February 10 is the feast of Saint Scholastica, twin sister of Saint Benedict, the father of western monasticism.  The pair enjoyed what modern scholar Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg has described as ‘perhaps one of the most famous examples of affection and love within the saintly sibling relationship’. I have always enjoyed how the Irish priest, Father Jerome Fahy, in an article on the Diocese of Annaghdown which you can read at the blog here, likened their relationship to that of the Irish saints Brendan and Bríg, describing them as ‘the Benedict and Scholastica of Ireland’. Unfortunately, whilst Saint Scholastica has her own day defined on the calendars of the saints, her Irish counterpart does not. There are over a dozen Irish female saints who share the name Bríg (Briga, Brígh), most of whom are untraceable. Canon O’Hanlon suggested in his entry for Saint Bríg of Coirpre on January 7 that she may be Brendan’s sister, but provided no supporting evidence. The place name Coirpre (Cairbre, modern Carbury) occurs in a number of different localities in Ireland. However, the Life of Saint Brendan clearly associates his sister with the County Galway monastery of Annaghdown, yet no feast for Bríg of Annaghdown is to be found on the calendars. Like other Irish female saints who have no written Life of their own, what we know of Bríg is drawn from the Life of her famous brother, just as our knowledge of Scholastica is founded on the Dialogues of Pope Saint Gregory the Great, who dedicated Book II of his four-volume collection on the lives and miracles of Italian saints to Saint Benedict. The Lives tell us that Saint Scholastica was the abbess of Plumbariola, just a few miles away from her brother’s foundation at Monte Cassino, whilst Bríga was at the convent of Annaghdown, County Galway, where the local church to this day remains dedicated to Saint Brendan. Scholastica seems to have visited her saintly sibling on an annual basis, the leadership of a monastic familia taking precedence over biological family ties for those dedicated to the religious life. As Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg points out:

It was only with the realization of impending death that some of these male siblings finally felt free to see their sisters and express the affection which they had withheld for ascetic purposes during their lifetime. A primary focus of many of the vitae is on the saint’s final hours and deathbed scene: this was an especially important moment to be shared with one’s closest relatives and friends. Therefore, sisters and brothers often assumed a crucial role in the events surrounding the death of their saintly siblings: they were designated to carry out special instructions for burial; they remembered each other in prayers…; they frequently expressed a final wish that they be buried together, and promised each other that they would meet again in the celestial realm.

Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500–1100 (University of Chicago Press, 1998), 297.

The author also points out a further trope found in a number of the vitae – the foreknowledge of a sibling’s death or a description of their arrival in heaven. This is the case with Saint Benedict and his sister, described below by Pope Saint Gregory the Great who first establishes the background to the death of Saint Scholastica. I noted here that, unusually for hagiography, it is the woman, Scholastica, who seems to meet with the writer’s approval rather than the  subject of the Life, Saint Benedict:

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Of a Miracle Wrought by his Sister, Scholastica.

….I must tell you how there was one thing which the venerable father Benedict would have liked to do, but he could not.

His sister, named Scholastica, was dedicated from her infancy to our Lord. Once a year she came to visit her brother. The man of God went to her not far from the gate of his monastery, at a place that belonged to the Abbey. It was there he would entertain her. Once upon a time she came to visit according to her custom, and her venerable brother with his monks went there to meet her.

They spent the whole day in the praises of God and spiritual talk, and when it was almost night, they dined together. As they were yet sitting at the table, talking of devout matters, it began to get dark. The holy Nun, his sister, entreated him to stay there all night that they might spend it in discoursing of the joys of heaven. By no persuasion, however, would he agree to that, saying that he might not by any means stay all night outside of his Abbey.

At that time, the sky was so clear that no cloud was to be seen. The Nun, hearing this denial of her brother, joined her hands together, laid them on the table, bowed her head on her hands, and prayed to almighty God.

Lifting her head from the table, there fell suddenly such a tempest of
lightning and thundering, and such abundance of rain, that neither venerable Benedict, nor his monks that were with him, could put their heads out of doors. The holy Nun, having rested her head on her hands, poured forth such a flood of tears on the table, that she transformed the clear air to a watery sky.

After the end of her devotions, that storm of rain followed; her prayer and the rain so met together, that as she lifted up her head from the table, the thunder began.  So it was that in one and the very same instant that she lifted up her head, she brought down the rain.

The man of God, seeing that he could not, in the midst of such thunder and lightning and great abundance of rain return to his Abbey, began to be heavy and to complain to his sister, saying: “God forgive you, what have you done?” She answered him, “I desired you to stay, and you would not hear me; I have desired it of our good Lord, and he has granted my petition. Therefore if you can now depart, in God’s name return to your monastery, and leave me here alone.”

But the good father, not being able to leave, tarried there against his will where before he would not have stayed willingly. By that means, they watched all night and with spiritual and heavenly talk mutually comforted one another.

Therefore, by this we see, as I said before, that he would have had one thing, but he could not effect it.  For if we know the venerable man’s mind, there is no question but that he would have had the same fair weather to have continued as it was when he left his monastery.  He found, however, that a miracle prevented his desire. A miracle that, by the power of almighty God, a woman’s prayers had wrought.

Is it not a thing to be marveled at, that a woman, who for a long time had not seen her brother, might do more in that instance than he could? She realized, according to the saying of St. John, “God is charity” [1 John 4:8]. Therefore, as is right, she who loved more, did more.

This proves to be the last encounter between the siblings as the next chapter describes Saint Benedict’s vision of his sister’s death and his determination that they would remain united:

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: How Benedict Saw the Soul of his Sister Ascend into Heavenly Glory.

GREGORY: The next day the venerable woman returned to her nunnery, and the man of God to his abbey. Three days later, standing in his cell, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he beheld the soul of his sister (which was departed from her body) ascend into heaven in the likeness of a dove.

Rejoicing much to see her great glory, with hymns and praise he gave thanks to almighty God, and imparted the news of her death to his monks.  He sent them presently to bring her corpse to his Abbey, to have it buried in that grave which he had provided for himself. By this means it fell out that, as their souls were always one in God while they lived, so their bodies continued together after their death.

Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), Dialogues, Book II (Life and Miracles of St. Benedict).

Sadly, the accounts of the Irish Benedict and Scholastica are not quite so detailed. In the Betha Brendain, the Irish Life of Saint Brendan, we first meet Saint Bríg when the young Brendan is studying with his foster father Bishop Erc and the hagiographer leaves us in no doubt about the strong bond of love between the siblings:

(12) Brig, daughter of Findlug, his sister, was with him there, and great was his love for her, for he saw the attendance of angels above her.

Having established this affectionate relationship between the siblings in childhood, it is at the end of his life that we encounter Saint Bríg once again:

(206) Brendan after this went to visit his sister Brig at the fort of Aed son of Eochaid, which is now called Enach Duin. So then, after traversing sea and land, after raising dead men, healing lepers, blind, deaf, lame, and all kinds of sick folk, after founding many cells, and monasteries, and holy churches, after appointing abbots and masters, after blessing cataracts and estuaries, after consecrating districts and tribes, after putting down crimes and sins, after great perils by sea and land, after expelling demons and vices, after pre-eminence in pilgrimage and (ascetic) devotion, after performance of mighty works and miracles too numerous to mention, St. Brendan drew near to the day of his death.

(207) Then said Brendan to the brethren after Mass on the Sunday, and after receiving the body of Christ and His blood: ‘God,’ said he, is calling me to the eternal kingdom; and my body must be taken to Clonfert, for there will be attendance of angels there, and there will be my resurrection…..

(208) When he had finished saying all this, he blessed the brethren and his sister Brig, and when he reached the threshold of the church, he said: ‘In manus tuas, Domine,’ etc, Then he sent forth his spirit….

C. Plummer, ed. and trans., Bethada Náem nÉrenn – Lives of Irish Saints, Vol. II (Oxford, 1922), 46; 91.

It is at Annaghdown then, his beloved sister present among the monastic brethren that Saint Brendan’s earthly life ends. I noted too how the hagiographer specifically named Saint Bríg as a recipient of her brother’s final blessing, thus putting her, along with Saint Scholastica, into the category of Sorores Sanctae identified by Tibbetts Schulenburg.

Deus, qui beátae Vírginis tuæ Scholásticæ ánimam ad ostendéndam [innocéntiæ viam in colúmbæ spécie cælum penetráre fecísti: da nobis eius méritis et précibus ita innocénter vivere; ut ad ætérna mereámur gáudia perveníre. Per Dóminum.]

Let us pray: O God, Who, to show the innocence of her life, didst cause the soul of Thy blessed Virgin Scholastica to ascend to Heaven in the form of a dove: grant, we beseech Thee, by her merits and prayers, that we may live so innocently, as to deserve to arrive at eternal joys. Through Jesus Christ, Thine only-begotten Son, Our Lord, Who with Thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, God, for ever and ever.

R. Amen.

Collect for the Feast of Saint Scholastica, February 10.

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