near Ninove, in Brabant, in the reign of King Dagobert, and of Nona, his wife, the sister of S. Amandus. To a rare beauty, Berlinda joined all the gifts of intellect, but she had the misfortune to incur the anger of her father. After the death of his wife and only son, Odelard was attacked by leprosy, and lived a miserable languishing life, ministered to by his daughter.
One day that he asked her for something to drink, she filled a bowl with water, and took it to him, and then, being herself thirsty, she rinsed out the vessel, and filled it again. The father, highly offended at her doing this, drove off at once to Nivelles and offered all his lands to S. Gertrude, by the symbolic gift of a white glove and a reaping-hook and a branch of foliage. Before accomplishing his donation, he supplicated the Saint to accept his offering with her own hands. Then the reliquary, in which the holy abbess reposed, opened, and the lifeless hands of S. Gertrude were extended to receive the glove, the branch, and the sickle. Then it closed upon them.
Berlinda, being disinherited, retired to the monastery of Moorsel, near Alost, where she lived in penitence and prayer. One night she heard a choir of angels singing, as they sailed across the dark starlit sky, bearing the soul of her father to Paradise. She at once besought of the superior permission to return to Meerbeeke for a while. Her request was complied with, and she flew to her father's castle. He was dead, so Berlinda buried him in the little church he had erected there to the honour of S. Peter.
Retained by force in her paternal dwelling by the servants and tenants, Berlinda remained at Meerbeeke, where she continued her life of austerities and prayer, and died about 690, on the 3rd of February.
As no stone sarcophagus could be found in which she might be laid, a large oak was cut down and scooped out to serve as a coffin, and her body was placed in it. Numerous miracles were wrought at her tomb, so that at the end of seven years the coffin was opened, and the wood was found to have become petrified. On this occasion a church was built in her honour and that of the Blessed Virgin, and thirty years later, her relics were solemnly enshrined on May 2nd, 728. S. Berlinda has remained in great honour at Meerbeeke. She is invoked against cattle diseases; and in accordance with an ancient custom, pilgrims pray before a wooden image of the saint represented beside a cow, and touch the udder of the cow, which has become black through the innumerable touchings to which it has become subjected. According to a popular saying S. Berlinda protects trees transplanted on her festival.
[English Martyrology. Authorities: – Life of Goscelin, the monk (fl. 1100), and mention in Bede, John of Brompton, Florence of Worcester, Hyden, Langherne, Simeon of Durham.]
Werburga, patroness of Chester, was born at Stone, in Staffordshire, and was the daughter of Wulfhere, King of Mercia, or the Midland English. From the lips of her sainted mother, Ermingilde, she received those first lessons of Christian truth which afterwards produced such beautiful fruit in her life.
Being one of four children, all trained under the same godly discipline, she is said to have excelled them all in virtue and discretion. Her mind was open to receive good impressions, and she listened with earnest attention to every word of instruction and advice. Thus, she "daily grew in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: " her mind continually expanding under the influence of holy thoughts and pure desires. At an age when most persons of her exalted position would have been found joining in the giddy whirl of pleasure, she found truest joy in contemplation of heavenly things, and holiest bliss, arising from a pure conscience chastened by fasting and sanctified by prayer. She daily assisted her mother in the performance of the whole Church Offices, and spent much time on her knees in the exercise of private devotions.
Having early resolved to devote herself to a life of virginal purity, she sought every opportunity to prepare her mind for that holy state. But she was not to overcome the world without a struggle. Temptations began to gather around her. The beauty of her person attracted a crowd of admirers, who eagerly sought her hand in marriage. Foremost among these was a prince of the West Saxons, who offered her rich gifts and made flattering proposals. She refused to accept his gifts; and to his proposals answered that she had resolved to become the bride of Christ, and wished no earthly spouse.
Another, and more violent temptation soon presented itself. Werbode, a powerful knight of her father's court, backed by the influence of her father, entreated Werburga to become his wife; but to his entreaties she turned a deaf ear. Imagining that to this refusal she was influenced by her two brothers, who were then under the instruction of S. Chad, and resolving by fair or foul means to compass his designs, Werbode sought an opportunity to murder the two brothers, and thus remove them from his path. In the accomplishment of this diabolical design, he was, to a certain extent, assisted by the father, whom he had incensed against his sons. Werbode soon after died a miserable death. The king, stung by remorse, saw reflected, as in a mirror, all the deeds of his past life, and remembered how he had promised to extirpate idolatry from his dominions, but had failed to perform his vow. With earnestness he began to atone for his faults; destroyed the idols and converted their temples into churches, built the great abbey of Peterborough, founded the priory of Stone, and in every way endeavoured to propagate the true faith among his people.
Seeing this happy change in his disposition, Werburga revealed to her father the earnest desire of her heart, and earnestly entreated his permission to consecrate herself wholly to God. At first he appeared to be very grieved, but yielding at length to her passionate entreaties, Wulfhere, attended by his whole court, conducted her with great state to the convent of Ely. Here they were met at the gates by a long procession of nuns, singing hymns of praise and thanksgiving to God. Werburga, falling on her knees, begged of the royal abbess, S. Etheldreda, that she might be received as a postulant. Having obtained her request, the voice of praise again ascended to heaven, the virgins chanting the Te Deum, as they returned to the convent. Now followed the usual trials; Werburga was first stripped of her costly apparel, her rich coronet was exchanged for a poor veil, purple and silks and gold were replaced by a rough coarse habit, and she resigned herself into the hands of her superior, henceforward to live only to Christ.
The virgin, with great fervour, now devoted herself to God. Her affections being weaned from earthly things, were fixed more firmly upon those things which are above. By prayer and fasting, by self-sacrifice and mortification, by obedience and penance, she sought to sanctify her soul and body, that she might present them, a holy and acceptable sacrifice, unto God.
After many years she was chosen, at the request of her uncle King Ethelred, to superintend all the religious houses for women in his kingdom. When she entered upon this larger sphere of duty, she laboured with earnest diligence to make all the houses under her care models of exact monastic discipline. Through the liberality of her uncle, she was enabled to found new convents at Trentham, in Gloucestershire; Hanbury, in Staffordshire; and Weedon, in Northamptonshire. These remained for several centuries as evidences of her godly zeal. The king also, at her request, founded the collegiate church of S. John the Baptist, in the suburbs of West Chester, and gave to S. Egwin the ground for the great abbey of Evesham.
S. Werburga, both by precept and example, sought to develope the religious life in those committed to her charge, and many through her influence were won from a life of dissipation and vice to a life of holiness and love.
God, in answer to continual prayers, had crowned her with many spiritual and celestial blessings. The old chroniclers say that she became the most perfect pattern of meekness, humility, patience, and purity. Her fastings and mortifications were almost incredible. She never took more than one meal during the day, and that of the coarsest food: seeking in this to emulate the lives of those fathers of the desert who shed such radiance over the Eastern and African Church. Beside the usual monastic offices, she was in the habit of reciting, upon her knees, the whole of the Psalter daily. She often remained in the church all night, bathed in tears and prostrate in prayer.
In the exercise of these holy devotions she lived to a ripe old age. Receiving at last some premonitions of her approaching departure,
