It’s been a while since I wrote about a saint that has inspired me, mostly due to my lack of ability to write efficiently. As the saying goes, choose your battles. I try to always focus on what needs to truly be done with the time I have in my business, while keeping balance with being present to my family and my relationship with the Lord. This also includes talking to people in the moment, which is more important for me personally than trying to attain status on the internet. With that said, I had to honor this saint who’s upcoming feast day will be a sad one for those who are venerate him. St. Benedict the Moor is sadly no more, at least in an earthly sense.

As I was planning an event with a men’s group I participate with, I decided to do it April, 4 in honor of St. Benedict, a saint who’s tomb I visited and who I had made a relic holy card for. It’s a way to connect people with my travels and the saint who’s tomb I visited and prayed for intercession from along my travels and encounters. I am inspired by these people who continue to share God’s grace with us from the heavenly Jerusalem. They share this beatific vision, which we on earth struggle to understand with all of our worldly ways and divisions. St. Benedict the Moor was a great example of this humility and truly interceded for me on a day where human inclination, was going to try to block my encounter with him.

To begin, Benedict was born of slave parents, but due to their service he was given freedom at birth. Benedict continued a life of humble service as a hermit. He was the cook of an eventual Franciscan community near Palermo, Sicily. He was never a priest, just a simple brother. However he was asked to be the head of this group due to his holiness. He served various roles, but always remained the cook for the community, always with an abundance of food, despite known shortages in the region. He was a man who relied on God’s Providence, and was never lacking, always using what he had, to create miracles in his daily life.

I share these basics since there’s not really a whole lot about him online, no writings, no sermons, etc. Just one picture which hangs in his former room. I was fortunate to visit this room, but it almost never happened. Thanks to an invite from my cousins, I went to Sicily with my wife (fiancé at the time). St. Benedict was one of three saints I wanted to visit. First I visited St. Agatha, who’s tomb you can only see through a iron fence, and St. Lucy who to my surprise was not actually in Syracuse anymore, but was in Venice, a place I had already gone the year before. I was hoping the third time would do it for me.

I decided to walk through Palermo on my last full day in Sicily, to St. Benedicts tomb. Driving just felt like it was going to be more hassle than it was worth. It was an interesting walk, since it wasn’t all Italians lining the streets, but African migrants. I was clearly in an area you don’t really see on tv. However as a person from NYC, you just confidently walk wherever you are, like you belong there. After nearly an hour and a half I arrived at the church, only to find out it was closed. I began to look around for any opportunity to get in.

I vaguely remember seeing people walk to a specific door, to which I rang the bell and made some attempts. It slips my mind of the order of events, but what I do remember was at some point there was a man in street clothes who came to the door to greet these people I saw. At that point I approached asking to see the church. He didn’t speak any English and was literally shooing me away. Thankfully the people he was greeting spoke a little English and were trying to tell him I wanted to see the church. He continued to say the church was closed. I then kept holding up the box of holy cards I wrote and insisted I can’t come back tomorrow as he requested, since I was going back to the USA.

After several minutes of this the man pointed to the sky as though to gesture this is a God moment and went inside the building. He came back wearing a Franciscan habit and invited us in. He gave us a tour, which the people who translated for me had never seen. We went to St. Benedict’s tomb, along with a future saint from Agrigento. This was another special moment as I visited a friends hometown near this area on the trip, I said a special prayer on his behalf and brought a relic from that tomb too. After our visit here we went to convent and he showed us around, and gave me several gifts, including the same picture in St. Benedict’s room. It hangs in my altar space until this day. My patience and persistence paid off like the persistent woman who petitions Jesus in Luke 18.

This brings me to the unfortunate event’s which happened July 25, 2023. The date is of significance to me personally, since it’s the feast day of St. James, who is the inspiration of the El Camino, the great pilgrimage through Spain. The name of my business is inspired by a book about this similar journey/pilgrimage of life. The main characters name is Santiago (which literally translates to St. James), and it’s about his pilgrimage for his personal legend/destiny. Apparently there were some wild fires in the area that caused a fire inside of the church and everything was pretty much lost. There’s just a small charred remnant of St. Benedict and St Matteo of Agrigento.

Moments like this are humbling to me, considering there were a series of events that could’ve happened had I not been open to the Holy Spirit which guides me everyday. Instead everything fell into place, despite the human frailty around me, including my own which nearly ended my relationship with my now wife, in a moment of haste. People constantly remind me that these things happen because I am open to the Spirit, and I’m some special person. However I am constantly reminded, there’s nothing really special about me, I was and still am very broken in many respects. However when you connect with the saints, who dwell in the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, you realize the gates of heaven are open to us all. If only we would enter into them, instead of window shopping from outside, admiring the beauty, but never letting in this grace to change us.

Every Catholic and Orthodox church you see, is heaven on earth, the new Jerusalem as promised by Jesus. If we all were to participate in the Holy Eucharist, the glue which bonds the church and sustained the saints, we too would experience the fullness of joy and peace that Jesus Christ promises in our new life and creation, which is in accordance with the Father’s (Logos) design. We also see a family of saints cheering us on as Paul describes in Hebrews 12. St. Benedict the Moor was a great example of this humility and experience and why 400 years later, he is remembered, while many others were forgotten. May he continue to pray for us and cheer us on in perseverance.

One final thought that came to me, but didn’t fit in the previous. As I walked to St. Benedicts tomb there were many faces I saw. However on the way back, there was one face I saw again, which stood out to me. I said hello to him, and acknowledged I saw him earlier on my walk. He shared with me he was from Senegal, and was in Sicily learning to cook. I then gave him a holy card of St. Benedict because not only did he cook, but he greatly resembled the man I was looking at. I pointed all of this out to him and felt like I was in the moment of the gospels, seeing the face of Jesus in this man. These holy cards I have shared with others are now a rare relic of this saint.

April Drinking Companion