Subj : April 14th - Saint Lidwina of Schiedam To : All From : rich Date : Mon Apr 13 2020 10:23:49 From: rich April 14th - Saint Lidwina of Schiedam 1380-1433 Saint Lidwina (Lydwine) lived in Schiedam (Holland). We know a lot about her thanks to many books, including a book about her written by J.K. Huysmans (translated by Agnes Hastings into English) and reprinted by Tan Books and Publishers of Rockford, IL., in 1979). The original work is dated 1923 and was published in French. The preface of this work reveals that Jan Gerlac, the sacristan of the Augustinian Monastery of Windesem, was a relation of hers and he lived a number of years near Lidwina (later in the same house as Lidwina) and thus writes from personal observation and was quoted by Huysmans. Two other gentlemen are quoted his book. One of these is Thomas =C3 Kempis who was subprior of the Augustinians of Mount Agnes near Zwolle. We know =C3 Kempis as the author of the =E2=80=9CImitation of Ch= rist=E2=80=9D. Lidwina lived in Holland at the time of the Great Schism when the Church was split due to two anti-popes. At the age of 15 Lidwina broke a rib while ice skating and remained bedridden for the rest of her life. She put her illness to a supernatural purpose. She was suffering voluntarily for the welfare of the Church. She fasted during this entire time when she was bedridden and was found often in ecstacy. She is one of the most heroic victim-souls of all time.... It is interesting to note that the name Lidwina (a formalization of Lidie) comes from the Dutch word "lijden" which means to suffer. The aid of physicians were enlisted by Lidwina's parents to seek a cure for her disease. She was in intense pain, sobbed on her bed in a state of terrible abandonment, was given to constant vomiting, suffered burning fevers and could not hold down food of any kind. This situation lasted for three years. Then followed a relatively blissful period but she was still confined to bed and could not get up. In the following years she still suffered greatly from abscesses, inflamed sores, and it was said she was near death 22 times. At the age of 28, the coldest winter ever experienced in Holland set in, when even the fish froze in the rivers, the tears she shed at night froze to her face. From the Third Order of Saint Francis in Schiedam she received a woolen shirt to wear, however she was not a member of that lay order. Historically, at that time William VI, a duke, was the Count of Holland. As he traveled with his wife, the Countess Marguerite through Schiedam, he granted Lidwina's father, who had fallen on bad times free rent on the premises they occupied. In the 13th and 14th Century, Holland began to see some economic development and William was proclaimed German king in 1247.... Returning to the story of Saint Lidwina, she continued to suffer and the more she suffered, apparently, the more she was given God's Gift of contemplation and bilocation. She was given to be in two places at once, when Jesus asked her to be with him at Golgotha. In answer to His request, Lidwina replied: "O Saviour, I am ready to accompany you to that mountain and to suffer and die there with you!" (Huysmans, 1923) "He took her with Him, and when she returned to her bed, which corporeally she had never left, they saw ulcers on her lips, wounds on her arms, the marks of thorns on her forehead and splinters on her limbs, which exhaled a very pronounced perfume of spices." A number of miraculous healings were reported. For example, Lidwina prayed for a woman, a friend of hers, who had a frightful toothache. The woman's pain ceased immediately. Also, another woman came to her to ask for her intercession for her child who was screaming with pain. When the child was placed on Lidwina's bed his troubles disappeared. When the child grew up, he became a priest in memory of Lidwina. Additional miracles continued after her death and she is not forgotten. from www.sacredheart.byethost3.com/lidwina.htm?i 1 Saint Quote: "Man's value before God is estimated by the dispositions of his heart, its uprightness, its good-will, its charity, and not by keenness of intellect or extent of knowledge." --Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich Bible Quote: Again therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying: I am the light of the world: he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life.=C2 (John 8:12) <><><><> The Holy Spirit =C2 =C2 A single heart and soul in all who believe Scripture says that God's love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit he has given us. The Holy Spirit, who is the one Spirit of the Father and the Son, produces in those to whom he gives the grace of divine adoption the same effect as he produced among those whom the Acts of the Apostles describes as having received the Holy Spirit. We are told that the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, because the one Spirit of the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is one God, had created a single heart and soul in all those who believed. =C2 =C2 God makes the Church itself a sacrifice pleasing in his sight = by preserving within it the love which his Holy Spirit has poured out. Thus the grace of that spiritual love is always available to us, enabling us continually to offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to him for ever. --Fulgentius of Ruspe: --- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2 * Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4) .