other · 547 · Abbey of Monte Cassino
Gregory says she was Benedict's sister, consecrated to God from childhood, and that she came once a year to a house near the monastery gate where the two of them talked from morning until dark. At the last of these she asked him to stay the night and keep talking about heaven, and he refused, because his own Rule did not let him sleep outside the monastery. She put her head in her hands and prayed, and a storm came up so violent that nobody could leave. "You would not listen to me," Gregory has her say, "so I asked my Lord and he listened." They talked until morning; three days later Benedict saw her soul go up as a dove and had her buried in the tomb he had prepared for himself. Gregory draws the moral himself — she could do more because she loved more — and that is the whole of what is known about her. This dataset grades the event traditional rather than historical for that reason, and keeps it: the record is what the record is, and a legendary marking would be wrong for a person Gregory names as a real sister of a real man.
How much of a life can one chapter hold?
Hers. This is the entire record, and it is a miracle story.