Melanie Rigney's Blog, page 108

St. Hunna: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Hunna died about 679 in France, and today is her feast day.

Hunna was known as the “holy washerwoman” because even though she was the wife of a duke, her focus was on serving the poor and of helping all, rich or poor, with their laundry.

Verses 3 and 4 from Psalm 51 seem appropriate today. This is also my favorite psalm: “Have mercy on me, God, in accord with your merciful love; in your abundant compassion blot out my transgressions. Thoroughly wash away my guilt; and from my sin cleanse me...

St. Lidwina of Schiedam: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Lidwinaof Schiedam was born April 18, 1380, in the Netherlands and died on this date in 1433. One winter day, the teenager went skating with a friend and fell on the ice so hard that she broke a rib. That was the beginning of pain and illness that would wrack Lidwina’s body for the rest of her life. It’s been said she may have had multiple sclerosis.

But while her physical agony was great, she also received tremendous spiritual gifts, including a horrifying vision of purgatory. It’s said t...

Blessed Margaret of Castello: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

Blessed Margaret of Castello was born in Italy about 1287, and died in 1320. We celebrate her feast day today. Margaret was born blind, and suffered from curvature of the spine. First, her family kept her confined to a small room, then they abandoned her after a visit to a shrine failed to cure her. A group of women who found her in a church adopted and raised her.

After some additional troubles, Margaret became a Dominican tertiary where she spent her days in prayer and as a teacher.

The lecti...

St. Godeberta: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Godeberta was born in about 640 in France and died about 700. Her feast day was yesterday.

Godeberta’s parents planned to make a good match for her, so took her to Clovis II’s court. There, the girl met with the bishop who became St. Eligius, and he told her he hoped she would think of entering religious life. Godeberta discerned that was what she was to do, and she established a convent in a small palace the king provided.

Godeberta’s good works are said to have included powerful prayers t...

Blessed Elena Guerra: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

Blessed Elena Guerra was born in Italy on June 23, 1865, and died two hundred years ago today.

This Italian nun was devoted to the Holy Spirit, so much so that she wrote Pope Leo XIII twelve confidential letters asking that he encourage Catholics to be more aware of the Holy Spirit. Interestingly, the pope wrote an encyclical on the Holy Spirit and instructed the bishops to pray the Novena for Pentecost when the twentieth century dawned.

Blessed Elena said: “Pentecost is not over. In fact it is...

Blessed Maria Schinina: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

Blessed Maria Schinina was born on this date in 1844 in Italy, and died on June 11, 1910.

Maria came from a wealthy family, and was somewhat of a clotheshorse and a social butterfly. She especially loved to dance. She showed no real signs of adopting her parents’ example of charity for the less fortunate.

Then, when Maria was twenty-one, her father died, and she started thinking less about the whirl of this world, and more about God and the next. After several more years, she stripped down her...

St. Camilla Battista da Varano: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Camilla Battista da Varano was born on this date in 1458 in Italy and died on May 31, 1524. Camilla was the result of an affair her father, a duke, had, but she was accepted as part of his family and was received an education and upbringing befitting his title.

Camilla was touched spiritually when she was quite young by a priest’s request that people shed a tear for Christ’s passion, and this led her on the path to become a Poor Clare. Her devotion helped her through difficult times, inclu...

St. Julie Billiart: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Julie Billiart was born July 12, 1751, in France, and died on this date in 1816.

Julie, who was among the youngest children in a large family, had the most basic of educations, and was partially paralyzed for most of her life. In the time she was bedridden, she was known for her devout prayer life.

During the French Revolution, Julie became acquainted with a viscountess named Francoise. The pair became great friends, and were the first superiors of the Institute of the Sisters of Notre Dame...

Blessed Josaphata Hordashevska: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

Blessed Josaphata Hordashevska was born in what is now Ukraine on November 20, 1869, and died on this date in 1919.

Josaphata’s plan was to enter a cloistered order of women religious. But there was pressing need for women to minister to ethnic Ukrainians in the area, which was then part of Austria-Hungary. The population’s physical and spiritual needs were very underserved.

Josaphata was just twenty-two years old, but after a discernment period agreed to serve as the first superior of the newl...

Blessed Pierina Morosini: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

Blessed Pierina Morosini was born on January 7, 1931, in Italy, the oldest child in a large family, and died on this date in 1957. One of the highlights of her short life came when she was sixteen, and she traveled from her village in northern Italy to Rome for Maria Goretti’s beatification.

Pierina was active in Catholic Action, and worked in a cotton mill as a seamstress. Then, one day on her way home from work, a man attacked her. She resisted, and he used stones to render her unconscious....