At the altar, the cup went to everyone but her
St. Alice of Schaerbeek had leprosy, so she was kept from the Blood of the Lord — and she complained that she had been robbed of something great.
About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of a fifteenth-century Netherlandish oil on oak panel, from the paper's reference portrait based on Edelheere Triptych (Descent from the Cross), right wing: Aleydis Cappuyns and her daughters Aleydis and Catharina presented by Saint Aleydis (Unknown Brabantine master, after Rogier van der Weyden, 1443 AD, Sint-Pieterskerk, Leuven, Belgium) View source artwork.
LA CAMBRE, Duchy of Brabant, the 1240s AD — Saint Alice of Schaerbeek had leprosy, and that kept her from the Blood of the Lord. She grieved over it and could not be comforted. Then she was answered from heaven.
She had belonged to that abbey outside Brussels since she was a child. Her parents sent her there when she was seven, to be taught and brought up. She grew up to be one of the nuns. When the others were unhappy, she was the one they came to.
Then leprosy struck her. She was twenty-two, and it was the early 1240s AD. That same night she had to leave the other nuns and live apart from them, because the disease was catching.
That first night on her own she was so full of grief that she collapsed. She prayed, crying, and afterwards she was calm. The nuns she had left grieved at losing her.
And she said that if her health were handed back to her she’d turn it down. She would rather stay as she was and be visited by God, she said, than rule the whole world.
A house built for her alone
For nearly four years she lived in another building on the abbey’s land. All that time a house was going up for her to live in on her own. On the first day she walked into it, the Lord was standing in the middle of the room with his arms spread wide. He took her into his arms and said: “Welcome, dearest daughter; welcome, long desired, into this tabernacle of my covenant; as long as you live in this body I will stay with you, and I will be, as it were, your cellarer, providing for you whatever you need.”
A woman used to hear Mass and pray near that house. One day she saw the building wrapped in flame from the outside. She got up to look in, and saw St. Alice as if she were made of fire.
St. Alice couldn’t go into the choir any more. So she stood in her own doorway and listened to the nuns singing in church. Once, at the hour of Matins, she stepped over her threshold and stood there to hear them. For Mass she still walked the road to the church.
The cup goes past
She wanted Communion badly. For the whole day before she received it, she kept her heart ready and let nothing else in. By then she was about twenty-six.
She came up to the altar with the rest of them, in front of the whole house. She was given the Body of the Lord. Then the cup went to the others and not to her. She was moved away from it because of her sickness.
One day, with the Body of the Lord just given her, she wanted his Blood so badly that she complained. She had been robbed of something great, she said. Nothing anyone said to her settled it.
A voice from heaven answered her: “O most loving daughter, do not be troubled, and stop complaining that anything of me is withheld from you” — and went on: “for it agrees with firm faith that whoever has tasted of my Body should rejoice that he is beyond doubt refreshed by my Blood also; because where the part is, there is the whole, and it cannot be called a part, but must be reckoned the whole.”
Her sadness was changed into joy.
About this story
Catholic Saints News tells the lives of the saints as news from their own time and place. This story was written with AI from the historical record, and we read and approved it before it ran.
The Saints' words. This newspaper will never make a saint say something the historical record does not preserve.
Junior Report. Written for readers ten to twelve, from the same sources and under the same rules as the rest of the paper. The words are shorter, hard terms are explained, and the question at the end is for the reader to think over.
Read more
- · Excerpts from The Life of Alice the Leper, trans. Martinus Cawley OCSO (Kenyon College)
- · "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana", ed. Godefridus Henschenius, Acta Sanctorum, Junii Tomus II (1698)
Image. AI-generated image, in the manner of a fifteenth-century Netherlandish oil on oak panel, from the paper's reference portrait based on Edelheere Triptych (Descent from the Cross), right wing: Aleydis Cappuyns and her daughters Aleydis and Catharina presented by Saint Aleydis (Unknown Brabantine master, after Rogier van der Weyden, 1443 AD, Sint-Pieterskerk, Leuven, Belgium) — see the original.
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Sources for this story
Listed by paragraph.
- Paragraph 1
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §15
- attested Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, volume 6: June — "B. Aleydis of Schaerembeke" (11 June), p. 147, p. 147 and n. 1
- attested Goffredo Venuta, after the Bibliotheca Sanctorum, Sant' Aleide di Schaerbeek — scheda, with the Martyrologium Romanum entry for 11 June, scheda
- Paragraph 2
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §1
- attested Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, volume 6: June — "B. Aleydis of Schaerembeke" (11 June), p. 147, p. 147
- attested Goffredo Venuta, after the Bibliotheca Sanctorum, Sant' Aleide di Schaerbeek — scheda, with the Martyrologium Romanum entry for 11 June, scheda
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §2
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §4
- Paragraph 3
- attested Goffredo Venuta, after the Bibliotheca Sanctorum, Sant' Aleide di Schaerbeek — scheda, with the Martyrologium Romanum entry for 11 June, Martirologio Romano, 11 giugno
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §9
- Paragraph 4
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §9
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §10
- Paragraph 5
- Paragraph 6
- Paragraph 7
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §14
- attested Agnes Baillie Cunninghame Dunbar, A Dictionary of Saintly Women, volume 1 (A–L), entry "B. Adelaide (10), June 11, 15", entry 'B. Adelaide (10)'
- Paragraph 8
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §16
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §24
- Paragraph 9
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §13
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §15
- attested Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, volume 6: June — "B. Aleydis of Schaerembeke" (11 June), p. 147, p. 147 and n. 1
- attested Goffredo Venuta, after the Bibliotheca Sanctorum, Sant' Aleide di Schaerbeek — scheda, with the Martyrologium Romanum entry for 11 June, scheda
- Paragraph 10
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §15
- attested Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, volume 6: June — "B. Aleydis of Schaerembeke" (11 June), p. 147, p. 147 and n. 1
- Paragraph 11
- Paragraph 12
- attested Goffredo Venuta, after the Bibliotheca Sanctorum, Sant' Aleide di Schaerbeek — scheda, with the Martyrologium Romanum entry for 11 June, scheda
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §15; santi-e-beati-aleide: scheda
- Paragraph 13
- documented Societas Bollandiana; the Vita Aleydis edited by Godefridus Henschenius from an anonymous Cistercian author of the 13th century, Acta Sanctorum Junii, Tomus Secundus, quo dies VII, VIII, IX, X, XI continentur — including "De B. Aleyde Scharembekana, sanctimoniali Ordinis Cisterciensis, Camerae iuxta Bruxellam" (ad diem XI Junii), Vita §15
- attested Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, volume 6: June — "B. Aleydis of Schaerembeke" (11 June), p. 147, p. 147 and n. 1
- attested Goffredo Venuta, after the Bibliotheca Sanctorum, Sant' Aleide di Schaerbeek — scheda, with the Martyrologium Romanum entry for 11 June, scheda
