On October 1, 1999, John Paul II proclaimed Saint Bridget of Sweden co-patron of Europe, together with saint Edith Stein and to saint Catherine of Siena. Born in 1303 in Finsta in Sweden, when Scandinavia was still Catholic, to parents belonging to the highest nobility and sincerely believers (they went to confession every Friday), when she was ten years old she had her first mystical experience when Christ crucified appeared to her, arousing in her a vocation for the cloister, but her father forced her, for political reasons, to marry the eighteen-year-old Ulf Gudmarsson (she was not yet fifteen). From the marriage eight children were born, four boys and four girls, one of whom will be Saint Catherine of Sweden.
In 1335, Bridget was called to court by King Magnus II as lady to the White Queen of Namur, but this did not prevent her from dedicating herself to the study of mystical literature: he had called the “master” Matthias to the castle as confessor and personal advisor, as well as other theologians and religious people who transformed his residence into a center of culture, spiritual life and charity for the poor.
Wife, mother and court lady
She read the Scripture, translated into Swedish by Matthias and considered by her “the most precious treasure”, and the works of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Bride, mother, court lady: this was her life for over twenty years, that is, until her husband died in 1244, after they had made a pilgrimage together to Saint James of Compostela. Along the way, Bridget had been able to realize the dramatic consequences caused by the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, by the struggle between the emperor and the pope, while the latter resided in Avignon rather than Rome. Left a widow, she left the castle and was welcomed, thanks to a special concession, as an “oblate” in a dependency of the Cistercian abbey of Alvastra and under the direction of the prior, Peter Olafsson and the master Peter of Skänninge, she stripped herself of her possessions and her freedom, even taking off her wedding ring to be the penitent bride of the Crucifix.
An image of Saint Bridget of Sweden
Mystical visions
From then on, the extraordinary supernatural gifts, the frequent visions and revelations in a state of wakefulness and ecstasy multiplied, which pushed her to commit herself to the return of the Pope to Rome, the re-establishment of peace between England and France and the reform of society and the Church.
The revelations were written by herself, upon awakening from ecstasy, then dictated to her confessor. Moved by the Spirit, the saint planned to found a double monastic order (including men and women) unified, headed by an abbess, who represented Mary on earth, and who was supposed to govern sixty nuns and supervise the thirteen presbyters, four deacons and eight lay brothers of the monastery. This project of hers was never carried out according to the Rule she devised: i brothers and the moniales by order of the pope they always lived in separate buildings. Unfortunately, following the Protestant Reformation, the Order was suppressed after it had spread throughout almost all of northern Europe in the 15th century. The female branch, still alive and active, was re-founded in the 20th century by Blessed Maria Elisabetta Hesselblad with the name of Congregation of San Salvatore di Santa Brigida.
The denunciation of the bad customs of the time
On the occasion of the Jubilee announced by the Pope in 1350, the saint went to Rome, where she then settled definitively in a house in Piazza Farnese, which she adapted to host the Scandinavian pilgrims who flocked to gain indulgence, living in total poverty and austerity, begging for bread together with the poor at the entrance to the churches. Witnesses to his abductions were the basilicas, the catacombs and the tombs of the Apostles and martyrs. His messages denounced the bad habits of the time and contained announcements of divine punishments, but also exhortations to penance with the assurance of forgiveness. Disliked by many, who came to call her “the witch of the north”, she never allowed herself to be discouraged. Some Romans repeated aloud the expression of praise to the Immaculate Conception: «Tota pulchra es, Maria (you are all beautiful, Mary»). She did not get upset and continued to pray and just sang the hymn Hail Maris Stellathe troublemakers moved away: from then on, as thanks to the Virgin, he decided that this hymn should be sung daily in his communities. This is still done today in Brigidine houses all over the world every day, before Vespers, accompanying the hymn with the recitation of the Hail Mary.
Missions to the noble courts
In 1364 the Saint undertook a series of pilgrimages to venerate St. Francis in Assisi, the apostle St. Thomas in Ortona a Mare, the archangel Michael on Mount Gargano, St. Nicholas in Bari, St. Bartolomeo in Benevento, St. Andrea in Amalfi and St. Matthew in Salerno. He also carried out various missions at the court of Queen Giovanna of Naples and with the nobility, but without success. Returned to Rome, he was able to witness the return of Pope Urban V from Avignon on 10 October 1367; a return, however, only temporary, despite the fact that Brigida, urging the pontiff to stay, had predicted that he would die within that year, as in fact happened. In 1372, together with his sons Birger and Charles, she left as a pilgrim for the Holy Land and wherever she passed she exercised her prophetic ministry with warnings, messages to the people, to the courts and even to the Byzantine emperor. He prayed through the places where Jesus had lived and in turn relived in an ecstatic vision all the moments of the Passion, always subjecting – as the Lord and the Virgin suggested – the revelations to the judgment of his confessor, after his secretaries had translated the text into Latin. Returning to Rome, she fell ill and died on 23 July 1373. Her daughter Catherine, who had always been by her side having been widowed in 1351, brought her mother’s body back to her homeland in 1374, to the monastery of Vadstenataking over the direction and working, together with other eyewitnesses, on the collection of documents to facilitate the canonization of Bridget, which took place on 7 October 1391 by Boniface VIII. The Saint’s revelations are a literary and mystical masterpiece and make her a prophetess of new times, called to a very particular mission and for this reason assisted in a special way by Mary, who she presents as a central figure in the history of salvation, Co-Redemptrix alongside the Redeemer. His writings occupy a place of honor in Swedish literature and had a great influence on the spirituality of the late Middle Ages.
