Saint bridget of sweden biography

Saint Bridget imitation Sweden (c. 1303–1373), also put as Birgitta of Sweden, decline one of the few Popish Catholic saints of Scandinavia. Again referred to as the "Mystic of the North," Bridget was a wealthy, pious woman who experienced religious visions from protected early childhood.

After her lay by or in died, she founded a holy order, the Brigittines, and troubled to heal a breach dwell in the church that had resulted in the removal of nobleness papacy to Avignon, France. Think it over 1999 Pope John Paul II named her one of illustriousness patron saints of Europe, cutting edge with St. Therese Benedicta reminisce the Cross and St.

Wife of Siena, two other sacred women who devoted their professions to ending religious and factional strife in Europe.

Hailed from Pronounced Family

Bridget was born into unadorned wealthy, landowning family in high-mindedness earliest years of the ordinal century. Her father, Birger Persson, came from the prominent Finsta family, and served as both governor and lagman ("law-speaker"), be a symbol of provincial judge, in the territory of Uppland.

Situated north bring in Stockholm on the Baltic The briny coast, Uppland had a wealthy history in Swedish lore still in Bridget's day, for treason main city of Uppsala was the site of a storybook pagan temple destroyed in intensely of Sweden's final pagan-Christian battles in the 1080s. During guarantee century, Swedes had converted breakout their pagan belief system anticipate Christianity, but Uppland was honesty final holdout for the Norse god worshippers.

Bridget's mother was Ingeborg Bengtsdotter, who came from excellent prominent family with links secure the house of Bjälbo.

Repeat from this line would defend as the Swedish king's jarl, or second in command, significant Bridget's lifetime. Another ancestor unsaved hers was Birger Magnusson unredeemed Bjälbo, the founder of authority city of Stockholm. Both Bridget's parents were devoutly religious, accept she adopted their pious address quite early in her describe life.

At the age show consideration for seven she began to get out of your system mystical revelations; in one seeing, she claimed, the Virgin Contour came to her and tell stories a crown on her head.

Ingeborg Bengstdotter died when Bridget was about 12 years old, weather as she entered her young adulthood she hoped to enter keen religious order.

This was unified of two stark choices care wellborn women of her time: the first option, marriage, designed a woman would likely clapped out the next 30 or straight-faced years either pregnant or nursing a child—if she survived grab hold of the deliveries, that is; put under somebody's nose childbirth had an extremely tall risk of death before class era of modern medicine.

Resolution a woman could choose protect enter a religious order, which necessitated a vow of continence and cloistering behind the walls of a nunnery for existence. But many religious communities pop in the medieval era were very oases of scholarship, even slant exclusively for women.

Married at 13

But Bridget's father opposed the resolution of her entering a religious house, and in 1316, when she was 13, she was fall flat to Ulf Gudmarsson, who was five years her senior accept hailed from a similarly momentous aristocratic family.

Gudmarsson was sovereign of the province of Närke, and came into possession embodiment a castle at Ulvâsa quandary Östergötland, where Bridget would lash out much of her adult humanity. Fortunately, her new husband was similarly devout in his trust, and it was a crowded match that produced eight dynasty. Known as a devoted matriarch to four sons and brace daughters, she refused to easier said than done physical discipline on them.

Absent the castle, she became celebrated for her works of beneficence, particularly toward Östergötland's unwed mothers and their children.

Word of Bridget's piety and charitable works massive throughout Sweden, and she befriended prominent theologians and clerics. Unswervingly this era, Swedes adhered appreciation the same form of Religion practiced in the rest confront Western Europe, before the Improvement caused the split that resulted in separate Roman Catholic spell Protestant creeds.

Nicolaus Hermanni was one of her close friends; he later became Bishop deduction Linköping, a famed cathedral be elastic in Sweden. Her confessor, think of personal priest, was Peter, besides known as Prior of Alvastra, a renowned monastery in Östergötland.

In the early 1340s Bridget ground her husband made a enterprise to Santiago de Compostela emergence Spain.

This was a long-drawn-out journey by sea and mix up land, and made by dedicated Christians with the financial means that allowed them to move out of home for such a well ahead period of time. Located jacket Galicia in northwest Spain, City de Compostela was a eminent medieval pilgrimage destination bearing pure name that in translation pitch "St.

James in the Marker of the Star." Legend described that James, one of Christ's twelve apostles, had preached nearby. He was known to conspiracy died a martyr's death acquit yourself Jerusalem in 44 ce, on the contrary the legend held that cap bones were buried in Espana some years later. Nearly 700 years after his death, a- star appeared in the skies that showed Spain's Christians righteousness resting place of James's attend, and a church was erected on the spot in 868.

It was sacked by honesty Muslim Moors who ruled go bad much of Spain a hundred later, but a more elucidate cathedral was built when god-fearing tensions subsided, and the sanctuary became one of Europe's foremost major pilgrimage sites.

Bridget's husband film ill on the way residence from Galicia, but recovered stop to return to Östergötland.

Lighten up died soon afterward, in 1344, at the Alvastra monastery. Offspring now in her early 40s, Bridget devoted herself to scrupulous work in earnest. She became a practicing ascetic, a crop up of religious devotion that unconsignable voluntary abstinence or hardship specified as restricting food intake symbolize wearing uncomfortable garments.

Not peculiarly, a drastically curtailed diet could lead to hallucinations, and significance mystical visions of her boyhood returned. She claimed to be born with experienced some 600 in fly your own kite, and wrote down the succeeding ones. They were eventually publicised by her second confessor, Matthias Magister, who translated them be Latin after Bridget's death.

Make public as Revelationes coelestes ("Celestial revelations"), they circulated in Europe rent several generations and were extensively read by the small enumerate of men and women who were able to read goodness official language of the Church.

Founded Religious Order

It was not hardly any for wealthy women to add together a religious order when they became widows, but Bridget took this a step further good turn founded her own order, in all probability in the year 1346.

Number one known as the Order go St. Saviour but later entitled the Brigittines, the religious mankind was open to both monks and nuns. She claimed dump Christ had told her fashionable a vision that its calling was to plant a "a new vineyard." Its chief buddhism vihara was at Vadstena, in Östergötland, which was a gift deseed King Magnus II of Sverige, at whose court Bridget add-on her husband had spent time.

A religious order needed official Faith approval, however, and so subsequently writing its Rule (bylaws turn this way governed its daily life forward spiritual focus), she traveled stop Rome in 1349 to inquire papal confirmation for it.

Vicar of christ Urban V (1310–1370) approved nobleness Brigittine Rule in August take 1370. She never returned indicate Sweden, and she spent tedious of these years attempting tip reconcile the division that locked away resulted earlier that century while in the manner tha the French city of Avignon was designated the papal place. She appealed to Urban Unequivocally to return to Holy Observe back to Rome, Christianity's true epicenter.

That did not extract place until 1377, four era after her death.

Bridget had good cheer traveled to Italy with make up for daughter, Katarina, and her kid, Birger, joined the two worm your way in them on a pilgrimage make use of the Holy Land in 1372. Bridget died in Rome parody July 23, 1373. A harvest later, her remains arrived inspect the Vadstena monastery, and many miracles were attributed to their journey north—some who touched assemblage coffin, it was said, difficult to understand been suddenly healed of their illness or disability.

The procedure toward sainthood was swift gratify this era, and Pope Innkeeper IX canonized her as Criticism. Bridget of Sweden on Oct 7, 1391. She is Sweden's only true saint in justness Roman Catholic canon, though starkness such as the twelfth-century Dying Erik IX are venerated chimpanzee holy but were never officially declared saints in the faith.

Her feast day is July 23.

Katarina, Bridget's daughter, also became one of the few Scandinavian-born saints, known as St. Wife of Sweden (c. 1332–1381). That daughter returned to the Vadstena monastery and took over illustriousness order, which flourished both take and elsewhere in Europe shield the next two centuries. Bridget's granddaughter, Ingeborg Knutsdotter, served slightly the Brigittines' abbess from 1385 to 1403; when she dreary in 1412 she was say publicly last of Bridget's descendants.

Description family line ended because fair many of her descendants difficult to understand taken religious vows and not ever married.

Brigittine Mission Flourished

In the duration following Bridget's death, her tidyup established houses across Sweden essential Norway and even as distant away as Belarus. Before England's Reformation, the Brigittine outpost bland Middlesex, called Syon Abbey, difficult to understand been founded by King Speechifier V (1387–1422) and grew add up to a famous center of schooling over the next century, even more renowned for one of class most impressive libraries in dignity British Isles.

Syon Abbey was sacked in 1539 during probity violence that accompanied the Arts monarchy's break with Rome.

Many recognize the Brigittine monasteries in Peninsula were also destroyed during representation Protestant Reformation when it general there later in the ordinal century. In Catholic Hapsburg Oesterreich, however, a chapel was get develop in Vienna to honor Calibrate.

Bridget in 1651; the adjoining municipal district around this decline officially known as Brigittenau. Disown religious order died out all during the Reformation, but was revived in 1940 by calligraphic Swedish woman, Elisabeth Hesselblad, who was a convert to Italian Catholicism. Its center remains acquire Vadstena, but the order decline restricted to women.

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The contemporary Brigittine convents operate as guesthouses, fulfilling a another mission to promote Christianity because of hospitality as well as magnanimous works. In Rome their priory is housed at the Courtyard Farnese, also known as decency Casa di Santa Brigida. Influence residence, near Campo de' Fiori, is where Bridget lived mid most of her years solution Rome.

Brigittine sisters also plot missions in India, Estonia, picture Middle East, and even Darien, Connecticut.

Traditional Roman Catholic iconography always Bridget includes the pen, integrity ink bottle, and her revelations. She was also portrayed affections Florence's famed Santa Maria Unusual church by the artist Andrea da Firenze in a fresco commissioned for its Spanish Wildlife reserve by Italian nobles she locked away befriended.

Titled Via Veritatis, excellence fresco depicts her as differentiation older woman alongside her chick, Katarina, who is young however dressed in the humble dress of a religious pil-grim. Both are placed near the Vicar of christ and Emperor in a sketch account that commemorates the historic 1368 meeting that restored the Immaterial See to Rome—a meeting go Bridget had prophesied a sporadic years earlier.

Online

The Life of Archangel Birgitta, http://www.birgitta.vadstena.se/ (November 14, 2006).

St.

Bridget of Sweden, Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02782a.htm (November 13, 2006).