From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   February 23rd - St. Milburga of Wenlock, OSB Abbess (RM)   
   (Also known as Milburgh)   
      
   Died c. 700 or 722; feast of the translation of her relics, June 25. The   
   ruins   
   of Wenlock Abbey in Shropshire, dating from the 11th century, remind us of   
   Saint   
   Milburga, whose name still lingers in that area. She was one of a family of   
   eminent saints and belonged to the royal house of Mercia.   
   How often a good mother is blessed in her children! Her mother Domneva   
   (Domna   
   Ebba or Ermenburga), princess of Kent, had three daughters: Milburga,   
   Mildred,   
   and Mildgytha, each of whom grew up to follow the pattern of her mother's   
   faith,   
   and each, after a life wholly devoted to Christ, was canonized as a saint.   
      
   Those were the days when the daughters of kings were proud and eager to   
   dedicate   
   their wealth and talents in Christian leadership and to pour out their youth   
   and   
   strength in the service of the Church. They founded and ruled great abbeys,   
   taught the young, cared for the sick, and relieved the poor.   
      
   Milburga, like her mother before her, surrendered her high estate, forsook   
   the   
   luxury and comfort of her home, and counted it her highest privilege to   
   serve   
   God in a consecrated Christian life. Helped by her father, Merewald, an   
   Anglian   
   chieftain, and her uncle Wulfhere, king of Mercia, she founded the monastery   
   of   
   Wenlock, which was placed under the direction of Saint Botulf of East   
   Anglia.   
   Its first abbess was Liobsynde, a French nun from Chelles. Its second was   
   Milburga, who was consecrated abbess by Archbishop Saint Theodore. It was no   
   ordinary monastery; everything about it reflected the grace and fragrance of   
   her   
   own pure spirit. The gardens were full of the choicest flowers, the orchards   
   bore the sweetest fruits, and within its walls was found, we are told, the   
   very   
   peace of heaven.   
      
   By her sheer goodness Milburga converted many to the Christian faith, and   
   this   
   in a dark and primitive age when, outside the monastery walls, the   
   countryside   
   was wild and remote, and full of unknown dangers. One day, for example, on   
   one   
   of her errands of mercy, she was terrified by a neighboring princeling who,   
   wishing to marry her, intercepted her with a band of soldiers, but she   
   providentially escaped. In her flight she crossed a small stream called the   
   Corve, and he, following, found when he reached it that the waters had risen   
   and   
   his plan was thwarted. The place where it happened it called to this day   
   Stoke   
   Saint Milburgh.   
      
   She loved flowers, birds (over which she had a mysterious power), country   
   life,   
   and country people, to sit and work in the sun and tend the herbs in her   
   garden,   
   and to visit in the villages around. People came to her with their troubles   
   and   
   ailments and even ascribed to her miraculous cures. Milburga was venerated   
   for   
   her humility, holiness, the miracles she performed, and for the gift of   
   levitation she is said to have possessed.   
      
   According to Boniface, the famous Vision of the Monk of Wenlock occurred   
   during   
   Milburga's abbacy. Goscelin also preserved her testament, which is a long,   
   apparently authentic list of lands that belonged to her at her death.   
      
   When she was on her deathbed, she said to her followers, "I have been mother   
   to   
   you. I have watched over you like a mother, with pious care. And in mercy, I   
   go   
   the way of all flesh. A higher call invites me." One by one they said   
   farewell,   
   gave her the sacraments, and after her death buried her body near the altar   
   of   
   the abbey.   
      
   Her tomb was long venerated but its site was unknown when the Cluniac monks   
   from   
   La-Charité-sur-Loire refounded Wenlock in 1079. The church had a silver   
   casket   
   that contained her relics and documents describing the site of her grave,   
   near   
   an altar then unknown. Apparently, the church was destroyed by the Danes.   
      
   After consulting Saint Anselm, the monks excavated an old, disused church.   
   Thus,   
   centuries later, two boys who were playing among its ruins fell through the   
   pavement by the broken altar, as a result of which her tomb was   
   rediscovered.   
   When opened, according to legend, there came from it a heavenly sweetness,   
   and   
   the lost garden of the monastery seemed filled again with the fragrance of   
   the   
   flowers she had planted. Details of this discovery and of cures in 1101 were   
   described by Cardinal-Bishop Otto of Ostia the following year.   
      
   Among the miracles documented were the healing of lepers and the blind, and,   
   the   
   vomiting of a worm that had caused a wasting disease. The approval of so   
   distinguished a personage, ensured the revival of Milburga's cultus.   
   Goscelin   
   wrote her vita in the late 11th century. Her feast was common in English   
   calendars from the Bosworth Psalter (c. 1000) onwards (Attwater,   
   Benedictines,   
   Delaney, Farmer, Gill, Husenbeth).   
      
   In art, Saint Milburgh holds the abbey of Wenlock. There may be geese near   
   her.   
   She is venerated at Stoke (Roeder).   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Whoever humbleth himself shall be exalted. -Lk. 14:11   
      
   "Missionaries should rejoice to be considered poor in talent, birth and   
   virtue,   
   the dregs and offscouring of the world. They should be glad whenever there   
   arises any opportunity for abjection and contempt, even though it be not for   
   themselves alone, but also extending to the Congregation. And by this test   
   they   
   will be able to know what progress they are making in humility"   
   -St. Vincent de Paul   
      
         This Saint, who knew well the great value of humiliations, was so fond   
   of   
   them that a worthy ecclesiastic, who knew him thoroughly, said that he had   
   never   
   been acquainted with any man in the world, who was so ambitious to rise and   
   to   
   be esteemed and honored, as this humble servant of God was desirous to lower   
   and   
   abase himself, and to receive humiliation, confusion, and contempt, so that   
   he   
   seemed to have chosen them as his treasure even in this life. For this   
   cause, he   
   used every effort to take advantage of all occasions of the kind that might   
   offer themselves, and from everything he derived motives for humiliation.   
   And   
   with the same earnestness that he sought it for himself, he desired it also   
   for   
   his Congregation, which he was eager to have despised and held in low   
   estimation. And whenever this happened, he rejoiced not a little. St. Jane   
   Frances de Chantal once undertook an affair of much importance, and then   
   instantly abandoned it, on considering that success would reflect great   
   credit   
   upon herself. To those who wondered how she had been able to wind up and   
   dispose   
   of so important a matter so readily, she answered: "As soon as the splendor   
   of   
   the Sovereign's majesty revealed itself to my eyes, I was so dazzled and   
   blinded   
   that I could no longer see anything. Ah!" she repeated many times, "the   
   splendor   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)