July 23. Monday. St Bridget of Sweden. Joint Patron of Europe. Feast

Gal 2:19-20. “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”

Jn 15:1-8. Christ is the vine; we are the branches.

Or: the readings of the day:

Jer 23:1-6. God, our chief Shepherd, will take care of his flock.

Mk 6:30-34. The compassion of Christ, to see to the hunger of his people.

Why Bridget of Sweden is co-patroness of Europe

(excerpt from an address by pope Benedict XVI in St Peter’s Square.)

Let me present the figure of St Bridget of Sweden, co-patroness of Europe, her message, and the reasons why this woman has much to teach — even today — to the Church and to the world. We know well the events of her life, because her spiritual fathers wrote her biography to promote her process of canonization immediately after her death, which took place in 1373. Bridget was born seventy years earlier, in 1303, in Finster, Sweden, a nation of Northern Europe that had received the faith three centuries earlier with the same enthusiasm with which the saint received it from her parents, who were very pious individuals, belonging to noble families close to the reigning House.

We can distinguish two periods in the life of this saint. The first was characterized by her condition as a happily married woman. Her husband Ulf was governor of an important district of Sweden. The marriage lasted 28 years, until Ulf’s death. Eight children were born to them, the second of whom, Karin (Catherine), is venerated as saint. This is an eloquent sign of Bridget’s educational commitment in regard to her children. Moreover, her pedagogic wisdom was appreciated to the point that Magnus, the king of Sweden, called her to the court for a time, to introduce his young wife, Blanche of Namur, to Swedish culture.

Bridget, spiritually guided by a learned religious who initiated her in the study of the Scriptures, had a very positive influence on her own family that, thanks to her presence, became a true “domestic church.” Together with her husband, she adopted the Rule of the Franciscan Tertiaries, and practiced works of charity towards the indigent with generosity; she also founded a hospital. Together with his wife, Ulf learned to advance in the Christian life. On returning from a long pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, taken in 1341 with other members of the family, the spouses planned to live in continence, but soon after, in the peace of a monastery to which he had retired, Ulf concluded his earthly life.

The first period of Bridget’s life helps us to appreciate what today we could define an authentic “conjugal spirituality”: Together, Christian spouses can follow a path of sanctity, supported by the grace of the sacrament of Marriage. Not infrequently, as happened in the lives of St Bridget and Ulf, it is the wife who with her religious sensibility, with delicacy and gentleness, is able to make the husband follow a path of faith. I am thinking of so many women who, day in day out, still today illumine their families with their testimony of Christian life. May the Spirit of the Lord fuel the sanctity of Christian spouses, to show the world the beauty of marriage lived according to the values of the Gospel: love, tenderness, mutual help, fecundity in generating and educating children, openness and solidarity to the world, participation in the life of the Church.

The second period of Bridget’s life began when she became a widow. She renounced remarriage in order to deepen her union with the Lord through prayer, penance and works of charity. Christian widows can also find in this saint a model to follow. In fact, on the death of her husband, after distributing her goods to the poor, though without ever making religious consecration, Bridget lived in the Cistercian monastery of Alvastra. Here is where the divine revelations began, which were with her for the rest of her life. They were dictated by Bridget to her confessor-secretaries, who translated them from Swedish into Latin and gathered them in an edition of eight books entitled “Revelationes” (revelations.) Added to the books was a supplement, entitled “Revelationes Extravagantes” (Supplementary revelations).

St Bridget’s revelations present a very varied content and style. At times the revelation is presented in the form of dialogue between the Divine Persons, the Virgin, the saints and also the demons; dialogues in which Bridget also intervenes. At other times, instead, it is the narration of a particular vision; and at others she narrates what the Virgin Mary revealed to her on the life and mysteries of her Son. In fact, reading these revelations we are faced with many important topics. For example, the description returns frequently, with very realistic details, of the Passion of Christ, to which Bridget always had a special devotion, contemplating in it the infinite love of God for men. On the mouth of the Lord who speaks to her, she puts these words: “O, my friends, I love my sheep so tenderly that, if it were possible, I would like to die many times again for each one of them, in the same way that I suffered for the redemption of all” (Revelations, Book I, c. 59). Also Mary’s sorrowful maternity, which made her Mediator and Mother of Mercy, is an argument that is repeated often in the revelations.

In 1349, Bridget left Sweden for the last time and went on pilgrimage to Rome. Not only did she wish to participate in the Jubilee of 1350, but she also wished to obtain from the Pope the approval of the rule of a religious order that she wanted to found, dedicated to the Holy Savior, and made up of monks and nuns under the authority of an abbess. This is an element that should not surprise us: In the Middle Ages there were monasteries founded with masculine and feminine branches, but with the practice of the same monastic rule, which provided for the direction of an abbess. In fact, the great Christian tradition recognizes the dignity proper to women, as well as — taking as an example Mary, Queen of the Apostles — her own place in the Church that, without coinciding with the ordained priesthood, is also important for the spiritual growth of the Community. Moreover, the collaboration of consecrated men and women, always with respect toward their specific vocation, is of great importance in today’s world.

In Rome, in the company of her daughter Karin, Bridget dedicated herself to a life of intense apostolate and prayer. And from Rome she went on pilgrimage to several Italian shrines, in particular to Assisi, homeland of St Francis, to whom Bridget always had great devotion. Finally, in 1371, she crowned her greatest desire: her trip to the Holy Land, where she went in the company of her spiritual children, a group that Bridget called “the friends of God.” During those years, the Pontiffs were in Avignon, far from Rome: Bridget addressed them earnestly, urging them to return to the See of Peter in the Eternal City. She died in 1373, before Pope Gregory XI returned definitively to Rome. She was buried provisionally in the Roman church of St Lawrence in Panisperna, but in 1374 her children Birger and Karin, took her back to her homeland, to the monastery of Vadstena, headquarters of the religious order founded by St Bridget, which immediately enjoyed a notable expansion. In 1391, Pope Boniface IX canonized her solemnly.

Bridget’s sanctity, characterized by the multiplicity of gifts and experiences that I wished to recall in this brief biographic-spiritual profile, makes her an eminent figure in the history of Europe. Coming from Scandinavia, St Bridget attests how Christianity had permeated profoundly the life of all the peoples of this continent. Declaring her co-patroness of Europe, Pope John Paul II hoped that St Bridget — who lived in the 14th century, when Western Christianity had not yet been wounded by division — can intercede effectively before God, to obtain the much-awaited grace of the full unity of all Christians. We want to pray, dear brothers and sisters, for this same intention, which we consider so important, so that Europe will be able to be nourished from its own Christian roots, invoking the powerful intercession of St Bridget of Sweden, faithful disciple of God, co-patroness of Europe.

First Reading: Galatians 2:19-20.

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Gospel: John 15:1-8.

Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

Or: the readings of the day:

Jer 23:1-6. God, our chief Shepherd, will take care of his flock.

Mk 6:30-34. The compassion of Christ, to see to the hunger of his people.

First Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-6

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord.

Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Gospel: Mark 6:30-34.

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.

As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.