Today June 16

Today is the feast of St. Lutgardis (1182-1246). We often hear of criticisms of former years where men and women of no apparent vocation were placed in monasteries . . .oh my, how awful, we smugly say. But we should pause, lest we be criticizing a saint, like today's Lutgardis (aka Lutgard. I suspect the "is" on the end is not unlike the "us" sometimes added to the end of Roman names). She was put into a convent for no other reason than that her wedding dowry had been gambled away by her father! When she first went in, she made the most of her situation, coming and going as she liked and entertaining both male and female friends in the convent itself. She was pretty and had enjoyed dressing up and going to simple amusements when she had been in the world. Then one day, even as she was chatting with a friend, she had a vision of Our Lord, in which he showed her His wounds and asked her to love only Him. Her pure heart was instantly converted and she pledged herself to Him and to live her state in life as a nun. The other sisters noted her new-found enthusiasm and as much as looked at each other, shook their heads and said, "I give it 6 months." :) But they were wrong!

She was blessed to behold Our Lord and speak to Him each day, "as one man talks with another." She had to work, too, because as anyone who's ever been to a convent can testify, nuns are never idle. She'd simply say to Him: "Wait here, Lord Jesus, and I will come back as soon as I have finished this task." Isn't that neat?

She was very empathetic and almost astonishingly knowledgeable: she had an intuitive understanding of Scripture. She endured a type of stigmata, in the sense that she'd manifest drops of blood in a circlet around her head, like a crown of thorns.

She was obedient, too, to what she believed God was telling her; viz., to leave St. Catherine's (her convent) and go to the Cistercian one at Aywieres. She would have much preferred a German-speaking place, but she accepted this new convent where they only spoke French. She struggled with French (she'd sympathize with Shakespeare's Henry V, who said the mastery of the French language -- which he never obtained -- was harder than all his military campaigns!) and so avoided having any position of authority there. But she gave great spiritual consolation and was very effective in prayers for penitents and souls in Purgatory.

Her last 11 years were spent in blindness, which she embraced as a way to be even less materialistic. Her last vision of Christ was one that foretold her death and encouraged her to do three things to prepare for it:
1) Give thanks to God for all he had done for her in her life;
2) Pray for the conversion of sinners; and,
3) Trust only in Him.
Which she did. She left this world peacefully on June 16th of 1246.