St. Benedict established a network of Religious Orders that spread good morals throughout Europe. At the base of all this is St. Benedict and, by means of the contemplatives, St. Scholastica.
St. Scholastica attracted nuns who did not perform social assistance, did not teach catechism; they did “nothing”. In a period when their activity would seem so necessary, they did something that was much more than action: they prayed and sacrificed. By their example, they made it very clear that, if the apostolate of the male branch was so fruitful, this was because there was a female branch that prayed, that sacrificed itself, that contemplated.
Therefore, the ideal of contemplation is deeply present in this fruitfulness of the apostolate of conversion in Europe. And here we see the admirable, irreplaceable and, in some sense, incomparable role of St. Scholastica. Because to act, there are a certain number; to fight, there are fewer; but to suffer, how very few there are!
