30,000 lamps for a widow who sat with the poor

ROME, October 1391 AD — At the convent of St. Lawrence in Panisperna in Rome, poor pilgrims sat waiting to be given alms. A Swedish widow sat among them, and nobody knew who she was. She was Saint Bridget of Sweden, and her parents were nobles of the royal line of the Swedish kings. She didn’t ride to the city’s churches, though she could have. She walked, in rain, snow and hail.

Long before, as a girl in Sweden, St. Bridget wanted with all her heart to serve God as a virgin. But when she was thirteen, her parents made her marry Ulf, a nobleman. St. Bridget and Ulf prayed for children who would serve God.

Twelve guests at her table

While Ulf was alive, St. Bridget fed twelve poor people in her house every day. She waited on them at the table, and on Thursdays she washed their feet. She also paid to fix many hospitals in Sweden that had fallen into ruin.

St. Bridget and Ulf went together on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James at Compostela. Ulf died after they came home. St. Bridget then left Sweden for Rome and Jerusalem. She reached Rome in 1349 AD and lived there until she died.

Two days of crowds

In July 1373 AD St. Bridget called her son Birger and her daughter, St. Catherine of Vadstena, to her side. She made her confession and received the last sacraments, and Mass was said in front of her. Then she raised her eyes and said, “In manus tuas Domine, commendo spiritum meum” (Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit). With those words, St. Bridget died.

Her body was carried to St. Lawrence, the same place where she had once sat unknown among the poor. This time so many people came that she could not be buried for two days. A Roman woman at the funeral had been born with a large swelling in her throat. She put the dead saint’s hand around her neck. Soon afterwards the swelling went down, by a miracle of God.

Eighteen years later, Pope Boniface IX declared St. Bridget a saint. It was early in October 1391 AD, at St. Peter’s in Rome. Every church bell in Rome rang through the night before. In the morning the Pope led a sung Mass in his chapel at the Vatican. Afterwards he wrote St. Bridget’s name in the book of saints. His decree said that she is a saint, to be honoured as a saint by the whole Church.

The Pope sent the decree to every bishop in a bull. In it he described St. Bridget in words from the Book of Proverbs: she “opened her hands to the needy and stretched out her palms to the poor”. The bull set her feast day on July 23, the day she died. At midnight on the day she was declared a saint, thirty thousand lamps were lit in St. Peter’s.