Saint Bridget Of Sweden
About
Born in 1303 to parents who were close to the royal family, Bridget’s mother died when she was very young and she was brought up by an aunt. As a seven-year-old girl she had a vision where the Virgin Mary put a crown on her head. When she was ten years old, she saw the crucified Christ in a vision, for the first time. From these early days, Bridget became devoted to God’s service with the Passion of Christ at the centre of her devotion.
Marriage & Work
When she was fourteen she was married to the courtman Ulf Gudmarsson. They lived happily together for twenty-eight years and had eight children, four sons and four daughters. Bridget became lady-in-waiting to the wife of King of Sweden. When Bridget’s youngest son died in 1340, she and husband Ulf went on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Ulf died shortly after their return.
Order Of The Most Holy Saviour
After her husband’s death, Bridget sensed Christ calling her to found a new religious order. She called it the Order of the Most Holy Saviour and had a double monastery for both nuns and priests. The king and queen gave her the state demesne of Vadstena for this foundation in 1346. The voice in her visions gave very specific directions about the numbers of nuns who engaged in scholarship and artwork and the priests, deacons and brothers.
In Rome
To establish a new convent rule Bridget set out in 1349 with her daughter Katarina for Rome to seek papal approval. The Pope at this time was living at Avignon in France. She spent many years at a house in Piazza Farnese, in Rome, given to her by a cardinal. Along with St Catherine of Siena, she worked hard to get the Pope to move back to Rome. Urban V eventually agreed in 1367 and approved the Bridgettine Rule in 1370. She was an outspoken voice against many abuses.
Death
In 1371 Bridget set out accompanied by her daughter Katarina and her two sons on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. One son Charles died at Naples, but despite many difficulties Bridget and the other two went on to visit the holy places. When they arrived back in Rome early in 1373, she was already ill and died in her house at Piazza Farnese on 23rd July.
Canonisation
Pope Boniface IX canonised her in 1391. In 1999 Pope John Paul II made her, along with St Catherine of Siena and Sister Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein), one of three co-patronesses of Europe. He praised her firstly as a laywoman doing charitable work with her husband, her gifts as a teacher at court in Stockholm, her pilgrimage to Compostela and then her work as a religious founding an important order.