Readings for Palm Sunday, Reading I Isaiah 50:4-7 | Reading II Philippians 2:6-11 | Gospel Luke 22:14—23:56
 

“Have among yourselves the same mind that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself…he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:5-8).” This is a preeminent biblical verse on the mystical way of self-annihilation. We are annihilated as Jesus was on the cross. Of course, this does not mean physical death, much less any form of literal extinction.

Rather, as we have seen in the mysticisms of Meister Eckhart, John Chapman, Francois Fenelon, and Paul of the Cross, self-annihilation means we surrender to God without any reservations. We become lost in God through the prayer of interior silence and naked faith. Then, we allow everyday life to help us leave the self as the center of attention and become more occupied with God. Self-annihilation, then, means God becomes our all. And there is a relatively unknown saint who exemplifies this by his very life: St. Benedict Joseph Labre.

St. Benedict Joseph Labre, 1748-1783, was a man who lived in total poverty, humility, and obscurity. He chose to embrace a path of pilgrimage rather than becoming a priest or a religious. He was known as the “Beggar Saint,” the “Pilgrim of the Holy House of Loreto,” and the “Pilgrim of God.” He wandered from shrine to shrine across Europe, dressed in rags, depending on alms, and constant prayer.

 As a young man, he attempted to become a priest. But he failed. Then he tried joining a Trappist monastery. He failed at that, too. Author Nowena Rana writes that “[he] tried to join other religious communities. He sought admission to the Carthusians, the Cistercians, and various other monastic orders, but each time he was rejected—either because of his fragile health or because the superiors discerned that he was not suited for communal monastic life.” In prayer, St. Benedict Joseph came to understand that God was calling him to a more radical path: a poor, wandering mystic.

Rana describes this unconventional path: “His life became one of constant pilgrimage—he had no home, no income, no steady source of food, and no place of rest. He slept outdoors, in abandoned ruins, or inside churches when permitted. Unlike ordinary beggars, who sought food and shelter for survival, Benedict chose to beg only for the bare minimum to stay alive. If he received extra alms, he often gave them away to others who were in need. He considered himself lower than the poor and destitute, believing that his only true wealth was Christ in the Eucharist…For the next several years, Benedict walked thousands of miles across France, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy, visiting the great pilgrimage sites of Christendom.”

Content with having nothing, St. Benedict Joseph embraced an anonymity: “Unlike those who sought recognition or honor, he actively chose to be forgotten by the world, seeing himself as nothing” (Rana). Consequently, he “radiated an unshakable joy that could only come from an intimate union with God” (Rana). “His story challenges us to reconsider what it truly means to follow Christ—not in comfort and security, but in absolute trust, detachment, and surrender” (Rana).

“After years of wandering, Benedict felt an inner call to remain in Rome, where he spent his last years. He made the Colosseum ruins his dwelling place at night and spent his days moving between the churches of the city.” And he kept praying everywhere, always.

Then, during Holy Week of 1783, he collapsed while praying for several hours in a church. A neighbor took him in to recover, but he died peacefully and surrendered to God. It was April 16. And now it is his feast day. His feast day falls in the middle of Holy Week this year. I recommend praying for some extra time that day in his memory.

St. Benedict Joseph chose to withdraw from every manner of self-assertion and attempt to be somebody. He did not want to be something but, rather, nothing. Meister Eckhart defined self-annihilation in this way: “the single act of the spiritual life is to reduce self to nothingness.” St. Benedict Joseph practiced this way of reducing self to nothing by losing himself in God through perpetual prayer and obscurity. It was as if he said, “I don’t want to think about myself anymore. I don’t care what others think of me. I want only GOD!”

This man was so remarkable because he chose self-annihilation as a way of life. He embraced poverty, obscurity and prayer. “His life is a powerful testimony that holiness is not confined to convents or churches but can be lived in total surrender to God’s will, even in the streets…a life of total surrender, sacrifice, and radical dependence on God” (Rana).

This is how we can live self-annihilation: pure prayer, poverty, and obscurity. We can dedicate ourselves to contemplative silence. We can choose a simple, minimal lifestyle to keep our attention focused on God. We can embrace the everyday obscurity and anonymity of daily life. Such is the way of self-annihilation, one of radiant bliss and glorious freedom. It leads to the new life of resurrection.