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The saint for June 16
St Lutgardis of the Sacred Heart
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| Optional Memorial ? |
| Cistercian |
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Born 1182 at Tongres in the Netherlands
Died June 16, 1246 at Aywieres, Belgium
Lutgardis was a pretty girl with a love for good clothes and no particular religious sentiments. She was shuffled off to the Bendictines at age twelve, when her dowry was lost in a failed business venture. However, by her late teens she received a true vocation, as well as being the recipient of visions and ecstacies. Lutgardis was highly devoted to the Passion of Christ. The Benedictine rule did not satisfy her longings for austerities and she entered the Cistercian Monastery at Aywieres sometime between her 23rd and 29th year; she remained there until her death.
In her 29th year she received the spear wound in her side, and carried that scar on her body until her death.
Very highly developed in her spirituality was the ideal of reparative suffering. She undertook three separate seven years fasts in reparation for the Albigensian heresy.
Lutgardis became blind about eleven years before her death; she regarded this as a gift, enabling her to be freed from the world's distractions and to enter more deeply into prayer. In her last year of life Jesus asked three things of her: to give thanks for all the benefits she had recieved, to pour herself out in prayer for all sinners and to be without solicitude but full of longing.
St Lutgardis entered into eternal life just after the night office began on the Saturday Night following the Feast of the Holy Trinity.
Pray to Saint Lutgardis for a spirit of reparative suffering and mortification, as well as for increased |
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