St. Benedict Joseph Labre

St. Benedict Joseph Labre was born on 26 March 1748 at Amettes in northern France, the eldest of fifteen children in a prosperous farming family. Drawn to the strictest religious life, he sought entry among the Trappists, Carthusians, and Cistercians in turn, but was each time judged unsuited to community life. He came to understand his vocation as a different one: to become a pilgrim for God, wandering on foot to the great shrines of Europe.

For years he journeyed to Rome, Loreto, Assisi, Compostela, and other holy places, owning nothing, sleeping in ruins, and sharing what alms he received with others poorer than himself. In his final years he settled in Rome, spending his days in prayer before the Forty Hours devotion and his nights in the Colosseum. He collapsed and died on 16 April 1783, and the cry "the saint is dead" spread through the city. Canonized in 1881, he is the patron of the homeless and of pilgrims, a witness that holiness can be found in radical poverty and hidden prayer.