bedelaar 3

Benedict Joseph Labre, from the beginning of his days, was nothing if not original. 

His originality consisted mainly in this, that he saw more in life than others saw. And what he saw, made him long to sit apart from it. It gave him a disgust, even to sickness, for things with which ordinary men seem to be contented. 

Other men wanted money, and the things that money could buy... Benedict never had any use for either. Other men willingly became the slaves of fashion and convention... Benedict reacted against it all, preferring at any cost to be free. 

He preferred to live his life untrammeled [ongehinderd,onbelemmerd], to tramp [rondtrekken] about the world where he would—what was it made for, but to trample on?—to go up and down, a pure soul of nature, without any artificial garnish, just being what God made him, and taking every day what God gave him, in the end giving back to God that same being, perfect, unhampered, untainted.

But it was not all at once that Benedict discovered his vocation. 

On the contrary, before he reached it, he had a long way to go, making many attempts and meeting with many failures. 

He was born not far from Boulogne, the eldest of a family of fifteen children, and hence belonged to a household whose members had perforce to look very much after themselves. 

From the first, if you had met him, you would have said he was different from others of his class. The portrait drawn of him by his two chief biographers, seems to set before us one of those quiet, meditative youths, not easy to fathom, unable to express themselves, easily misunderstood, who seem to stand aside from life, looking ón instead of taking their part ín it. 

One of those with whom you would wish to be friends, yet cannot become intimate. Cheerful always (the biographers are emphatic about this), yet with a touch of melancholy. Whom women notice, yet do not venture too near. A puzzle to most who meet them, yet instinctively revered. By some voted 'deep' and not trusted, while others, almost without reflecting on it, know that they can trust them with their very inmost souls.

Benedict had good parents, living in a comfortable state of life. 

Their great ambition was that from their many children one at least should become a priest. Benedict, being the quiet boy he was, soon became the one on whom their hopes settled. And they spared no pains to have him educated to that end. 

He chanced to have an uncle, a parish priest, living some distance from his family home. This uncle gladly received him, and undertook his early education for the priesthood. Here, for a time Benedict settled down, learning Latin and studying Scripture. He was happy enough, though his originality of mind dragged against him. His Latin was a bore, and he did not make much of it, but the Scriptures he loved. 

On the other hand, the poor in the lanes had a strange attraction for him. They were pure nature, without much of the convention that he so disliked. And he was often with them, and regularly emptied his pockets among them. Besides, he had a way of wandering off to the queerest [zonderling] places, mixing with the queerest people, ending up with long meditations in his uncle's church before the Blessed Sacrament.

But in spite of these long meditations, Benedict's uncle was by no means sure that with a character such as his, and with his wandering propensity, he would end as a priest. Meanwhile the thought came to Benedict himself, that he would be a Trappist.

The originality of their life, with its ideals the exact contrary to those of ordinary convention, seemed to him exactly like his own. He applied to his uncle, his uncle put him off by referring him to his parents, his parents would have none of it, and told him he must wait till he grew older. At the time of this first attempt, Benedict was about sixteen years of age. 

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