Profile
A pretty girl with a fondness for clothes and no apparent religious vocation, Lutgardis was sent to the Black Benedictine convent near Saint Trond at age 12 because her dowry had been lost in a failed business venture, and there was thus little chance for a life as a normal, married lay woman. In her late teens, Lutgardis received a vision of Christ showing her His wounds, and in 1194 at age 20 she became a Benedictine nun with a true vocation. She had visions of Christ while in prayer, experienced ecstasies, levitated, and dripped blood from forehead and hair when enraptured by the Passion. She was chosen as prioress of her community in 1205, but she repeatedly refused to be abbess.
The Benedictine order was not strict enough for Lutgardis, and on the advice of her friend Saint Christina the Astonishing, in 1208 she joined the Cistercians at Aywieres (near Brussels in modern Belgium) where she lived for her remaining 30 years. She displayed the gifts of healing, prophecy, spiritual wisdom, and was an inspired teacher on the Gospels. Blind for the last eleven years of her life, she treated the affliction as a gift – it reduced the distraction of the outside world. In one of her last visions, Christ told her when she was to die; she spent the time remaining in prayer for the conversion of sinners.
Born
- 1182 at Tongres, Limburg, Belgium
Died
- 16 June 1246 at Aywieres (modern Awirs), Belgium of natural causes, just as night office began on the Saturday night following Feast of the Holy Trinity
- relics transferred to Ittre, Belgium on 4 December 1796 to avoid destruction in the French Revolution
Patronage
- birth
- blind people
- blindness
- childbirth
- disabled people
- handicapped people
- physically challenged people
- Belgium
- in Belgium
– Flanders
– Tongeren
Representation
- woman with Christ showing her His wounded side
- blind Cistercian abbess
- Cistercian nun being blinded by the Heart of Jesus
- Cistercian to whom Christ extends his hand from the cross
- woman in attendance when Christ shows his Heart to the Father
Source: https://catholicsaints.info/saint-lutgardis/
