Abbey-Roads2

Happy Birthday Holy Father.

April 16 marks the Holy Father’s 81st birthday - as everyone must know by now - happy birthday Holy Father!  It is also the feast day of St. Benedict Joseph Labre, the French mendicant, pilgrim, fool for Christ who died in 1783.  I can’t help but wonder if Joseph Ratzinger’s parents may have named their son after St. Benedict Joseph since he was born on the Saint’s feast day.  (I may not be alone in this assumption, see this site.)  At any rate, as Pope, he is today Benedict Joseph.  Interesting contrast, don’t you agree?  (I wish Holy Father would reference St. Benoit-Joseph sometime.)

Since my childhood I had a special devotion for St. Benedict Joseph, that grew deeper after my conversion in my early 20’s.  His life both thrilled and attracted me, so peculiar as it was to Western minds.  He is said to have resolved to live as St. Alexis, an early Roman pilgrim, after he realized he was not called to monastic life.  This meant a life of absolute destitution and homelessness, wandering from Church to Church, shrine to shrine.

Sharing the life of the poorest of the poor, Benedict Joseph nevertheless shared his bread and whatever alms he received with the poor he lived amongst.  He was often the object of derision by children, who sometimes taunted him, pelting him with stones, yet in obedience to his motto concerning Christ from the Gospel, “he walked in peace through the midst of them.”

Eventually nearly everyone recognised his contemplative holiness and charity, growing to esteem the Saint as a holy man, to such an extent that the massive crowds at his funeral reacted in much the same manner as those at the funeral of John Paul II, shouting: “Santo! Santo!” - ”The saint is dead!”  Astonishing tribute for a homeless beggar man.

There is a website dedicated to my friend, make a pilgrimage to it for his feast day, and maybe say a prayer for me and of course the Pope on his birthday.

“Jesus-Christ allait en paix au milieu d’eux.”

To learn more about St. Benedict Joseph, visit:

St. Benedict Joseph Labre

Oratio
Deus, qui sanctum Benedictum Josephum Confessorem tuum humilitatis studio, et paupertatis amore tibi uni adhaerere fecisti: da nobis eius suffragantibus meritis: terrena cuncta despicere, et caelestia semper inquirere. Per Dominum.

O God, who madest thy holy Confessor Benedict Joseph, by his zeal for humility and his love of poverty, to cleave only unto thee: for the pleading of his merits, give us grace to spurn all things earthly, and ever to seek after heavenly; through our Lord.