• =?UTF-8?Q?March_24th_=E2=80=93_St=2E_Catherine_of_Vadstena=2C_Bridgetti

    From rich@1:396/4 to All on Tue Mar 23 10:14:45 2021
    From: rich <richarra@gmail.com>

    March 24th =E2=80=93 St. Catherine of Vadstena, Bridgettine
    =C2 (Also known as Catherine of Sweden)

    Born at Ulfasa, Sweden, in 1331; died March 24, 1381; cultus approved
    in 1484 by Pope Innocent VIII.

    Fourth of the 8 children of Saint Bridget and her husband, Ulf
    Gudmarsson of Nierck, Saint Catherine was sent to Risberg Convent to
    be educated at a very young age. She wished to remain in the convent
    to pursue a religious vocation, but she was married at age 13 or 14 to
    Eggard (Edgard) Lydersson von K=C3=BCrnen, a lifelong invalid and long-suffering man. She and Eggard took a vow to remain celibate and
    she tended to him with great devotion. He allowed her to do anything
    she pleased under the direction of the Church.

    Catherine grew extremely sad when her father died and Saint Bridget
    went to live in Rome. For a time (as she herself told Saint Catherine
    of Siena), she never smiled. In 1349, Eggard permitted Catherine to
    travel to Rome to visit her mother during the Jubilee of 1350. While
    in Rome she learned of her husband's death, which Saint Bridget had
    prophesied. (Farmer says that she returned to Sweden and nursed her
    husband until his death.) Even then she was for some time extremely
    unhappy, because Rome in the 14th century was a dissolute place and
    her mother would not let her go out.

    From the time of her husband's death, she lived the life of devotion
    that she had desired, refusing persistent suitors who wished to marry
    the beautiful young widow. Some of them even lay in wait for her to
    carry her off. One was distracted when a hart ran by just as Bridget
    and Catherine passed. Others, it is said, were blinded. To try to
    repulse such suitors, and also as an act of humility, Catherine always
    went about in the most ragged and threadbare clothing.

    Soon Catherine was her mother's devoted, reliable, and constant
    assistant, and served her for the next 25 years. In 1372, she and her
    mother made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, returning by way of Rome,
    where Saint Bridget died the following year. Catherine returned with
    her mother's body to Sweden and there she became abbess of the convent
    of Vadstena, founded by her mother, and the motherhouse of the
    Bridgettine (Salvatorian) Order.

    Now followed intense work to promote the Bridgettine Order. Bound
    together in double monasteries, men and women pledged themselves to
    live in poverty, save for the right to buy as many books as they
    needed for study and devotion

    In 1375, she returned to Rome to win papal approval for the order. She succeeded in getting Urban VI's approval but failed in bringing about
    the canonization of her mother. She died soon after her return from
    Rome. Her vita was written by Ulpho, a Brigittine friar, thirty years
    after her death (Attwater, Attwater2, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Husenbeth, White).

    Saint Catherine's patronage is invoked as protection against abortion,
    perhaps because of the chastity of her life (White).

    Reflection.
    Whoever has to dwell in the world stands in need of great prudence;
    the Holy Scripture itself assures us that =E2=80=9Cthe knowledge of the sai= nts
    is prudence.=E2=80=9D (Prov. 9:10)

    Bible Quote:
    For as the body is one and hath many members; and all the members of
    the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body: So also is Christ.
    For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or
    Gentiles, whether bond or free: and in one Spirit we have all been
    made to drink.=C2 [1 Co 12:12-13 ]


    <><><><>
    Love is strong as death:

    =C2 =C2 Fasten this sign of the Crucified upon your breast and your h=
    eart,
    fasten it upon your arm, so that in all your actions you may be dead
    to sin. Do not be dismayed by the hardness of the nails; it is no more
    than the severity of love. Do not complain of their unbreakable
    firmness; love also is strong as death. It is love that puts to death
    all our sins and failings, love that deals their death blow. In a
    word, by loving the Lord's commandments we die to sin and to deeds of
    shame. God is love; his word is love, that word which is all-powerful,
    sharper than a two-edged sword, penetrating to the point where soul is
    divided from spirit or joints from marrow. Our soul and our flesh must
    be transfixed by the nails of love, and then we ourselves can say: I
    am wounded by love. Love has its own nail and its own sword with which
    to pierce the human soul; happy are they who are wounded by them.
    =C2 =C2 Let us willingly expose ourselves to these wounds; if we succ=
    umb
    to them, we shall not taste everlasting death. Let us take up our
    Lord's cross, the cross on which our unregenerate selves must be
    crucified and sin destroyed.
    --St. Ambrose of Milan
    --- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
    * Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4)