Saint Scholastica

St. Benedict was born about 480 AD at Nursia, in the inland mountains of Umbria. St. Scholastica was his sister. According to longstanding Catholic tradition, which St. Bede accepts, the two were twins, born on the same day.

St. Scholastica was dedicated to God from her infancy. A later Life printed with the Acta Sanctorum places her birth in the city of Norcia, of a kind father and a pious mother.

St. Benedict's well-to-do parents sent him to Rome to study rhetoric. He then lived three years completely alone in a cave at Subiaco. In 529 AD he left Subiaco and settled at Monte Cassino.

St. Scholastica followed her brother south and chose her retreat at Plombariola. There she founded and governed a nunnery about five miles south of his monastery.

Pope Saint John Paul II, speaking at Monte Cassino, said that St. Scholastica directed the convent of religious women while her brother evangelized the peoples who were still pagan. The Benedictines call Plumbariola the first Benedictine convent and St. Scholastica its abbess.

St. Bertharius, abbot of Cassino three hundred years later, wrote that St. Scholastica instructed several of her own sex in virtue. Once a year she came to visit her brother. She could not enter his monastery, so he came out with some of his monks to a house belonging to the abbey, not far from the gate.

In 542 AD St. Benedict received the Gothic king Totila on the mountain, a few miles from her house.

At her last coming the two spent the whole day in the praises of God and spiritual talk. The sky was so clear that no cloud was to be seen.

When it was almost night they dined together. St. Scholastica entreated her brother to stay until morning. St. Benedict would not agree, because he might not spend a night outside his abbey.

St. Scholastica joined her hands on the table, bowed her head upon them, and prayed to Almighty God in tears. As she lifted her head there fell such lightning, thunder and rain that no one could put a head out of doors. St. Benedict could not return to his abbey, and he complained to his sister.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great called the storm a miracle wrought by a woman's prayers through the power of Almighty God. The same pope judged that her prayers were of greater power than her brother's will because she had the greater love. The two watched all night and comforted one another with heavenly talk.

The next day St. Scholastica returned to her monastery and St. Benedict to his abbey. Three days later she died in her solitude. Butler's Lives of the Saints places her death about the year 543 AD.

Standing in his cell and lifting his eyes to heaven, St. Benedict saw her soul ascend in the likeness of a dove. He gave thanks with hymns and told his monks that she had died. He sent them to bring her body to the grave he had provided for himself.

In 593 AD Pope Saint Gregory the Great wrote the four books of the Dialogues, fifty years after her death in 543 AD. Paul the Deacon, a monk of Monte Cassino, wrote a poem in her honour. Pope Benedict VII consecrated the rebuilt church below the grotto at Subiaco, and from then the abbey was known by her name.

On November 23, 1876 AD she was officially proclaimed patroness of Le Mans. In March 2026 AD Pope Leo XIV received the Benedictine communities of Santa Scolastica of Subiaco and of Santa Scolastica of Bari.