At any rate, during this new wave of persecutions that took place in the second half of the IV Century, many Christians suffered torture and death on account of their faith. Among them, there was a young Roman maiden by the name of Benedicta, who spent her promising youth in an intense apostolate of faith in Jesus Christ, and of charity towards her fellow-men.
St. Benedicta’s name is recorded in the Roman Martyrology on the day of January 4, year 371, which is the date of her martyrdom. Her body was buried in the catacombs of Priscilla (on the Salaria Road), outside of Rome. The inscription on her tombstone simply read: “BENEDICTA MARTYR”, which expressed all too well a hidden treasure of virtue and heroism in a time of immense suffering, but also of a great spiritual regeneration that conferred an unprescedented vigor to the Church of Christ.
With a rescript of October 22, 1751, Cardianl Giovanni Antonio Guadagni of the Roman Vicariate made the donation of the sacred body of St. Benedicta to the parish of Monacilioni – a town in the province of Campobasso (Molise) – then administered by Abbot Gennaro De Simone, who enjoyed a friendly relationship with the Cardinal. In the Spring of 1752, the people of Monacilioni, proud of such a precious gift, received jubilantly the sacred body of St. Benedicta; which was composed in a gentle, rest-easy position on her right side – with her right arm surrounding gracefully a chalice that contained her sacrificial blood and recalled the Passion of Jesus – in an urn that had been sealed by the Roman Vicariate in April of 1752. Every year afterwards, they celebrated two feasts in her honor: one on the 4th of January, to remember the day of her martyrdom, and the other on the third Sunday of May, to commemorate her triumphant arrival in Monacilioni.
St. Benedicta has remained a very real and helpful presence in the lives of her devotees: Saint, worker of miracles, protectress; these are, in fact, some of the epithets they still attribute to her, as prayers an hymns addressed to her clearly reveal. Churches and shrines honoring her are to be found throughout the world, wherever and whenever believers find themselves in difficulties that need a heavenly remedy.
Numerous have been the miracles performed by St. Benedicta, as is attested by the many ex voto that were donated for graces received from her. Many of those miracles have been, to be sure, jealously kept in the grateful hearts of the beneficiaries; but there are others that were entrusted to tradition, that is to the perennial memory of the people who put their trust in her. Such is, for example, the miracle that occurred in Chicago in 1906, when St. Benedicta appeared to a group of coal miners to warm them of an imminent danger at the place where they were working: “I am Benedicta of Monacilioni; I came to save you,” she said, and exhorted them to abandon immediately their post and quickly get out of the mine. No sooner, in fact, all the workers were safely out, the mine collapsed; and the vision of that beautiful young lady vanished from their astonished eyes.
Those coal miners never forgot the terrifying experience of that day and, as a sign of gratitude to their protectress, they formed that very year the Society of St. Benedicta. Afterwards, when in group they moved from Chicago to New York in search of work, they settled in Staten Island, where they built the first church in North America dedicated to St. Benedicta. Unfortunately, that beautiful church on State Street, West Brighton, was demolished in 1960 to make space for the housing project that rose in its place (many of us still remember with very warm feelings); but the Society of St. Benedicta was kept alive, as the parish of St. Benedicta became one with the parish of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and the devotion for the Martyr-Saint was complemented by the veneration and love that people have for Our Blessed Mother.
In this time of trial for the Church, it is imperative that we – in imitation of St. Benedicta – stand firm in our belief in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and support in every way possible the Pastor and the Priests of our Parish in the exercise of their sacred ministry. St. Benedicta will always be on our side as we endeavor to accomplish the things that glorify God and do honor to His Church.
