Placed as if midway between the two invasions of the Goths and Lombards, the dear and holy foundation of Benedict, respected by the one, was to yield for a time to the rage of the other. The holy patriarch had a presentment that his successors would not meet a second Totila to listen to them and spare them. A noble whom he had converted, and who lived on familiar terms with him, found him one day weeping bitterly. He watched Benedict for a long time, and then, perceiving that his tears were not stayed, and that they proceeded not from the ordinary fervour of his prayers, but from profound melancholy, he asked the cause. The saint answered, "This monastery which I have built, and all that I have prepared for my brethren, has been delivered up to the pagans by a sentence of Almighty God. Scarcely have I been able to obtain mercy for their lives." Less than forty years after, this prediction was accomplished by the destruction of Monte Cassino by the Lombards.
Benedict, however, was near the end of his career. His interview with Totila took place in 542, in the year which preceded his death, and from his earliest days of the following year, God prepared him for his last struggle, by requiring from him the sacrifice of the most tender affection he had retained on earth. The beautiful and touching incident of the last meeting of Benedict with his twin sister, Scholastica, has been already recorded (Feb. 10th). At the window of his cell, three days after, Benedict had a vision of his dear sister's soul entering heaven in the form of a snowy dove. He immediately sent for the body, and placed it in the sepulchre which he had already prepared for himself, that death might not separate those whose souls had always been united in God.
The death of his sister was the signal of departure for himself. He survived her only forty days. He announced his death to several of his monks, then far from Monte Cassino. A violent fever having seized him, he caused himself on the sixth day of his sickness to be carried to the chapel of S. John the Baptist; he had before ordered the tomb in which his sister already slept to be opened. There, supported in the arms of his disciples, he received the holy Viaticum, then placing himself at the side of the open grave, but at the foot of the altar, and with his arms extended towards heaven, he died, standing, muttering a last prayer. Died standing!—such a victorious death became well that great soldier of God. He was buried by the side of Scholastica, in a sepulchre made on the spot where stood the altar of Apollo, which he had thrown down.
The body of S. Benedict was carried by S. Aigulf, monk of the abbey of Fleury, from Monte Cassino, which had been ruined by the Lombards, into France, to his own monastery. This translation took place on July 11th, and is commemorated in all the monasteries of France on that day. Another solemnity, called the Illation, has been instituted in honour of the transfer of the same relics from Orleans, whither they had been conveyed, from fear of the Normans, back again to Fleury-sur-Loire. In 1838, the bishop of Orleans resolved on sending the relics to the Benedictine abbey of Solesmes, in the diocese of Le Mans, but the project met with so great opposition that he contented himself with sending only the skull to Solesmes.
The reliquary which was opened in 1805, by Mgr. Bernier, bishop of Orleans, was found to contain, together with the bones, several papal bulls authenticating the relics. It is, however, necessary to add that the abbey of Monte Cassino claims to possess the body of S. Benedict, and adduces a bull of pope Urban II., declaring anathema against all who deny the authenticity of that body. It is possible that if the relics in both places were examined carefully, it would be found that the portions missing in one place would be found in the other. It is certain that S. Odilo of Cluny sent one of the bones of S. Benedict to Monte Cassino out of France, in the 11th cent., and that it was received there with great joy, so that the monks there cannot have possessed the body at that date.
In Art, S. Benedict is represented with his finger on his lip, as enjoining silence, and with his rule in his hand, or with the first words of that rule, "Ausculta, O fili!" issuing from his lips, and with a discipline, i.e. a scourge, or a rose bush at his side, or holding a broken goblet in his hand.
[March 22.]
S. Paul, B. of Narbonne, 3rd or 4th cent.
S. Aphrodisius, B. of Beziers, 3rd or 4th cent.
SS. Callinica and Basilissa, MM. in Galatia, circ. A.D. 252.
SS. Saturninus and IX. Companions, MM. in Africa.
S. Basil, P.M. at Ancyra, A.D. 363.
S. Lea, W. at Rome, circ. A.D. 383.
S. Deogratias, B. of Carthage, circ. A.D. 456.
SS. Herlinda and Reinilda, V.V. Abss. at Maeseyck, in Belgium, 8th cent.
S. Benvenutus, B. of Osimo, in the Marches of Ancona, A.D. 1276.
S. Eelko Liaukman, Ab. of Lidlom, in Holland, A.D.. 1332.
B. Thomas of Lancaster, M. at Pontefract, A.D. 1321.
S. Katharine of Sweden, V. daughter of S. Bridget, A.D. 1381.
B. Nicolas von der Flue, H. at Sachseln, in Switzerland, A.D. 1487.