cheerful. But, for all of that, he was a misfit. There was an oddness about him. He was drawn irresistibly to monastic life and, at the same time, rejected from every monastery in which he tried his vocation.
The Road
When he was twenty-two years old, Benedict Joseph left the Abbey of Sept-Fons, still wearing his Cistercian novice's habit, with a rosary around his neck, and a knapsack on his back. His only possessions, apart from the clothes he wore, were his two precious rosaries, a New Testament, a Breviary for reciting the Divine Office, and The Imitation of Christ.
Saint Benedict Joseph visited the shrine of Our Lady of Einsieldeln in Switzerland.
Walking all the way to Rome, begging as he went, he became a consecrated vagabond, a pilgrim vowed to ceaseless prayer. He walked from one shrine to another, visiting the Holy House of Loreto, Assisi, Naples, and Bari in Italy. He made his way to Einsiedeln in Switzerland, to Paray-le-Monial in France, and to Compostela in Spain. He lived on whatever people would give him, and readily shared what little he had. He observed silence, praying constantly. He was mocked, abused, and treated like a madman. Cruel children pelted him with garbage and stones.
Rome
After 1774, apart from an annual pilgrimage to the Madonna at the Holy House of Loreto, Benedict Joseph remained in the Eternal City. At night he would sleep in the Colosseum. During the day he would seek out those churches where the Forty Hours Devotion was being held, so as to be able to adore the Blessed Sacrament exposed. So striking was his love for the Blessed Sacrament that the Romans came to call him "the beggar of Perpetual Adoration." He was graced with a profound recollection in church. More than once he was observed in ecstasy, ravished into the love of God and shining with an unearthly light. It was on one of these occasions that the artist Antonio Cavallucci painted the beautiful portrait of Saint Benedict Joseph that allows us, even today, to see his handsome face illumined by union with God.
The Death of a Saint
On April 16, 1783 Benedict Joseph collapsed on the steps of the Church of Santa Maria dei Monti. It was the Wednesday of Holy Week. He was carried to a neighbouring house where he received the last sacraments, and died. He was thirty-five years old. No sooner did news of his death reach the streets than a huge throng gathered crying, "È morto il santo! -- The saint is dead!" Benedict Joseph was buried beneath the altar in a side chapel of Santa Maria dei Monti. I have gone there to pray, and knelt before the life-sized sculpture in marble that depicts him in the repose of a holy death.
Miracles
Benedict Joseph Labre was dead but a few months when more than 136 miraculous healings were attributed to his intercession. Present in Rome at the time of his funeral was an American Protestant clergyman from Boston, The Reverend John Thayer. The experience of Benedict Joseph's holy death converted Thayer. He was received into the Catholic Church, ordained to the priesthood, and died in Limerick, Ireland in 1815.
The Guild of Saint Benedict Joseph Labre
Fast forward, if you will, to the early 1990s. Mildred and Timothy Duff, the mother and brother of Scott Duff, a young man suffering from schizophrenia, guided by Father Benedict Joseph Groeschel, founded the Guild of Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, an apostolate dedicated to the spiritual support of the emotionally troubled, the mentally ill, and their families and friends. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta told the Duffs that the Crown of Thorns in Our Lord's Passion represented the sufferings of those afflicted by depression, and of the mentally and emotionally ill.
Intercessions
We recommend to the intercession of Saint Benedict Joseph, the Holy Father who bears both his names: Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Ratzinger eighty-two years ago today. We also recommend to the intercession of Saint Benedict Joseph all who suffer from depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and other forms of emotional and mental illness. Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, pray for us, that like you we may pass through this life as pilgrims and as perpetual adorers, magnetized by the wondrous mystery of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
His Excellency, Bishop Edward J. Slattery of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma has given
Father Mark a special mandate to live under the Rule of Saint Benedict in adoration before the Eucharistic Face of Jesus, offering thanksgiving, intercession, and reparation for all his
brothers in Holy Orders. In this way, Father is preparing the foundation of the new Diocesan Benedictine Monastery of Our Lady of the Cenacle. Father Mark is available to the
priests and deacons of the Diocese for spiritual and sacramental support in their pursuit of holiness. He is also charged with the spiritual formation of women who desire to dedicate themselves to spiritual motherhood in favour of priests.
April 16 is also the day that St Bernadette died and she was the same age as St Joseph Labre when he died.
Dear Father Mark,
What a luminous life St Joseph Labre lived. I work in social work and sometimes feel helpless when people are suffering from terrible anxiety, depression or schizophrenia. It's good to be touched and inspired by a story which brings this saint to life and to think of prayer to him as a way through. A friend of mine once said, "things come through broken people that don't come through other people" and the tender way she said this stayed with me.
Sue Morris
Hello,
I'm student in restoration of painting in Paris, and I restor the same portrait of Saint Benedict Joseph Labre.
I would like to known how can you affirme Antonio Cavallucci is the painter??
This is the subject about my report. At the and if you want I can give you informations about Saint Benedict Joseph Labre.
Thank you so much.
Tiffany from Paris
Chère Mlle. Brighel,
Merci d'avoir eu la gentillesse de m'écrire. Quel privilège vous avez que de pouvoir travailler à restaurer la peinture de Saint Benoît-Joseph Labre! Qu'il vous obtienne de grandes grâces pour aimer Dieu et pour mettre toute votre joie dans le service de sa beauté.
Pour ce qu'il y a de l'artiste, je n'ai de certitude sur Cavallucci qu'à partir de ce que j'ai lu ailleurs.
Veuillez croire, Mademoiselle, à mes sentiments respectueux.
+JMJ+
Father Mark, I had never heard of this saint until today. Thank you for sharing his story.
(I now wonder if you will respond in Filipino when I tell you I live in Manila? . . . =P)
Does anyone know how St. Benedict prayed constantly? The rosary? Ejaculatory prayer?
I would love to know.
John in Dallas, the St. Benedict Joseph Labre Guild is: http://guildbjlabre.com/
I joined the guild you can too.
... the Romans came to call him "the beggar of Perpetual Adoration."
What a beautiful name to be called, Father !
He, who was a misfit in the world, was a great friend of the sweet Jesus in the Sacrament of Love !
Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, pray for us...
This is a wonderful meditation and perhaps the inspiration of the matching dates signify that this poor Saint still intercedes for the Holy Roman Catholic Church in interceding in the life and election of Pope Josef Benedict. And probably John Paul II often visited the place where his monument tomb is, as I did when studying theology in Rome at the Angelicum, the Pontifical university which is a couple of blocks away from where Benedict Joseph often prayed and is buried. I often had the opportunity to go to the Church where the sculptured St. Benedict Joseph Labre rests. The sculpture where he is buried can be seen here http://www.bowdoin.edu/~hholbroo/ It is one of the most beautiful and realistic sculptures that I have seen, as if one finds oneself in the presence of the saint while he is in contemplation- he looks to be on the verge of falling asleep and death with eyes closed, but still praying with his rosary in hand while passing into death or on the threshold of the beatific vision. One has the sense there of his greatness and it seems a very holy place. A truly great and most humble saint of the church. It shows how one does not have to have in this world manifest accomplishments or noticeable works or honors to be a great saint, and that prayers and interior acts of the spiritual life do works with effects that we may not recognize and can have much greater achievements than the more noticeable accomplishments.
If ever in Rome during this day, the Romans have a wonderful tradition that on his feast day the home where he died is opened which has now been made into a kind of chapel and museum with his few possessions and other remembrances of him. It is opened on this one day to everyone so that everyone can go to visit the relics and pray there. Perhaps it is possible to get in at other times if one asks the priests there.
Blessings of Easter Week.
I am a c/s/xer (mental health consumer/psychiatric survivor/ex-patients. The reason I am one was being the recipient of severe dysfunction while growing up. My first hospitalization was alomost 30 years ago(2/12/80). Yes,shortly before the hospitalization my childhood memories came back with full emotional force,but,superimposed on those memories were visions of a spiritual battle between good and evil that I was personally involved in. For whatever it's worth, the mental health professionals I have worked with have always seen these "religious delusions" as part of the problem. They were something that had to be understood as unreal and unhealthy. Recovery and healing meant seeing them as insane nonsense (psycho babble). Most moderns, particularly the educated, have biases they believe are he truth. Some of these biases are that anything that can not be experienced through the five senses does not exist. Another bias is that human intelligence is the highest intelligence in the universe and that human reason alone will find a solution to all mankind's problems. As far as psychology goes, Freud did brag, "I killed God". His influence is enormous. He was an atheist demanding all belief in a God was infantile neurosis. And, the best that anyone can expect out of analysis is making misery tolerable. One interesting development these last ten to fifteen years is the "holistic self-help inner healing". Astrology, wicca, channeling, etc are acceptable adjuncts to pschotherapy. You find them in Christian retreat centers, too. But God, the Father of Abraham and Jesus is frowned upon. Too divisive. Intolerant and judgemental. Not wanted. Go figure?
I read about St. Joseph Benedict Labre in a book by Thomas Merton. I have a picture of him on my desk. I work for the homeless and mentally ill in Houston, Texas.
Bendito sea Dios