Reliquary box with relics from Saint Benedict and his sister Saint Scholastica

Reliquary box with relics from Saint Benedict and his sister Saint Scholastica

S. Beneficti Ab - S. Scolasticae

Very rare.

Size: 5 cm L x 4 cm W x .8 cm H

S. Benito:

The father of Western monasticism, he decided to leave Rome and the world to escape the licentious life of that city. He lived as a hermit for many years in a rocky and rugged region of Italy. In Vicovaro, Tivoli, and Subiaco, on the summit of a cliff overlooking the Anio River, there resided at that time a community of monks whose abbot had died. They decided to ask Saint Benedict to take his place. At first, he refused, but then he yielded to their insistence. It soon became clear that the strict notions of monastic discipline that Saint Benedict observed did not suit them, because he wanted them all to live in cells carved into the rocks. That same day, he returned to Subiaco, not to continue living a life of seclusion, but with the purpose of beginning the great work for which God had prepared him during those three years of hidden life. Disciples soon gathered around him, drawn by his holiness and miraculous powers.

Sanit Scholastica:

Twin sister of Saint Benedict of Nursia, was consecrated to divine service from childhood. When her brother founded Monte Cassino, he opened a nearby convent for women following the same rule, called Piumarola, of which Scholastica became abbess.

She had the custom of visiting Saint Benedict once a year, and since she was not allowed to enter the monastery, he would go out to meet her and take her to a private house, where the brothers would spend the evening praying, singing hymns of praise to God, and discussing spiritual matters. Saint Gregory gives a remarkable account of her last visit, in which the saint, sensing that she would never see her brother again, begged him not to leave that night but the following day. However, Saint Benedict felt unable to break the rules of his monastery.