Today December 18

Today is the feast of St. Wunibald aka St. Winebald (702 - 761). He was an Englishman who after a particularly moving and tragic pilgrimage to Rome with his father Richard and brother Willibald decided to dedicate his life to God. His father had died suddenly in Italy and the young man stayed 7 years in Rome studying for the priesthood -- and getting a liberal education. He became a Benedictine priest and labored in Germany with his kinsman Boniface -- back when Germany was little more than a wilderness. Heidenheim, the co-ed monastery Wunibald founded, was certainly built on wild country. But he brought peace, quiet and culture there as well as the inestimable Word of God. He was very ill th last three years of his life, but interestingly he never took a "priest's day off." He even had an altar installed in his room so he could say Mass when he couldn't make it to the chapel. This he would do even if there was no one there to hear it! Kids, it's important to note that a roomful of laymen -- even a thousand or more -- cannot have a Mass, but one priest and NO ONE in the congregation CAN. Interesting.

He died after attempting to visit his relative's (Boniface's) shrine in Fulda. He was buried in the church in Heidenheim and 16 years later when his tomb was opened, his body was found to be perfectly incorrupt. These relics were later -- in the time of the Reformation -- either removed or destroyed, and his shrine is now empty. St. Wunibald, pray for us.