St. Scholastica

Homily for the Memorial of St. Scholastica

The brilliant young woman, Scholastica lived in the 6th Century, a time when women had little influence and were expected to marry and run a household according to her husband’s power and wealth. As twin of Benedict of Nursia, however, this great saint decided to serve God in prayer and scholarship with a community of women she established.  Through the years of her adult life, she led her community and established a rule that was designed to mimic their imagination of the perfect world of God’s reign.  Her monastery cared for the sick and the poor of the area, provided a guest house for women who needed shelter, educated girls and young women, provided spiritual direction and maintained a library of scripture and spiritual texts.  The house was financially self-sufficient and the vowed religious served as a powerhouse of prayer.  Pope Saint Gregory I wrote of Scholastica in his book of Dialogues that her greater love would do greater things for the world.

The question that St. Scholastica asks of us today is how we live our lives. Do we, like her community, mimic our notion of a perfect world in God’s reign. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that our world is governed more by the example of Jeroboam, a man who sets up his own kingdom with his own rules obviously ignoring the rules that God has passed down through the Commandments. He sets up golden idols for the people to worship in direct contradiction to the very first commandment. We will discover later in the Books of Kings, however, that virtually all human rules and kingdoms have elements of idolatry. Our world certainly does. If a person or a group determines to pursue their own flourishing in opposition to the common good, and at the cost of other’s lives and wellbeing, they effectively worship the golden calf as the Jews of the Exodus had. Super Bowl Sunday brings with it so much excitement, but some evil effects are also evident on this particular Sunday of the year. It is no accident that more domestic violence is carried out on this day in the United States, or that human trafficking for sex is higher than any other time of the year because this sports festival becomes a paradigm for various forms of self-worship that humans can and do undertake.  Violence and greed are at the heart of much of the advertising, and the cost of a single ticket to the “game” and its half-time ritual would feed a hungry child for a year or more.

The Gospel text for today from the Gospel of St. Mark tells the story of another feeding of the multitude very similar to the one that we have read in chapter six. Questions have been asked about why the Gospel includes two such accounts. The answer to the question might be that the first episode takes place in Israel while the second takes place in or near the Decapolis, a city of Gentiles. By including both stories, so similar in nature, so Eucharistic in their tone, St. Mark seems to signal that Jesus comes not only for the lost children of Israel but for all men and women regardless of race or country of origin. God’s generosity cannot be limited to the Chosen People but must be made available to all people. It is God’s generosity that St. Scholastica mimicked, and it is God’s generosity that can be so lacking in so many people of our own world.

Our response to God’s generosity is obviously one of gratitude. Another way to respond is by imitating the action of feeding the poor. Finally, our response to God’s generosity must lead us to taking care of what God has given us in this fragile world. As we receive the Eucharist today, let us do so with grateful hearts that are open to the example shown us by the Saint we venerate in today’s liturgy.