Saint Bridget of Sweden

Birgitta Birgersdotter was born in Finsta, Sweden, in 1303, into an aristocratic family. She married Ulf Gudmarsson and had eight children; the second, Catherine, is a saint too. For thirty years she was a happily married noblewoman, and together with her husband she studied Scripture, founded a small hospital and went on pilgrimage to Santiago. Ulf died in 1344. From that moment on, her life changed completely. She began to have the visions she would dictate for the rest of her days — the *Revelationes*, one of the most widely read mystical texts of the Middle Ages — and at Vadstena she founded the Order of the Most Holy Savior, which still exists. In 1349 she left for Rome for the Holy Year and never went back to Sweden. She stayed twenty-four years, in a house on Piazza Farnese, and from there she did what the history books remember her for: she wrote to the popes in Avignon, one after another, telling them to come back to Rome. Her letters are fierce; she went so far as to warn Clement VI of punishment if he didn’t act. Catherine of Siena would take up that battle twenty years later, and win it. She died in Rome on July 23, 1373, shortly after returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She was proclaimed a saint in 1391. She is patron saint of Sweden and, since 1999, co-patron of Europe together with Catherine of Siena and Edith Stein. If your name is Bridget, today is your name day.