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 ]
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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)