Saint Bridget of Sweden

When she was thirteen, her father married her, as if against her wi ll, to Ulf, Prince of Ner Wulfon, prince de Néricie Husband of Saint Bridget and Prince of Närke. icia, who was only eighteen. She spent an entire year with her husband in perfect continence, praying incessantly to the divine Goodness to make known His good pleasure on this subject, and to destine her to have children only for His greater glory. Her vows were happily granted; for, God having declared to her that she was to be a mother, He gave her four boys and as many girls, who were all fruits worthy of heaven, namely: Charles and Birger, who died while going to Jerusalem for the holy war; Benedict and Gudmar, who died in infancy;

Margaret and Cecilia, who were married and became models of virtue in their station; Ingeborg, who embraced the religious life, where her holiness shone forth through several miracles; and the illustrious Saint Catherine of Sweden, whose life we have given in it sainte Catherine de Suède Daughter of Saint Bridget and first abbess of Vadstena. s place. During one of her confinements, being in danger of death, she implored the assistance of the Blessed Virgin, who appeared to her immediately in the form of a richly adorned lady, and, touching her with her hand, delivered her at that very hour without leaving her any lingering discomfort. She employed all her care in raising her children in the fear of God and in engraving in their hearts the maxims of the Christian religion. One day, having learned that her son had forgotten to fast on the eve of Saint John the Baptist, she was extremely afflicted and wept bitterly: which was so pleasing to the divine Precursor that he appeared to her and assured her that, out of consideration for her, he would be the protector of that same son. Seeing herself with a sufficient number of children for the support of her family, she persuaded her husband to keep continence for the rest of their lives, and by her pious exhortations, she withdrew him insensibly from the court, where he was one of the king's chief counselors: she also inspired him with the devotion of reciting the Little Office of Our Lady every day. It was also to detach him entirely from the vanities of the world that she engaged him to make with her the pilgrimage to Saint James, in Galicia, during which they suffered incredible hardships. Upon their return, Ulf having fallen dangerously ill at Arras, Bridget felt extreme sorrow; but she was consoled by Saint Denis, who appeared to her and said: "I am Denis, who passed from Rome into Gaul to preach the word of God there. As you have a singular affection for me, I warn you that God wishes to make Himself known to the world through you, and that He has committed you to my care; and, as a sign of the truth of what I tell you, your husband will not die of this illness"; which indeed happened. The exhortations of this virtuous wife had made such an impression on him that, feeling completely disgusted with the world, he made a vow, a few days after his arrival in Sweden, to become a religious. The Bull of canonization of our Saint states that he died before he could execute it; but the Roman Breviary and the historian used by Surius say that he died holily in the monastery of Alvastra, of the Cistercian Order: and, indeed, his memory is marked in the menology of the Order on July 26.

After the death of her husband, she began to lead a life much more perfect than before; entirely mistress of her actions and having divided her property among all her children, she applied herself only to exercises of piety: she immediately changed her attire, and, without regard for her status as a princess, she took one consistent with the penitent life she had resolved to continue for the rest of her days. People of the world did not fail to condemn her conduct and treat her as a weak mind; but she mocked their judgment and answered them generously: "I did not begin for you, and all your mockery will not make me change my resolution." As the praises of men did not touch her, so their contempt made no impression on her heart. She was confirmed in her pious design by a vision where Our Lord, appearing to her in the midst of a luminous cloud, said to her: "I am your Master and your God, and I wish to converse familiarly with you; you shall be my spouse, and I will use you as a channel to make known to men secrets of which they are ignorant; and what I tell you will contribute to the salvation of many. Listen therefore to my voice, and give a faithful account to your confessor of the mysteries that I will manifest to you." This was the beginning of her revelations; and, from that time on, she undertook nothing except by an express movement of the Holy Spirit. She then had as a confessor a famous doctor of theology, named Mathias, who was a canon of the cathedral of Linköping.

During the thirty years that she survived her husband, she wore no linen, except for a veil with which she covered her head. She afflicted her flesh with a very rough hair shirt, to which she added, in honor of the most holy Trinity, three ropes made of horsehair with several knots with which she girded herself so tightly that they pierced her skin. She also had other instruments of mortification that she placed on her legs, in order to suffer in all parts of her body. Her mattress was but a simple rug that she had spread near her bed when she wanted to take a little rest. She was asked one day how, in this state, she could resist the cold, which is extreme in Sweden, and she confessed that she felt internally such great ardor that she was almost insensible to the rigor of winter. She knelt so often, both day and night; she made such a great number of bows and kissed the ground so many times that one was astonished that a woman of her quality and, moreover, of a very delicate constitution, could resist all these austerities. Every Friday she let the wax of a lighted candle drip onto her flesh, until she had burned it sufficiently to make a wound; and, when the wound healed by itself before the following Friday, she would reopen it with her nails, so much did she fear being without some new pain. That same day, to honor the passion of Our Lord, to whom the soldiers presented gall at the cross, she carried in her mouth a very bitter herb, called gentian, in order to participate as much as she could in this suffering of her divine Master. She did the same thing when it happened that she uttered some word with too much haste, thereby expiating the slight faults of her tongue. She had been accustomed, since her childhood, to confess every Friday; but, since the death of her husband, she confessed more often, and even sometimes several times a day. She did so with very profound humility, and, although her sins were not very considerable, she nevertheless conceived an extreme sorrow for them, weeping over them more bitterly than others usually weep for the most enormous ones. She approached the holy table every Sunday and solemn feast day, and received the Eucharist with the sentiments of the most tender devotion. She was not content with fasting on the days commanded by the Church; but she did so four times a week and on many other days, as piety inspired her. She spent Fridays on bread and water and observed a great number of other fasts with the same rigor. Finally, she found no occasion to mortify herself that she did not embrace with admirable fervor, persuaded that it was an effective means of making her spirit capable of the lights with which Our Lord had the kindness to favor her.

This severity toward herself did not prevent her from having a marvelous sweetness toward her neighbor, and an extreme compassion for the poor. She fed twelve each day, serving them herself at the table and providing them with everything they needed, and on Thursday she washed their feet; she had hospitals to receive the sick and convalescents, and maintained several people there charged with assisting them. Her esteem for poverty led her to make herself poor, by abandoning her income to a person from whom she asked for alms for the love of Jesus Christ. In her pilgrimages, she was delighted to be able to eat with the other poor. She did not even blush to beg with them, and the bread she received on these occasions, she kissed with inconceivable tenderness and preferred it to the most delicious dishes: which she did particularly in Rome, at the door of the monastery of Saint Lawrence, called *in Panisperna*, of the Order of Saint Clare.

She showed her zeal for the salvation of souls, not only by her edifying discourses which touched all those who had the happiness of conversing with her, and by the examples of her virtues which made her admired by everyone; but also by a great number of letters that she wrote to all sorts of people, such as the emperor, kings, princes, religious, and even the pope, as she received orders from God, sometimes to warn them of the divine wrath with which they were threatened if they did not do penance, sometimes to gently and moderately rebuke them for the faults they committed in their functions, and sometimes to urge them to undertake with fervor the work of their perfection. The abundant lights she received from above only made her more humble before God and before men. She submitted them to the judgment of her confessor and of enlightened persons, for fear of some illusion. Her obedience toward those who had some authority over her was perfect; it is noted in the bull of her canonization that she hardly dared to raise her eyes without the permission of her director. Her patience was invincible in her afflictions and illnesses, and she suffered them with entire conformity to the will of God, without letting herself give way to complaints and murmurs.

Among the revelations she received, she learned from Jesus Christ Himself the constitutions she was to give to sixty nuns she had gathered in the monastery of Wadst ena or Wastein, found monastère de Wadstena Principal monastery founded by Saint Bridget in Sweden. ed in 1344 through her generosity. She also proposed them to be kept by twenty-five religious who lived under the Rule of Saint Augustine. And this was the beginning of the Order that has since been called of Saint Bridget or of the Most Holy Savior. T Ordre que l'on a depuis appelé de Sainte-Brigitte ou du Saint-Sauveur Religious order founded by Saint Bridget following the Rule of Saint Augustine. hese constitutions were approved by the Apostolic See. When she had stayed for about two years in the monastery of Wadstena, Our Lord appeared to her and commanded her to go to Rome, so that she Rome Birthplace of Maximian. might participate in the abundant graces that so many holy martyrs have merited by the shedding of their blood for those who visit this city. She did not delay in obeying this inspiration; but abandoning her country and all her acquaintances as soon as possible, she generously undertook this pilgrimage. On the way, she visited an infinity of places of devotion, exposing herself with joy to the fatigues of the journey, to have the consolation of paying her respects to the Saints who were honored there; and her prayers were always rewarded by extraordinary favors that God poured into her soul: she was often seen rapt in ecstasy.

In Rome, she gave great examples of virtue. She often went on foot to the station churches in the most inclement weather, although she was already aged and her body was quite exhausted by her great austerities; and instead of using her wealth to procure comforts for herself, she distributed it to the poor, whom she took as much care of as if they had been her own children. She went to see those she knew to be the most abandoned of all human help, and assisted them with tireless charity. She was seen in hospitals rendering to the sick services that are ordinarily entrusted to the lowest servants. She always applied herself to those who caused the most horror, for fear that they would not be as well treated as the others; she did not fear to touch, clean, and dress wounds whose mere sight made the heart recoil. She also conferred in Rome with several doctors and with other persons of all kinds of conditions, to whom she inspired great sentiments for God. She then published some revelations there, which made it acknowledged that Our Lord spoke through her mouth. She knew the depths of consciences and discovered the most secret movements of the hearts of those she saw; she had such a great horror of sin that she felt an unbearable odor exhaling from persons who were in a bad state; but she used all these lights usefully to win their souls to Jesus Christ, by telling them what was necessary to excite in them the sentiments of a true conversion. From Rome, she made various other pilgrimages, such as to Sicily, to the kingdom of Naples, and to other places of devotion in Italy, and she left everywhere brilliant marks of her holiness: the people were edified and perfumed by the good odor of her virtues.

After all these journeys, which had reduced her to extreme weakness, Our Lord commanded her to make one to Jerusalem to visit Jérusalem Holy city where the Cross was lost and subsequently recovered. the places sanctified by the mysteries of the Redemption of men. He assured her at the same time that He would give her the strength necessary to do so, and that He would Himself be her guide and protector. She promptly and faithfully executed this order of her divine Spouse and went to Palestine with Saint Catherine, her daughter. She omitted none of the places that the Savior honored with His presence, and she received very special graces everywhere. It was in the exercise of this devotion that God revealed to her a quantity of things touching the state of several kingdoms, such as the desolation of that of Cyprus and the entire ruin of the empire of the Greeks, because of their schism. She also had knowledge of various particulars of the death and passion of Jesus Christ, and, to use the terms of the history of her life, she merited to taste there the sweetness of the wounds of Our Lord and to be often flooded with the ineffable sweetness of His divine communications. On her return, she visited some churches in Italy again, and especially that of Ortona, in Apulia, because of the relics of Saint Thomas the Apostle. She ardently desired to have some of them, and when she had visited them the first time, she had had assurance, in a vision, that at the second she would obtain what she asked for. Indeed, as she prayed devoutly before these same relics, Saint Thomas appeared to her and told her that the time had come to give her what she so keenly desired, and at that very hour a piece of bone detached itself from the reliquary, without the apparent help of any person, and came to place itself in her hands. This wonder is reported in chapter IV of book VII of her Revelations, where Cardinal de Torrecremata, in his Notes, proves that there were relics of this Apostle in that church.

Before her departure from Jerusalem, she had been attacked by a fever and a weakness of the stomach which caused her very acute pains for an entire day. In Rome, her illness increased greatly and finally led her to the grave. Five days before her death, Our Lord appeared to her for the last time, gave her assurances of her eternal happiness, prescribed to her what she had to do until she arrived there, marked for her precisely this happy moment, and taught her in what manner she should be buried, namely: with the habit of the nuns of the Order that she had founded, although she had not worn it during her life; He revealed to her what would happen to her body and how it would be transferred to Sweden, with the exception of some part that would remain in Rome, and finally told her several secret things to declare to some particular persons. At the end of this time, seeing the happy day appear when she was to be delivered from this world to go and enjoy eternally the presence of her celestial Spouse, she finished giving to Birger and Catherine, her children, who were with her, beautiful teachings for the conduct of their lives and the practice of virtue, and received the last sacraments of the Church in a perfect freedom of spirit and an entire use of her senses. Finally, after having adored the body of Jesus Christ at the mass that was being celebrated in her room, saying these words: "Lord, I commend my spirit into your hands," she peacefully rendered her soul to God on July 23, the year of salvation 1373, being more than seventy years old. Several people immediately had a revelation of her glory.

## CULT AND RELICS. — HER WRITINGS.

Her body was buried in the church of the nuns of Saint Clare, at the monastery of Saint Lawrence in Panisperna, on the Viminal. Besides some miracles she had performed during her life and those that occurred at her coffin before her burial, a great number took place at her tomb and elsewhere through her invocation; Saint Antoninus notes, among others, the resurrection of ten dead people. The emperor, kings, princes, an infinity of prelates and great lords, and especially the blessed Catherine, her daughter, urgently pursued her canonization, which was performed on October 7, 1391, by Pope Boni face IX. One yea pape Boniface IX Pope who canonized Saint Bridget in 1391. r after her death, her body, except for one arm, was transported by the care of her children from Rome to Sweden, where it was interred in the monastery of the Holy Savior of Vadstena, which she had founded.

The memory of Saint Bridget is still alive in Rome, at the monastery of Saint Lawrence in Panisperna where she lived, at the catacombs of Saint Sebastian where she made frequent pilgrimages, and at the Basilica of Saint Paul where she had several of her revelations. The crucifix that spoke to her is preciously preserved in this basilica: it is unveiled on the first of each month and on Good Friday. This crucifix, larger than life-size, has the head turned sharply to the right, and the expression of life is joined there with that of an unspeakable pain.

Saint Bridget has been honored for several centuries with a particular cult at Villechan Villechand A private place of worship in the Diocese of Nevers. d, in the diocese of Nevers; the old registers of the parish of Saint-Agnan de Conze mention two feasts of Saint Bridget, one on October 8, and the other on Whit Monday. On these two days, a procession would leave from the church of Saint-Agnan to go to Villechand.

In this chapel, one can see a stone statue of the Saint, which is considered very ancient, and which has always been the object of great veneration. At the time of the Revolution, it was hidden by a pious family and returned to its place when the revolutionary storm had dissipated. The two feasts of Saint Bridget are celebrated as in the past in the diocese of Nevers.

Saint Bridget founded at Wadstena (Wastein), in the diocese of Linköping, in Sweden, a convent where she placed sixty nuns.

In a separate building, she gathered thirteen religious priests, in honor of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul; four deacons, in memory of the four great Doctors of the Church, Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Gregory the Great, and Saint Jerome; and finally eight lay brothers, to administer and attend to temporal affairs. The nuns, with the lay brothers and the deacons, were to represent the seventy-two disciples of Christ. She named her foundation the Order of the Savior, Ordo Salvatoris, because, she said, the Savior himself had prescribed its most important rules to her in a vision. Peter of Alvastra drafted them and obtained permission from Saint Bridget to add a few provisions taken from other Rules. The Saint requested the Church's approval of her Rule. Pope Urban V, in approving it (1379), made notable changes to it and considered it only as a particular statute of the Order, which was, moreover, established on the Rule of Saint Augustine.

According to these statutes, this Order of women is instituted in honor of the Blessed Virgin; the religious men are charged with providing for the spiritual needs of the nuns, and their number must not exceed the thirteen indicated above. Nuns cannot be admitted before the age of eighteen, nor religious men before twenty-five. Postulants are sent away three times over three months and are obliged each time to renew their request, so that the postulancy lasts one year, during which one must seriously test one's vocation.

After the year of postulancy, the diocesan bishop appears at the door of the church, and it is only after having formulated her request once more and having answered various questions about her past life that the postulant is received. A red banner is carried before her, having a crucifix on one side and the image of the Blessed Virgin on the other. The one is to remind her of patience and poverty, the other of humility and chastity. The postulant remains at the entrance of the church while the bishop blesses a ring and places it on her finger. Then the bishop says the Holy Mass. The postulant makes her offering at the Offertory and returns to her place until the celebrant, after having blessed her habit, has her fetched by two priests. She advances barefoot, strips off her secular clothes at a corner of the altar, and receives the habit of the Order.

The bishop continues the Mass, turns toward the place where engaged couples are usually blessed and united, places the crown of the nuns on the postulant's head, and finishes the holy sacrifice. When it is completed, the new bride of Jesus Christ throws herself at the bishop's feet and remains prostrate while the bishop chants the litanies; then the bishop raises her up and gives her communion. During this time, four nuns have opened the convent, and they carry the nun on a stretcher into the monastery, accompanied by the bishop. Similar ceremonies take place for the reception of a nun.

The ordinances relating to fasting and poverty are not very severe. The costume of the nuns consists of a gray robe with a hood and a scapular of the same color. The mantle is fastened by a wooden button and lined in winter with sheepskin. A white wimple frames the face, rises on both sides, crowns the forehead, and is attached to the top of the head by a pin.

Over this wimple they wear a black linen veil, and above the veil a white cloth crown with five small red spots. The costume of the Fathers is the same color as that of the nuns. The priests wear on the left side a red cross in the middle of which is a white host; the deacons, a circle with a red flame; and the brothers, a white cross with five spots of blood. The nuns are, for temporal matters, subject to the abbess, as in the Order of Fontevraud; they are, for spiritual matters, under the direction of the monks.

All the convents are under the dependence of the diocesan bishop, who has the right of visitation. The abbess must watch over the preservation of discipline. A grave opened in the convent and a coffin exposed in the church must incessantly remind the nuns of their last ends. Their dwelling and that of the monks are absolutely separated from one another. The church is common, but built in such a way that the monks and the nuns do not see each other.

The Order thus constituted spread especially in the Northern States, to which it rendered the greatest services. It also had some houses in France and Italy, where it still possesses two very rich convents, in one of which only women or girls of high birth are received. Before the French Revolution and the secularization in Germany, one found some of these double convents in Flanders; there were ten in Germany. In England, there was formerly only one convent of the Order, in Middlesex, on the Thames, ten miles from London. It had been founded in 1413 by Henry V, with royal magnificence. As it offered a notable prey, the revenues amounting from 1,700 to 1,900 pounds sterling (about 50,000 francs), it was one of the first monasteries pillaged under Henry VIII. Edward VI first gave it to Edward, Duke of Somerset, from whom it passed to the Duke of Northumberland. Queen Mary returned it to the abbess; but it was again taken back under Elizabeth, and the persecuted nuns took refuge in Mechelen, Rouen, etc. Finally, they settled in Lisbon. King Philip and several pious persons provided them with the help necessary for their establishment, while a Portuguese lady, who had entered their Order, gave them one of her patrimonial lands.

The Order of Saint Bridget had the misfortune of having most of its convents precisely located in countries ravaged by the schism of the 17th century, and thus seeing them for the most part ruined by the Reformation. The single convent of Wadstena managed, by a kind of miracle, to maintain itself long enough through the religious troubles of the country; its inhabitants endured the persecution and contempt of the Protestants with heroic patience and found noble protectors in John III and the Pope's nuncio, Father Possevin. Seven nuns were still able to make their vows in his hands. But when Duke Charles of Sudermania, father of Gustavus Adolphus, had obtained from the Diet of Söderköping (1605) that the last vestiges of the papacy would be extirpated from Sweden, the convent of Wadstena, the last and most famous of the monasteries of Sweden, was abolished like the others and became a chapter of Protestant ladies.

The Rule of Saint Bridget then underwent notable changes where it could still be observed. Notably, one could no longer obey the wishes of the holy foundress regarding the number of members of the Order and their submission to the superior, for several convents counted only very few nuns and no longer had monks. Beside the pious figures who have honored this Order, it had the misfortune of nourishing in its bosom one of the scourges of the Church, Oecolampadius, who was a priest at the convent of the Holy Savior, near Augsburg.

A special devotion that Marina de Escobar had for Saint Bridget caused her Order to be introduced in Valladolid, Spain, in the first half of the 18th century. She planned, for this purpose, particular statutes according to the Rules of Saint Bridget; her confessor, Father du Pont, drafted them, and Pope Urban VIII approved them. These Bridgettines, called of the Recollection, obtained four convents in Spain. They had the same costume as the nuns of Sweden and were distinguished from them only by a red cross on their veil. Others claim that the first convent of Saint Bridget was founded in Valladolid by Elisabeth of France, wife of the King of Spain, Philip IV. Marina de Escobar died in 1633, in Valladolid, aged over eighty years, without having worn the habit of the Order.

## THE HOLY ELDER SIMEON AND THE PROPHETESS ANNA

(circa year 1).

"When the time of the Purification, prescribed by the law of Moses, had arrived," writes the Evangelist Saint Luke, "Mary and Joseph brought the child to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, according to what is written in the book of the Law: 'Every firstborn son shall be the holy property of Jehovah,' and to offer the legal sacrifice of two turtledoves or two young pigeons. Now, there was in Jerusalem a just and God-fearing man named Simeon; he l ived i Siméon Righteous man of Jerusalem who welcomed the Child Jesus at the Temple. n expectation of the consolation promised to Israel. The Holy Spirit rested upon him and had revealed to him that he would not die without having seen the Christ of the Lord. Led by divine inspiration, he came to the Temple, at the hour when the parents of Jesus were entering it, to perform the legal ceremonies. Simeon took the child in his arms and blessed God in these terms: 'Now, Lord, you shall let your servant die in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have beheld the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the peoples of the world; the light that must enlighten the nations, the glory of Israel our people.' Joseph and Mary admired in silence the words of the elder. Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, the mother of Jesus: 'Behold, this child, established for the ruin and the resurrection of many in Israel, shall appear as a standard of contradiction. A sword shall pierce your soul. It shall be so, that the thoughts which hide in the depths of hearts may be brought to light.'

At this same time lived Anna, the prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She had lived many days. In the time of her youth, having lost her husband after seven years of marriage, she had remained in widowhood: she was then eighty-four years old. She no longer left the Temple, serving God, night and day, in fasting and prayer. Anna, having therefore arrived on this occasion, praised the Lord herself and spoke of the child to all those who awaited the redemption of Israel.

It is claimed that the relics of Saint Simeon were transported from Judea to Constantinople, in the time of Theodosius the Younger (408-450) or under the following reigns, and that they were seen there in the 8th century in a church of Saint James the Less, from where they were allegedly transferred to Venice in 1200. For a long time, pilgrims were shown, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, near Jerusalem, a monument that was claimed to be the tomb of this holy elder; nevertheless, in the time of Saint Gregory of Tours (559-593), the general opinion was that he had been buried on the Mount of Olives, with the priest Zechariah, father of Saint John the Baptist, by the apostle Saint James the Less, in a tomb that he had had made for himself.

One of the arms of the holy elder has been for several years in Périgord, at Ligueux (Dordogne, arrondissement of Périgueux, canton of Savignac), which was before the Revolution a large Benedictine monastery (B. M. de Ligurio).

The feast of Saint Simeon has been celebrated on different days. In the East, it was usually held on February 2 or 3. The oldest martyrologies of the Western Church mark it on January 5; others place it on February 2 or 4; some on the 9th of the same month. Ado and Usuard placed it on October 8 without us knowing the reason: they were followed by Baronius, in his Roman martyrology.

Saint Simeon is represented holding the Child Jesus in his arms. He is the patron saint of Zadar, in Dalmatia.

Abbé Darras, General History of the Catholic Church; Ballist; Local notes.