9781644135945

The Easter Cycle
As was her custom once a year, she visited her brother, St. Benedict, a few days
before her death. The day was spent in pious conversation, and as evening approached,
St. Benedict wished to depart and return to his monastery on the mountain. But St.
Scholastica wanted to prolong the heavenly conference into the night, for she seemed to
be living already in the world beyond. This request, refused by her brother, she besought
of her bridegroom. Hardly had she addressed a few words to Him for this purpose, when
a violent storm broke forth, a storm so violent that St. Benedict was unable to leave the
house. The heavenly bridegroom had fulfilled the wishes of His bride. St. Scholastica
died a few days later, and St. Benedict saw her soul ascending to her heavenly spouse in
the form of a dove.
Scholastica is a type of the Church and of the Christian soul. We who form the Church
are the virgins who await the coming of the bridegroom. In the Epistle the Apostle is jealous
with the “jealousy of God” for the Church, for the Christian soul, that it may be true to
Christ and consecrate its love and its heart to Him alone. “For I have espoused you to one
husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” It is our vocation to live as
brides of the divine bridegroom, to whom we were espoused at our baptism. In the person
of St. Scholastica, the Church and Christian souls await the bridegroom, ever in readiness
for the hour when He will come to escort them home for the eternal nuptials. Like St.
Scholastica, the Church “hast loved justice [Christ] and hated iniquity.” Like her I should
“speak [consecrate] my works to the king” (Introit).
“The kingdom of heaven [the Church] shall be like to ten virgins who, taking their lamps, went
out to meet the bridegroom” (Gospel). We now await the bridegroom with lighted lamps in
our hands, and we have with us the oil of our good works. We are ready with our offerings when
He comes in the Holy Sacrifice to lead us to the bridal banquet of Holy Communion. Holy
Communion is for us a blessed wedding feast.
The bridegroom will come again at the hour of our death. The whole life of the Christian
on earth can scarcely be anything else but one long vigil in expectation of the coming of the
bridegroom, who will come at the moment of death to draw us home for the eternal nuptials in
heaven. But how miserably we fail to conform to the thought proposed by the liturgy in today’s
Gospel when we cling to what is temporal and live for worldly things as did the foolish virgins
of the Gospel! “Watch ye, therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour” (Gospel).
Are we truly vigilant?
O bride of Christ, go forth to meet the bridegroom. St. Scholastica leads the way. We form
part of her bridal company, and she will lead us to Christ, the heavenly bridegroom. She will
lead us now in the Holy Sacrifice and at the hour of our final departure. How different our lives
would be were we truly conscious of our espousal to Christ!
Prayer
O God, who didst cause the soul of blessed Scholastica, Thy virgin, to enter heaven in
the form of a dove to show us the way of innocence, grant that by her merits and prayers
we may live in such innocence as to deserve to attain eternal joys. Through Christ our
Lord. Amen.
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