St. Scholastica
ONE
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Scholastica, twin sister of St. Benedict.
St. Gregory the Great writes: One day she came as usual, and her saintly brother went with some of his disciples; they spent the whole day praising God and talking of sacred things. As night fell, they had supper together.
Their spiritual conversation went on and the hour grew late. The holy nun said to her brother; “Please do not leave me tonight; let us go on until morning talking about the delights of the spiritual life.” “Sister,” he replied, “what are you saying? I simply cannot stay outside my monastery.”
When she heard her brother refuse her request, the holy woman joined her hands on the table, laid her head on them and began to pray. As she raised her head from the table, there were such brilliant flashes of lightning, such great peals of thunder and such a heavy downpour of rain that neither Benedict nor his brethren could stir across the threshold of the place where they had been seated. “May God forgive you, sister. What have you done?” cried Benedict. “Well,” she answered, “I asked you and you would not listen; so I asked my God and he did listen. So, it came about that they stayed awake the whole night, engrossed in their conversation about the spiritual life.
TWO
Jesus and the Saints are our models and they lived spiritual friendship.
Jesus had the Twelve Apostles, but no one can deny that he had a special friendship with Peter, James, and John. When he was at the point of greatest need, he asked these three to stay with him in the Agony in the Garden.
Jesus also had a deep friendship with Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. He stayed with them at their home in Bethany near Jerusalem, shared many a meal and much good conversation.
St. Gregory Nazianzen boasts continually of his friendship with St. Basil the Great, of which he says; “It seemed as though with two bodies we had but one soul, and if we may not believe those who say that all things are in all else, at least one must affirm that we were two in one, and one in two—the only object that both had being to grow in holiness, and to mold our present life to our future hope of heaven, thereby forsaking this mortal world before our death.”
THREE
Teresa of Avila, who knew more than anyone about the spiritual life, knew that it was very difficult to make progress spiritually without the help of friends.
For this reason she made it a priority to spend time with four friends to whom she wrote; “I should like the five of us who at present love each other in Christ to make a kind of pact that since the others in these times gather together in secret against God His Majesty to prepare wicked deeds and heresies, we might seek to gather together some time to free each other from illusion and to speak about how we might mend our ways and please God more since no one knows himself as well as others who observe him if they do so with love and concern for his progress.”
FOUR
St. Francis de Sales, in the book every Catholic should read, the Introduction to the Devout Life says;
“Those who want to grow closer to God need spiritual friendships which encourages them to virtue. Men walking on a level path have no need to hold one another up. Whereas those who are climbing slippery mountain trails need to grasp the hand of another. In just the same way, those of us living among the temptations of this world need the helping hand of a spiritual friend lest we fall into sin and have no one to pull us out and push us to go forward.”
FIVE
What steps should we take if we desire spiritual friendship?
Cut out the things that are killing your spiritual life – basically the time we spend on screens: T.V, Netflix, FaceBook, YouTube, news, sports, Candy Crush, and porn.
Replace it with what your soul really needs – friendship with God that comes through daily meditation.
And since your soul was meant to be fed by reality in the form of truth, beauty, and goodness, then dedicate yourself to grow in some field of knowledge or skill and then be disciplined in cultivating or appreciating that field.
Then when you find someone who is also interested in pursuing and celebrating some profound aspect of reality, we must prioritize spending time with them.