But for the rest, Benedict's life was one of continued prayer.
He was a Trappist in a monastery of his own making. So far as he was able, he kept perpetual silence. Those who knew him afterwards related, that he seemed to go whole months together without allowing his voice to be heard.
He lived in retirement and solitude. He would accept no friend or companion. He would have only God, a few who had come to notice him, and who helped him, when he would allow them, were invariably treated as patrons and benefactors, but no more.
When a convent of nuns, at which occasionally he applied, had observed him, and began to show him more interest and respect, Benedict discovered their esteem [hoogachting] and never went near them again.
-
All his possessions were a few books of devotion, and a wooden bowl. The latter had split, and he had kept it together with a piece of wire. He fasted and abstained continually, sometimes per force, sometimes by chance.
By constantly kneeling on the hard ground, or the stone floors of the churches, he developed sores on both knees.
He deliberately tried to be despised and shunned, and when men could not refrain from showing contempt in their manner, then would Benedict's face light up with real joy.
Let his confessor, who wrote his life a year after his death...
describe his first meeting with him:
"In the month of June, 1782, just after I had celebrated mass in the church of St. Ignatius belonging to the Roman College, I noticed a man close beside me, whose appearance at first sight was decidedly unpleasant and forbidding [afschrikwekkend,terugstotend].
His legs were only partially covered, his clothes were tied round his waist with an old cord. His hair was uncombed, he was ill-clad [slecht gekleed], and wrapped about in an old and ragged coat. In his outward appearance, he seemed to be the most miserable beggar I had ever seen.
Such was the spectacle of Benedict the first time I beheld him."
For what remains of Benedict's story we cannot do better than follow the guidance of this director.
After the priest had finished his thanksgiving on the occasion just mentioned, Benedict approached him and asked him to appoint a time when he would hear his general confession. The time and place were arranged.
During the confession the priest was surprised, not only at the care with which it was made, but also at the knowledge his penitent showed of intricate points of theology.
He concluded that, beggar though he was then, he had evidently seen better days. Indeed he felt sure, that he had once been a clerical student. He therefore interrupted the confession, to ask whether he had ever studied divinity.
"I, Father?" said Benedict. "No, I never studied divinity. I am only a poor ignorant beggar."
The confessor at once recognized that he was dealing with something unusual.
He resolved to do for him all he could, and for the future to keep him carefully in mind.
As it has so often been in God's dealings with hidden saints...
whom He has willed that men should come at last to know...
that apparently chance meeting, was the means by which the memory of Benedict was saved.
It took place in June, 1782.
In April of the following year, Benedict died.
During those ten months, the priest to whom he addressed himself, had ample opportunity to watch him. As the weeks passed by, he grew in wonder at the sanctity that lay beneath rags. And yet, he tells us that, not a little fastidiously clean as he seems to have been himself, it never so much as occurred to him to bid Benedict mend his ways.
To hear his confession cost him an effort, yet he never thought twice about making that effort. Only at times, for the sake of others, the appointed place was out of the way.
-
He saw him last on the Friday before Holy Week, 1783.
When Benedict came to make his confession as usual.
He remarks that, though always before Benedict had fixed the day when he would come again, this time he made no appointment. The next the priest heard of him, was that he was dead, exactly a week later.
But he was not surprised. For some months before, when once he had come to know Benedict and his way of life, he had wondered how he lived. Apart from his austerities, and his invariable choice of food that was least palatable, of late his body had begun to develop sores and ulcers.
The priest had spoken to him on this last point, and had exhorted him at least to take more care of his sores, but Benedict had taken little notice. On his side, as the confessor could not but notice, and as is common with saints as death draws nearer, the love of God that was in him left him no desire to live any longer.
[ewtn]
