By Oblate Madeleine Callahan

I wrote this poem during a presentation on Saint Scholastica by Sr. Teresa Schumacher, OSB (Saint Benedict’s monastery, MN) given at the 2017 NAABOD meeting.

After a discussion of the stories in the Dialogues by Pope St. Gregory, we were shown how Saint Scholastica has been depicted in Art through the centuries. Then we were asked to reimagine St. Scholastica in our own words.

In the poem, I was hoping to pose her first as independently chosen to be in community and second to be a listener as in the many portraits of Scholastica. Then, comes the drama, the wonder, the night of conversation that were witnessed and passed down to us.

Finally, I wanted to state the connection to why we, Oblates and Oblate directors, were reaffirming that this “sumptuous day” in the lives of Benedict and Scholastica was still in our DNA.

We are still looking forward in love, knowing about the storms, indeed feeling the reluctance and insistence to go deeper into the night’s wisdom.

Dedicated at birth,

her force of new life

captured by God,

shared with her sisters.

 

Faithful to her twin

in his life’s journey,

in their earnest intimacy,

they met in holy conversation.

 

Freely sharing her tender wisdom:

she called forth nature’s fearsome, raw

strength to hold down anxious Benedict.

 

Her dove spirit,

her resolute caring,

profound listening,

alerted

her to this last chance

to be with

her best companion brother;

her tears held them

together –

said the witnesses.

 

Not just one person’s grief,

one garden hut in night’s dark womb,

one common table –

rather, a sumptuous complete day

of laying down guideposts

do we commemorate

today,

as we meet as oblates still

loving into the future.