Reflection: The Feast of St. Scholastica

From the Vigil of St. Scholastica, February 9th, 2026

Sr. Susan Hutchens, Prioress

At my recent meeting with the Conference of Benedictine Prioresses, on each table was a book for each of us. The covers were different, with each book having a different title. They actually were Reflection books – all blank pages with lines. Some used them there to take notes. I brought mine home to use at another time.

The quote on the cover of mine, and on several others (they weren’t all different), was “The Path to True Wisdom Begins with a Humble Heart,” by St. Scholastica. It took some of us a little while to ponder that, and then wonder, “Where did they get those quotes?” St. Scholastica didn’t write anything that was ever preserved.

There is a rather “new book” out entitled “The Lost Dialogues of Gregory the Great.” From our early formation days in community, we all read the Dialogues of Gregory at least once, in which he told the story of St. Benedict’s life to a student, Peter by name. Not all of it was factual, but it taught all of us some things that were known, or written later, about St. Benedict. The author of this new book, “The Lost Dialogues” is a Good Samaritan Sister of the Order of St. Benedict from Australia, Sr. Carmel Posa, SGS. She acknowledges first thing that this is a story taken from Hagiography – or sacred biography, possibly passed down through the ages, or new, but never intended as fact.

The story of Scholastica praying to God to keep Benedict with her that night they visited, so they could talk longer, is part of hagiography, and comes from those Dialogues of Gregory. Yet we know there is truth in the belief of Scholastica that God would answer her prayers by sending a terrific rainstorm that prevented Benedict from returning to the monastery that night.

“The Path to True Wisdom Begins with a Humble Heart,” she supposedly said. Scholastica had a humble heart – she never hesitated to turn to God when it was needed. God could do what she alone could not. Though I haven’t read the entire “Lost Dialogues”, it tends to show that perhaps Benedict learned from Scholastica as much as she learned from him.

In the 1st Book of Kings, God tells Solomon, known to be wise, that because he had behaved well and faithfully, God would give him anything. We all know what Solomon asked for – not anything from this world, but for a humble and understanding heart – big enough to judge others with love so as to govern well. I think that is what Scholastica also received from God: a humble, loving heart to know both wisdom and God’s will in all that might come to pass with her small community. With Scholastica, let us all seek the path to wisdom through a humble and loving heart.