I recently discovered this Saint when reading, 'Reaching for God: Lives of Heroic Virtue,' a rather nice publication I found in Church. I love it when I discover a Saint who I had hitherto not heard of at all and who inspires in me a sudden desire to amend my sinful life. St Benedict Joseph Labre was born in 1748, the eldest of 15 children to a prosperous French shopkeeper, in the village of Amettes, near Boulogne. To cut a long story short, he was considered too sickly and delicate for the Trappist monasteries he wanted to join. Instead he decided to be homeless and live amongst the homeless of Rome, where he settled, having made holy pilgrimmages to Loreto and other holy pilgrimmage sites. He ate herbs, seldom begged and apparently smelt so rough that his Confessors couldn't bear to be near him!
Yet, his Franciscan love of poverty, his love for the poor (to whom he gave anything he had), and his love for the Crucified Christ marked his life and won for him sanctity and true holiness. I often pray to him now, that I may be more like him, but not so much that my parents and friends disown me.
He was known as the 'Poor Man of the Forty Hours' due to his habit of spending whole days in the churches of Rome, where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in a monstrance for a period of 40 hours. Many would think that his death at the age of 35 a failure of a human life. Yet, he was sickly even when very young and wanted to empty himself and make himself the servant of the poorest, and to be the poorest in union with Christ.
The Saints truly confuse us sometimes! Here is one Saint who demonstrated for us the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. What the World deems as failure is the triumph of the Cross over a worldly death! Here is a Saint who showed us that what rises high in the esteem of men, is often scorned by God, and those who mankind treats as contemptible are most precious in the eyes of God!
St Joseph Benedict Labre, patron of the homeless, pray for all the homeless of Brighton and pray for us that we might shelter them and feed them.
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