The holy saint had a feeling that he was in his final hours and asked his monks to bring him into the oratory one last time.
Death remains a mystery to us all, as we know neither the day nor the hour when Christ will call us home. We could die while on our way to work, or in the quiet of the night.
Only God knows when that day will come.
Yet, some saints have been given a holy intuition regarding the time when they would return "home" to be with the Lord. It is a special gift, one that not everyone receives in this life.
St. Benedict, father of Western Monasticism, was one of those precious few who was allowed to prepare with foreknowledge for his final journey.
Dying in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament
On March 15, in the year 547, St. Benedict instructed his fellow monks to open his grave to prepare for his future burial. Shortly following that action he was overcome by an intense fever and he believed he was on the doorstep of death.
Benedictine monk Peter Lechner relates what happens next in his biography of St. Benedict:
Day by day his illness gained ground and he grew more feeble until at length, on the sixth day, calling his brethren, he bade them carry his wasted form to the church, there to receive for the last time the sacred Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Standing in the oratory supported, by his sorrowing children, he died as he had lived his hands uplifted to heaven in prayer and his great soul unfettered and unstained, found its rest at last in the bosom of the eternal God.
At about the same time two monks, both in different locations, had a vision of St. Benedict's ascent into Heaven:
On the day of his most happy death, two monks, one in the monastery and the other far distant, had the self same vision concerning him. They saw a path spread with garments and shining with innumerable lamps, which reached from the saint's cell in an easterly direction even up to heaven.
St. Benedict died on March 21, which was traditionally his feast day, until it was moved to July 11 after the Second Vatican Council, to bring it outside the season of Lent.
It certainly is a beautiful way to depart this world to the next, receiving the holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ before you enter into his presence for all eternity.
