St Benedict Joseph Labre (1748-83) patron saint of tramps and the homeless
A failure at monastic life
Benedict Joseph Labre
was born 26 March 1748 near Boulogne, in France, the eldest child of
fifteen children of a prosperous shopkeeper.
He was educated privately
by his uncle, a parish priest, who died heroically, ministering to, and
himself infected by the victims of a cholera epidemic.
Benedict tried a
number of monastic communities in France like the Carthusians,
Trappists, and Cistercians, but each rejected him as being unsuitable.
A pilgrim beggar
After 1770, when he was
twenty-two, he found his real vocation as a pilgrim-beggar - walking to
shrines all over Europe.
His only possessions, besides the clothes he
wore, were two Rosaries, and three books: a New Testament, a Breviary,
and The Imitation of Christ.
He felt called to be a pilgrim to
places of Christian devotion.
He repeatedly made known his intention to
experienced confessors, who gave their approval.
At the major shrines of Europe
Benedict first
travelled on foot to Rome, living as a beggar and then to the major
shrines of Europe - to Loreto, Assisi, Naples, and Bari in Italy, to
Einsiedeln in Switzerland, to Aix-en-Provence and Paray-le-Monial in
France, and to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
He lived on what he was
given, and shared what he had with others. He rarely talked, prayed
much, and quietly accepted any abuse he given him.
In Rome
From 1774 Benedict settled in Rome (apart
from an annual pilgrimage to Loreto), sleeping at night in the
Colosseum, and spending his days in the churches, especially where there
was the Forty Hours adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
Santa Maria dei
Monti became his favourite Roman church, and here he became devoted to a
fresco of the Madonna and Child with Saints Stephen, Lawrence,
Augustine and Francis.
Toward the end of his life, when he became
seriously ill, he did accept shelter sometimes at a hospice for poor
men.
His death
On the Wednesday of Holy Week - 16
April 1783 - Benedict collapsed just outside Santa Maria dei Monti after
attending Mass.
A passerby carried him to his house nearby.
That
evening after receiving the Anointing of the Sick, he died.
He was
thirty-five.
A huge crowd thronged his funeral.
He was buried under an
altar in a chapel of Santa Maria dei Monti, where there is a life-size
marble effigy.
Influence
Within a few months of his death, more
than 136 miraculous cures ascribed to him were recorded by his spiritual
director and biographer, Fr G L Marconi.
An American Protestant
clergyman, Reverend John Thayer, a native Bostonian, who was in Rome at
the time of his funeral, converted to Catholicism and later became a
priest and died in Limerick in 1815.
Beatified and canonised
Benedict Joseph Labre was
beatified in 1859 by Pope Pius IX and canonised by Pope Leo XIII, 8
December 1881.
His feast is celebrated on 16th April.
Image
One portrait was made of him during his
life.
While the saint was in an ecstasy before an image of our Lady, he
was painted by Antonio Cavallucci, and this portrait hangs in the
National Gallery, Rome (Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica).