Compiled by Sarah De Coste Rarely do humans realize the possibilities of the wise use of earthly power and worldly wealth. Saint Hedwig was one of the few. Born to nobility toward the close of the 12th century, she was married at an early age to Henry, duke of Silesia (now Poland). Through her persuasion and personal efforts, several monastic institutions of both men and women were established in Silesia. Several hospitals, one for lepers, were likewise founded. She was personally a great force in establishing peace in the surrounding areas during power struggles. To her great sorrow, she was unable to prevent a pitched battle between the forces of two of her sons, one of whom was dissatisfied over the partition of estates that Henry had made between them.
After she and her husband had made mutual vows of celibacy, she lived mostly at the monastery at Trebnitz where, although not a formal member of the religious institute, she nevertheless participated in the religious exercises of the community. She died in 1243 and was buried at Trebnitz. On every limb of the tangled branches of Saint Hedwig’s family tree sits a duke, landgrave, prince, king, queen, and count. The roots of Hedwig’s aristocratic tree likewise spread up and down the hills and valleys of Europe’s heartland. Her uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews occupied duchies, governed dioceses, sat on thrones, ran monasteries, and reigned over realms large and small in the medieval core of Christendom. Hedwig was born in a castle to a duke. At the age of twelve, she married a duke, Henry the Bearded of Silesia, a region straddling present day Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Hedwig lived when the mortar in the walls of Europe’s castles was still wet, and their moats still freshly dug. She and her kind, the early nobility of Europe, correctly understood that culture and Catholicism were synonymous. To bring the Church to a people just stepping out of the darkness of paganism was to bring hospitals, monogamy, the Mass, literacy, knowledge, schools, law, monasteries, farms, care for the poor and widows, and the hope of the Gospel. Hedwig understood this perfectly. She unapologetically promoted the faith of Jesus Christ because it was as good for the people as it was for God. Hedwig bore her husband seven children. She and Henry were a generous couple who personally cared for the sick, founded and patronized hospitals, and who promoted Catholicism through the establishment and endowment of religious houses. They established Cistercian, Augustinian, Premonstratensian, Dominican, and even very early Franciscan foundations. After their last child was born, Duke Henry and Hedwig took a mutual vow of chastity before their bishop and lived mostly apart. Henry received the tonsure and let his beard grow long. Hedwig moved close to the convent of Trebnitz, in present day Wrocław, Poland, which she and Henry had previously founded. It was the first women’s religious house in Silesia and part of Henry and Hedwig’s broader effort to develop Christian life and German culture throughout Central Europe. After Henry died in 1238, the widow Hedwig took the grey habit of the Cistercian nuns at Trebnitz Abbey, where her daughter Gertrude was abbess. It was likely not easy for Hedwig, the mother, to live in obedience to her very own daughter. Hedwig did not, however, take formal religious vows, because her wealth was still needed to support the monastery. But Hedwig otherwise lived the austere life of prayer, mortification, fasting, and poverty, which the monastic community itself lived. Early biographies relate that Hedwig also performed miracles, saw into the future, and had the gift of prophecy, even foretelling her own date of death. Saint Hedwig did not kiss the chains of her captivity, bleed to death as a martyr in the arena, or boycott her womb as a vowed and perpetual virgin. She was the wife of a powerful man and the mother of a large family. She walked the wide and well-traveled road of marriage and family domesticity. And it was along that path that she found holiness, carried the burdens of the Church’s mission on her shoulders, and left a legacy of church building normally associated with an indefatigable bishop. This wife and mother was canonized in 1267 and is buried near her husband in the abbey church at Trebnitz, where she last closed her eyes in 1243. Saint Hedwig: Pray for Us!
0 Comments
Saint Christopher was given the name Reprobus as a child. He grew up to be a tall man and there were many who considered him to be a giant.
One day, he vowed to himself that he would only serve the greatest king. He then went to the local king and enlisted himself into his service. However, one day he saw the king cross himself at the mention of the devil, so he figured that the king saw that the devil was more powerful, so he chose to follow the devil. This led him to join a band of thieves. The leader of this group of people called himself the Devil. However, he saw how this leader avoided the christians, so he figured that he would follow them. This led him to a hermit. The hermit told him about Christ and taught him about the church. He took the name Christopher at his baptism. The hermit told him that he should take up a lifestyle of prayer and fasting from food. This distressed him greatly, because he was a large man who was regularly hungry. The hermit said that he could find another practice to do that would please God. Christopher proposed the idea of carrying people across the river that was nearby. The hermit agreed that this service would indeed please God. There are many stories about the various people that he carried across the river, one even including one where he carried the child Jesus across the river. Some stories say that after that encounter, he went out and evangelized everywhere he could. There were attempts made to assassinate him, but none of these prevailed. Eventually he was arrested and martyred. Saint Christopher: Pray for Us! St Maximilian Kolbe is a truly inspirational saint and very clearly demonstrates the love that Christ calls us to live in. While researching this saint, I came across a video on Formed (a catholic streaming service) that really resonated with me. In knowing the basis of his story, the movie makes a lot more sense, so let's get into it. As a child, he had a vision of Mary. In that vision, she presented him with two crowns- one white and one red. She said that the white one would mean that he would be a champion in the virtue of purity. The red one meant that he would be a martyr. She asked him to choose, and he chose to accept both. He later joined the Franciscans and took the name Maximilian. Some time later, he organized the Militia Immaculata (AKA the Army of the Immaculate One) through which they prayed diligently for the conversion of sinners and in defence against those who opposed the church, and doing so with the intercession of Mary. Kolbe also took several trips in which he founded monasteries. These include India and Japan. During the occupation of Poland in World War Two, he opened the monastery for Jewish refugees. When he was finally discovered, there were 2000 refugees in his care. The soldiers took him to Pawiak prison and later transferred him to Auschwitz. During his time there, somebody fled the camp. The soldiers randomly selected ten people to be starved to death. One of the men selected broke down and cried in grief, for he had a family, so Fr Maximilian volunteered to take his place. The entire time that they were starved, he heard confessions and led the group in prayer and singing hymns. One by one, the people around him passed away, but he kept going. After two weeks, the soldiers came to him with a lethal injection, and it was in that time that I am sure he asked Our Lady to pray for him one last time. After his death, there was much fighting as to whether he could be classified as a martyr or not. When he was beatified, he was called a Confessor of Faith, meaning that his actions spoke as a testament of his faith, but he didn't die for his faith. At his canonization, St Pope John Paul the Second declared him a martyr, and confirmed that his death was for his faith and not merely as an act of it. The movie I am recommending you to watch is called Life for Life: Maximilian Kolbe. This film follows the man who fled the camp and his journey of learning who this Saint of Auschwitz is. I have added a picture of the synopsis below. I recommend taking the time with your parents and watching this film. While there are some aspects that are hard to watch, I found it really got the message of his life covered well. I have posted the information for being able to log onto Formed on our home page, so please take the time to go on there and look up this film. St Maximilian Kolbe, Pray for Us!
Blessed Alexandrina Maria Da Costa was born in Balasar, Portugal in 1904. Growing up she was especially fond of the sacraments, but most especially the Eucharist.
At the age of 14, some men broke into her house while she was learning sewing from two other women. Their intents for the women were not pure, so Alexandrina opted to escape out of the window that was four meters off of the ground rather than give up to their impure desires. This left her with injuries that gave her a lot of pain and eventually paralyzed her. Despite this, she remained faithful to God and devoted herself to going to mass regularly. It has even been noted that she would drag herself to mass if there was nobody to assist her. As time went on, Alexandrina continued to pray that God would heal her from these injuries. She had even bartered with God that if He healed her that she would go out and be a missionary. God did not heal her, but instead she started to understand that she could offer up her sufferings as a prayer. Her understanding of this was that she could offer up each moment for the conversion of sinners. She then started to embrace this lifestyle of offering up her sufferings as a prayer, and she did it with a smile. A year later, one of the men who had broken into her house before came back with the same intents. Alexandrina was scared because she know the door didn't fit right, so she couldn't lock it. All she could do was pray. When the man got to her door, he tried to open it, and after several minutes of attempting to open her door, he left. Alexandrina saw this as Jesus and Mary protecting her and that she could trust them even more. A while later, Alexandrina started to experience satanic attacks, much akin to Padre Pio. Throughout all of these, she remained faithful to God and continued to pray for the conversion of souls, despite the increased sufferings in her life. Alexandrina was in prayer one day when Jesus approached her and asked if she would be willing to endure the passion (the crucifixion) with Him. She agreed and every Friday from noon until 3, she experienced this with Jesus. Alexandrina would get up from her bed, and be walking (she was paralyzed, so this was not normal), visibly struggling to carry something, falling, and experiencing great suffering. She asked that she not show any signs of the stigmata (the wounds of crucifixion) as she would not want the attention for that, so instead she was left with bruises from the falls. During these times she was unable to respond to anyone in the room aside from her spiritual director. When asked what the cross felt like, she responded with "the weight of the whole world." She endured this every Friday for three and a half years, each time offering it up for the conversion of sinners. This ended when the pope decided that he would perform a consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. A little while later, Jesus provided her with a task that she would be working with until her death. This was that she was to abstain from all food and drink and to subsist on the Eucharist alone. She obliged. When asked to comment on if she was hungry, she replied, "I do not eat because I cannot. I feel full. I do not need it. However, I have a longing for food." She held this fast for 13 years. Some people accused her of lying about this fast, so they asked that there be formal observations made to ensure that this was genuine. She was put into a hospital where she remained for over a month. During her time there, she faced much ridicule from the staff. At one point, they forced her to have an IV with nutrients, but that caused her to become violently ill. She told them to stop that, and as soon as they did she became better. At the end of this observation period, the doctors were able to verify that it was true that she was subsisting on the Eucharist alone and was still healthy despite them not understanding how. Thousands of people came to see Alexandrina, but one of these people was the man who had broken into her house twice. This man sought out reconciliation with her, and upon seeing her, he burst into tears and said "She is a saint - and to think she is crucified on that bed of pain through my fault." They were able to reconcile, and the man was able to feel forgiveness for what he had done. Just before dying, she requested that her tombstone would read, "Sinners, how much I want to tell you...Do not risk losing Jesus for all eternity, for he is so good. Enough with sin. Love Jesus, love him!" Then, just before dying, she said, "I am happy, because I am going to heaven." Alexandrina died on October 13, 1955. Blessed Alexandrina Maria Da Costa, Pray for us! |
PulsePulse is our Jr High group (Grades 6-9) for those who want to be journeying to learn more about God and how He fits into this crazy thing called life! From Saint of the Day to talks to activities, we work to understand more about our faith and its importance in our everyday lives as we all work to become modern day saints. Categories
All
|