Another Set of Twins

Our discussion the other day of twins brought some interesting reader comments. Someone suggested the holy brother and sister duo St. Scholastica and St. Benedict. I love that story!

They are not officially the patron saints of twins, however. But that's okay. There were twins, so I say, go for it.

Besides, they were, it seems, especially close twins. St. Benedict is the St. Benedict, the author of the Rule of Benedict and the founder of the Benedictines. The Rule of Benedict is a very important thing because without it a lot of people in a lot of monasteries might have gone off the deep end and poisoned each other or tripped each other with brooms all day. Fully half of the Rule is how to be humble and obedient and the other half of that half is what to do with people when they aren't.

Extremely important for group living. Benedict himself famously survived two poisoning attempts. The first was in his cup, which shattered when he prayed over it and the second was in a hunk of bread. When he prayed over that, a raven swooped down and flew off with it. Poor raven. I guess we are supposed to imagine that the raven just swooped down for humanitarian reasons and dropped the poisoned bread off somewhere safe like a little birdy bomb squad.

That's what I like to think.

St. Scholastica ran a convent not far from Benedict and once a month or so she would visit him at his monastery. She couldn't go in with all the boys, so he met her at a little cottage just outside the monastery walls. They would talk for hours, probably about what to do with people who could not remain humble and obedient, but also about theology and philosophy and how the Vikings were doing.

No they didn't. Neither of them were very much into sports, I imagine.

At any rate, during one of these visits, as the clock ticked on, Benedict announced that he had to get back to his cell and Scholastica begged him to stay and talk longer. He refused. She bowed her head and prayed. A wild storm arose. "What did you do?" he famously asked her. "I asked you to stay and you refused, so I asked God to make you stay and he didn't refuse", she famously replied. I believe she also made some sort of snippy comment like, "Go on, try to get to your cell."

So St. Benedict stayed through the night and they talked and talked. Perhaps St. Benedict formulated another rule to add to his list about what you get to pray for after you've been told "no" by the monastery head.

St. Scholastica never made it back to her convent after that visit. She died just three days later. St. Benedict must have been happy to have had an extra long last visit. He said he saw her soul rise to heaven.

So St. Scholastica is the patron saint of convulsive children, nuns and is invoked against storms. Personally, I would invoke her for any type of weather issues, in particular during a drought!

St. Benedict has a very long list of patronages, although as I said, twins is not on there with the gall stones, nettle rash and spelunkers.

Dear Sister Mary Martha;

I am in search of the Patron Saint for finding a job, if there is one. Can you recommend someone for me? thank you-
Sincerely,

Shannon

Yes, I can! In my shop I have our beloved Pope John Paul II down for that. He's not a saint just yet, but I have every confidence that he is in heaven. Can you think of anyone, anywhere, who had a job they loved longer than Pope John Paul. He has got to be the patron saint of finding a great job that you stay with for the rest of your life.