THE OLD ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION SOUTH EAST UK

St Lutgarde of Aywiers

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 she received a vision of Christ showing her his wounds, and 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 in the Passion. She repeatedly refused to be chosen abbess of her house. She was one of the first to practice the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Benedictine order was not strict enough for Lutgardis, and on the advice of her friend Saint Christina the Astonishing she joined the Cistercians at Aywieres (in modern Belgium) where she lived for her remaining 30 years. 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 praying for the conversion of sinners.

Born: 1182 at Tongres, Limburg, Nederlands

Died: 16 June 1246 at Aywieres, just as night office began on the Saturday night following Feast of the Holy Trinity