| CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: BENEDICT JOSEPH LABRE, SAINT |
| Joseph F. Delany
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| Born 26
March, 1748 at Amettes in the Diocese of Boulogne, France; d. in Rome 16 April,
1783. He was the eldest of fifteen children. His parents, Jean-Baptiste Labre
and Anne-Barba Grandsire, belonged to the middle class and so were able to give
to their numerous off spring considerable opportunities in the way of education.
His early training he received in his native village in a school conducted by
the vicar of the parish. The account of this period furnished in the life
written by his confessor, Marconi, and that contained in the one compiled from
the official processes of his beatification are at one in emphasizing the fact
that he exhibited a seriousness of thought and demeanor far beyond his years.
Even at that tender age he had begun to show a marked predilection for the
spirit of mortification, with an aversion for the ordinary childish amusements,
and he seems from the very dawning of reason to have had the liveliest horror
for even the smallest sin. All this we are told was coexistent with a frank and
open demeanor and a fund of cheerfulness which remained unabated to the end of
his life. At the age of twelve his education was taken over by his paternal
uncle, Francois-Joseph Labre, cure of Erin, With whom he then went to live.
During the six following years which he spent under his uncle's roof, he made
considerable progress in the study of Latin, history, etc. but found himself
unable to conquer a constantly growing distaste for any form of knowledge which
did not make directly for union with God. A love of solitude, a generous
employment of austerities and devotedness to his religious exercises were
discernible as distinguishing features of his life at this time and constitute
an intelligible prelude to his subsequent career. At the age of sixteen he
resolved to embrace a religious life as a Trappist, but having on the advice of
his uncle returned to Amettes to submit his design to his parents for their
approval he was unable to win their consent. He therefore resumed his sojourn in
the rectory at Erin, redoubling his penances and exercises of piety and in every
way striving to make ready for the life of complete self-annihilation to which
the voice within his soul seemed to be calling him. After the heroic death of
his uncle during an epidemic in September, 1766, Benedict, who had dedicated
himself during the scourge to the service of the sick and dying, returned to
Amettes in November of the same year. His absorbing thought at this time was
still to become a religious at La Trappe, and his parents fearing that further
opposition would be resistance to the will of God fell in with his proposal to
enter the cloister. It was suggested, how ever, by his maternal uncle, the Abbe
Vincent, that application be made to the Carthusians at Val-Sainte-Aldegonde
rather than to La Trappe. Benedict's petition at Val-Sainte-Aldegonde was
unsuccessful but he was directed to another monastery of the same order at
Neuville. There he was told that as he was not yet twenty there was no hurry,
and that he must first learn plain-chant and logic. During the next two years he
applied twice unsuccessfully to be received at La Trappe and was for six weeks
as a postulant with the Carthusians at Neuville, he finally sought and obtained
admission to the Cistercian Abbey of Sept-Fonts in November, 1769. After a short
stay at Sept- Fonts during which his exactness in religious observance and
humility endeared him to the whole community, his health gave way, and it was
decided that his vocation lay elsewhere. In accordance with a resolve formed
during his convalescence he then set out for Rome. From Chieri in Piedmont he
wrote to his parents a letter which proved to be the last they would ever
receive from him. In it he informed them of his design to enter some one of the
many monasteries in Italy noted for their special rigor of life. A short time,
however, after the letter was dispatched he seems to have had an internal
illumination which set at rest forever any doubts he might have as to what his
method of living was to be. He then understood "that it was God's will that
like St. Alexis he should abandon his country, his parents, and whatever is
flattering in the world to lead a new sort of life, a life most painful, most
penitential, not in a wilderness nor in a cloister, but in the midst of the
world, devoutly visiting as a pilgrim the famous places of Christian
devotion". He repeatedly submitted this extraordinary inspiration to the
judgment of experienced confessors and was told he might safely conform to it.
Through the years that followed he never wavered in the conviction that this u
as the path appointed for him by God. He set forward on his life's journey clad
in an old coat, a rosary about his neck, another between his fingers, his arms
folded over a crucifix which lay upon his breast. In a small wallet he carried a
Testament, a breviary, which it was his wont to recite daily, a copy of the
"Imitation of Christ", and some other pious books Clothing other than
that which covered his person he had none. He slept on the ground and for t he
most part in the open air. For food he was satisfied with a piece of bread or
some herbs, frequently taken but once a day, and either provided by charity or
gotten from some refuse heap. He never asked for alms and was anxious to give
away to the poor whatever he received in excess of his scanty wants. The first
seven of the thirteen remaining years of his life were spent in pilgrimages to
the more famous shrines of Europe. He visited in this way Loreto, Assisi,
Naples, Bari, Fabriano in Italy; Einsiedeln in Switzerland; Compostella in
Spain; Parav-le-Monial in France. The last six years he spent in Rome, leaving
it only once a year to visit the Holy House of Loreto. His unremitting and
ruthless self-denial, his unaffected humility, unhesitating obedience and
perfect spirit of union with God in prayer disarmed suspicion not unnaturally
aroused as to the genuineness of a Divine call to so extraordinary a way of
existence. Literally worn out by his sufferings and austerities, on the 16th of
April 1783, he sank down on the steps of the church of Santa Maria dei Monti in
Rome and, utterly exhausted, was carried to a neighboring house where he died.
His death was followed by a multitude of unequivocal miracles attributed to his
intercession. The life written by his confessor, Marconi, an English version of
which bears the date of 1785, witnesses to 136 miraculous cures as having been
certified to up to 6 July, 1783. So remarkable, indeed, was the character of the
evidence for some of the miracles that they are said to have had no
inconsiderable part in finally determining the conversion of the celebrated
American convert, Father John Thayer, of Boston who was in Rome at the time of
the saint's death. Benedict was proclaimed Venerable by Pius IX in 1859 and
canonized by Leo XIII 8 December, 1881. His feast is kept on the 16th of April,
the day of his death.
<Biog. Univ.> (Paris, 1811-28); <Biog. Eccles. Completa> (Madrid, l857); <Life of Venerable Benedict Joseph Labre>, French tr., BARNARD (London, 1785); <Life of the Venerable Servant of God, Benedict Joseph Labre> (Oratorian Series, London, 1850). Transcribed by John Coleman |
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