St. Bridget of Sweden
Patron of Sweden
Saint Birgitta was the daughter of Uppland’s Lagman, Birger Petersson and his wife, Ingeborg, who was a member of the same clan as the reigning family. Birgitta’s family was pious; her father went to confession every Friday and made long and arduous pilgrimages as far away as the Holy Land.
Birgitta’s mother died, leaving Birgitta, ten years old, Katharine, nine and a newborn baby boy, Israel. The children were sent to their maternal aunt for further education and care. It seems that as a young child, Birgitta had a dream-vision of The Man of Sorrows. This dream was very vivid. Birgitta asked Him who had done that to Him. His answer: ‘All those who despise my love.’ The memory of this dream never left Birgitta and may have even left an indelible mark on her sub-conscious. As was usual during the Middle Ages, Birgitta was married when she was 13 years old to a young man, Ulf Gudmarsson with whom she had eight children, four daughters and four sons, all of them survived infancy, and that was very rare at that time.
When the King of Sweden, Magnus Eriksson married Blanche of Namur, he asked his kinswoman, Birgitta to come and be Lady-in Waiting and to teach the young queen the language and customs of her new country. After her years of service at Court, Birgitta and Ulf made the long pilgrimage to Santiago di Compostela. On the return journey Ulf became dangerously ill in Arras. Birgitta feared for his death and sat all night by his bed praying, and then a bishop appeared to her, promised that Ulf would recover and ‘God had great things for her to do.’ He told her that he was Denis, Patron of France. Ulf recovered and was able to continue his work as Lagman in the province of Närke until early in the year 1344, when he was very ill so Birgitta took him to the monks at Alvastra where he died and was buried. Birgitta remained in a little house near the abbey and she spent along hours in prayer by Ulf’s grave. She said that she ‘loved him like my own body.’ She arranged her affairs among her children and various charities and prayed for guidance. She was 41 years old and in the abbey at Alvastra God called her ‘be My Bride and My canal’. He gave her the task of founding new religious order, mainly for women. He said that the other orders had fallen into decay and this new order would be a vineyard whose wine would revivify the Church. He showed her how her abbey church was to be built, gave directions concerning the clothing and prayers of the nuns, 60 in all, who needed priests as chaplains, 13 priests, 4 deacons and 8 lay brothers. These two communities were to be ruled by an abbess, who was to represent the Blessed Virgin Mary together with the Apostles in the Upper Room in Jerusalem.
King Magnus Eriksson donated a little palace and much land to the new monastery, but almost as soon she had begun altering the palace and organising the work, Christ appeared to her and asked her to go to Rome and wait there until she got the pope to return from France to Rome. She was to be there during the Holy Year 1350. Birgitta left Sweden at the end of 1349 never to return. For the rest of her life she saw visions concerning the reform of the Church, messages to kings and popes and many other persons in high places, directing them to work for the Church. It may be noted that Birgitta never wrote in the first person. She always said the she carried a message from a very High Lord. Although she had longed to become a nun, she never even saw the monastery in Vadstena. In fact, nothing she set out to do was ever realised. She never had the pope return to Rome permanently, she never managed to make peace between France and England, she never saw any nun in the habit that Christ had shown her, and she never returned to Sweden but died, worn out old lady far from home in July 1373. She can be called the Patroness of Failures. In this she was like her Lord. He was also classed as failure as He hung on the Cross. Birgitta was a successful failure as she was canonized in 1391.Birgitta was the only women ever to found a religious Order, Ordo Sanctissimi Salvatoris. It was never a double order but an order primarily for women with permanent chaplains, ruled by an abbess. The brothers had as their head, not a prior but a Confessor General who was responsible for the spiritual business of both convents.
The order spread swiftly throughout Europe with monasteries from Scandinavia right through Europe down to Italy. In modern times is has expanded into five different, juridically independant branches; Spain 1629, Rome 1911, U.S.A. 1970, Mexico at the change of the century. None of these foundations have brothers (except U.S.A. which has one male convent). The last Birgittine father died in Altomünster 1863. She is the patroness of Sweden. Her feast day is July 23.
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Nicole, I tried to find your website as I am moved to find this as I was moved by your dream, I love St Bridget also and have said her prays many times... I have taught my God Daughter these prays and would love 2 chaplets that you have made and the prayers that go with them... I would gladly pay for them.. Please let me know.....
Bobbi Elliott.
I STARTED SAYING/PRAYING THESE 15 BRIDGET PRAYERS SINCE 16 YEARS UNTIL NOW AM 25 YEARS..LET ME TELL YOU THE TRUTH,THESE PRAYERS TRULY ARE REAL AND THEY WORK. I HAVE SEEN IMPOSSIBLE MIRACLES BECOME POSSIBLE,I WILL SAY ONE MIRACLE THAT HAPPENED BACK IN MY COUNTRY KENYA WHEN I WAS IN THE BUS TRAVELLING,OUR BUS GOT HIJACKED,AND IT WAS BRUTAL THEY BEAT US,UNDRESSED US BUT WHEN IT REACHED TO ME,I WAS RECITING IN MY HEART THE 15 ST BRIDGET PRAYERS,THEY WERE PASSING ME,NO HARM CAME TO ME!!!I WAS SHOCKED MYSELF! OF ALL A NOTHING LIKE ME BUT GOD LOVES ME AND PROTECTS ME!MANY MIRACLES HAVE HAPPENED TO ME AND FUNNY THING IF I DONT SAY THIS PRAYER I FEEL SADNESS IN ME.PRAY IT.WHEN YOU ARE FREE IN THE BUS/TRAIN ANYWHERE DOING NOTHING PRAY IT...GET USED TO IT,LET IT ENTER IN YOUR HEAD...IT WORKS...AND DONT ASK FOR ANYTHING,JUST PRAY IT EXPECT NOTHING AND WHAT YOU WANTED/WISHED FOR ,GOD KNOWS IT ALREADY WITHOUT YOU ASKING.HE WILL GIVE IT ABUNDANTLY FOR YOU.God bless you.
this saint is cool. i wish she was my mother!
Just a warning!!! The web site www.saintbirgitta.com, http://www.catholic-saints.net and http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/ are NOT, true Catholic sites. They are impersonating as Pro-Catholic sites but their mission is to tear you away from the Catholic Church with some creative media, and a bunch of lies of our Popes. Stay Away from these sites. They are trying to destroy your faith in the Church and god. If you want to know more about our faith, go to EWTN sites, this site, and ones recommended by ewtn you can trust. The internet has become the DEVILS Playground of Deception. Be careful what you believe when you read and view information on the internet.
St. Bridget of Sweden, pray for all vulnerable children who suffer from mental and physical handicaps. Through your powerful intercession, grant that these innocent children receive God's precious healing. May the blood of Jesus pour over them and bring them a permanent cure. Amen
The article states that St. Bridget is the patron saint of failures and then listed all the things she failed to do, then lists what I consider to be great accomplishments: surviving the birth of 8 children during the middle ages when trained doctors were just about useless, managing with the help of God to keep them all alive to survive infancy, having one of her daughters acheive sainthood, and founding a religious order that spread throughout Europe and then the New World, and then becoming a Saint herself. If that is what is considered a failure then we should all strive to be failures!!
St. Bridget, though your life looks like a string of failures, your place in heaven is most secure and unreachable for poor sinners like us. Please pray for us to be lifted up and be fit to serve the LORD always.
Dearest St. Bridget my Patron Saint, through your powerful intercession pray for me to God the Father, The Son Jesus Christ amd the Holy Spirit, as I face so many challenges in my life concerning my profession. St. Bridget pray for me. Amen.
happy feast day St. Bridget of Sweden. please help me find the right woman to be my wife. thank you
This is THE most powerful Prayer Recitations of all. I've been saying them daily for over a year and wonderful things happen when they could easily head south. If one takes to heart these 15 prayers, knows and feels what Jesus experienced, then by comparison, what problems can we not overcome, both personal, medical, mental, or otherwise. Know his suffering full well and you will Thrive. I mean not only for the year period, but forever.
Many years ago, when my daughter was in elementary school, she became very ill. Doctors could not figure out what was wrong. Over a year went by without a clue. Among other symptoms, her eyes gave her much trouble. I took here to an eye doctor and the dr. said she may go blind. At the time, I was prayed the 15 O's and knew the promise Jesus would guard the 5 senses to the one who would say these prayers. I suggested to her that she say the prayers out of love for Jesus and if it was his Will, she would not go blind. She did for one year. The eye dr. couldn't believe her condition had stopped. The dr. wanted to know what we had done when medicine didn't even work. We said, "prayed."
Through St Bridget, I say, today, "Thanks be to God and all glory be his for keeping my daughter's eye sight protected.
I have been praying the 15 prayers of St. Bridget of Sweden for the past four years and it it amazing that I cannot start my day unless I have prayed these beautiful prayers. I have a routine of saying these prayers like a novena. I say the prayers for the living (Relatives or friends and especially the souls of harden sinners) or departed souls (Departed family relatives or friends, especially the Holy Souls in Purgatory) for nine days.....and I have a religious calander that I use to mark of the days as I pray the prayers.
In these prayers, your heart begin to understand the real sufferings of Jesus. The prayes take us through the Passion, from the Agony in the garden, right through to his death on the cross. It is an intimate insight to His sufferings.
Thank Gog for St. Bridget.
saint bridget is a great saint i picked her and i dont now what a patron is and what im supposed to do with this info i luv her but you guys seem to think she uses less!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!=[
Dear St. Bridget, please pray for us.
...Happy Feast Day Saint Bridget of Sweden ! I'm starting up, again your 15 Wonderful Prayers ! God has surely Blessed you, Please Pray for me and my Fallin' away Family ! ...Amen and Amen...MJH.
Hey Anna wrote:
Anna
November 13th, 2010 1:33 pm
If Birgitta left Sweden in 1349, she can't possibly be the great-grandmother of anyone living in this day and age, for Heaven Sake! What an untruth! I'm sure she never existed. So many of the saints are made-up characters used merely to keep Catholics in line or frightened while they molested children. Fakery and fraud reigns in the church.
You should not project what YOU are...
I personaly have been blessed by her prayers esp the seventh prayer thats: inflame in our hearts the desire to tend towards perfection & extinguish the rule of flesh, worldly adour
i made my cofirmation on friday the 17th of june 2011 and my saint name was bridget
i'm 12 years old and i like gravy
To anyone interested I hand make St.Bridget Chaplets. I do these in my spare time and I make them free of charge. There is a story behind them, a story I may never fully understand but I strongly feel I have been called to do this. 15 years ago I was sleeping, it was a typical night when I suddenly awoke. But this was different, I reached for pen and paper and wrote down the name St Bridget and drew a picture of what looked to me like a rosary. Everything had to be laid out in a certain order. I did not understand why this happened to me, at the time I did not know who this St Bridget was.... The next day I set out for beads to try to create what I had seen and when I did I still was unsure what to make of everything. Also in this dream I had seen myself at a small table making some kind of jewelry...again I asked why? Why was the color and the order of these beads so important? And why did I dream this? In my search for answers I came across some information and everything clicked. The number of beads, the order they needed to be in and the colors I had seen in this dream all matched in perfect order to St Bridget of Sweden and her 15 prayers received by god. Still after this I was unsure what to do, I even went to my church but still no answers. 15 years have now gone by and these papers and original beads were still in the bottom of my desk... Until this week, something changed, I'm not sure why or how but something I can't explain is different. I feel that these need to be shared so that many more people can pray these 15 prayers. This is why I am hand making these Chaplets free of charge. I may never know why me or what was so profound about this dream to wake me up and write every detail down but I don't believe these should be at the bottom of a desk. If this is some kind of message from above who am I to question it? If anyone would like a chaplet with prayer booklet please contact me at my work e-mail and I will be happy to make you one. I will also have a new web page running soon www.stbridgetchaplet.com
she is the patron saint of Failure to it says.