Benedict was born in 1524 in San Fratello, Sicily (Italy). His parents, Giuseppe Cristoforo and Diana Larcari, descended from slaves deported from Ethiopia and belonged to a landowner named Manassari from whom they took their name. They had decided not to have children so as not to generate other slaves like them, but the master promised that their firstborn would be made free. So it was: Benedict collaborated in the livelihood of the family with the care of the flock belonging to his master, a service that did not prevent him from progressing in Christian virtues, so much so that he has been called "the Holy Moor" since then. Often mocked for the brown color of the skin and the servile extraction of his family, he endured everything with great patience and humility.
At the age of 21 he met Girolamo Lanza, a noble and rich man who had left family and wealth to consecrate himself to the Lord in the hermitage of Santa Domenica, near San Fratello. He invited him saying: "Blessed, what are you doing? Sell the oxen and come". In that invitation he heard the voice of Jesus calling him, communicated his decision to his parents, sold the oxen distributing the money to the poor and followed the invitation of the Lanza.
In the hermitage of Santa Domenica the eremitical life had been allowed in 1550 by Pope Julius III; the religious who embraced it, in addition to the rule of St. Francis of Assisi, had to observe a fourth vow that obliged a rigorous Lenten life by fasting three times a week and living in solitude and prayer. The institution, however, presented something unstable, so Benedict, who had already spent 17 years of hermit life, after careful discernment and long prayer to the Virgin Mother of God, humbly knocked on the convent of the Friars Minor of Santa Maria di Gesù in Palermo founded by Blessed Matthew of Agrigento.
Received benevolently, he was entrusted with the humblest of services that he fulfilled for the benefit of the community and the poor. He fulfilled the task of cook for a long time, but he performed it with such a spirit of sacrifice, of supernatural delight and of seraphic charity, that he could not hide the holiness for which miracles were also attributed to him.
Enjoying great esteem and admiration, although he was a simple friar and illiterate, he was appointed Guardian of the community in 1578. Later, thanks to that instinctive and almost infused knowledge of Scripture and theological issues, he was also appointed master of novices.
In his simplicity and humility, he was available to everyone; priests and his brothers turned to him to be enlightened in faith or trained in living their own state or according to the Franciscan Rule.
The fame of Saint and miracle worker spread throughout the entire island of Sicily and he could no longer avoid the expectations of the people and enjoy the desired solitude; from the processes of canonization, it is clear that numerous were the prodigious healings he carried out. In February 1589 he fell ill. He died at 7:00 p.m. on Easter Tuesday, April 4, 1589.
His cult spread from Sicily throughout the Italian peninsula, in Spain, in Europe, in America and recently in Africa, called "Benedetto da Palermo" or "São Benedito Preto"; in New York a church was built in the center of Manhattan in his honor. The Senate of Palermo in 1712 chose him as Compatron of the city. Benedict XIV recognized the cult on May 15, 1743, Pius VII canonized him on May 24, 1807.
On the fifth centenary of the birth of St. Benedict the Moor and on the occasion of the World Day of the Poor, the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, Br. Massimo Fusarelli, dedicated a letter to the life of the Sicilian Saint, consecrated to the Gospel and the cry of the poor.
Cf. Friars Minor Saints and Blessed, edited by Fr. Silvano Bracci, OFM and Sr. Antonietta Pozzebon, FMSC. Editrice Velar, 2009, pp. 250-252
Photo © Igor Scalisi Palminteri