Let's celebrate ! Sancta Birgitta

Saint Birgitta of Sweden (1303-1373), is an interesting character from this period. She was a mystic, who founded the Roman Catholic Bridgettine Order and became the patron saint of Sweden. 

In 2003 Sweden celebrated her 700th birth anniversary. The stamp shows the saint reading a holy book. 

Originally named Birgitta Persson, she was the daughter of a nobleman who was one of the wealthiest landowners of Sweden. 

She married in 1316 and bore eight children, one of whom, Catherine, is listed as a saint in the Roman martyrology. 

It is a very nice sheet telling that she was canonized in Rome in 1391 The background shows her handwriting telling about her revelations. 

Upon her husband's death in 1344, Birgitta left home and began a life of poverty and prayer near Alvastra Abbey, a Cistercian monastery. Since childhood, Birgitta had experienced extraordinary visions, including one of Christ crucified, and these now became more frequent. 

She dictated her revelations to the prior of Vadstena Abbey, Peter Olafsson, who translated them into Latin. In one of her visions, she claimed Christ commanded her to found a strict new religious order that would aid in the reform of monastic life. For this purpose, she moved to Rome in 1349, although she did not receive papal confirmation of her order until 1370. 

With the exception of several pilgrimages, she remained in Rome for the rest of her life, urging ecclesiastical reform (especially the return to Rome of the Avignon popes), sheltering the homeless, and counseling rich and poor alike. She was canonized in 1391. Her feast day is July 23. 

 

Source: http://heindorffhus.motivsamler.dk/arthistory/frame-Style08-Gothic.htm